Fedora Core 6 Preview

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week Jesse Keating announced the availability of Fedora Core 6 Test 1. New items in FC6T1 include Intel Macintosh support (well, mostly), update notification applet, GNOME 2.15, KDE 3.5.3, and the Fedora Core 6 Extras development repository is already available. With FC6T1's availability, Phoronix has published their own preview of this release. The article is focused on an editorial about changes to come for Fedora Core 6, as well as images from Fedora Core 6 Test 1. The next Fedora Core 6 testing release (Test 2) is due out in July, while the final release is due out this September."

Does Fedora still matters?

[ntufar]

I switched to Ubuntu and never looked back. RedHat was cool back in 1998. Now, frankly speaking, Fedora looks ugly.

Resume

[KarMax]

Well i was bored and i read the Article, so.. here i quote the (IMO) important stuff. I don't like neither use FC but I admire the effort of his developers, they are doing an excellent work.

However, at the time of writing we have yet to personally try out FC6T1 on any of these Intel-based Macintosh computers.

With Core 6 Test 1, not many visible Anaconda changes have been implemented. However, one of the notable features is IPV6 support in the installer. Anaconda had locked up a few times when attempting to detect previously installed Fedora installations, or even when clicking the next button. With the i386 DVD we had also run into a problem with the repodata being for the FC6 i386 CDs, thus during the installation process we were asked for the CDs even though all of the packages could be found on the DVD. One of the features that will hopefully make its way into Fedora Core 6 is the ability to add the Fedora Extras, or other custom RPM repositories

The Pup applet shows on the desktop when there are new updates in the repository, while hovering the mouse over the applet will yield the amount of packages that need to be updated

Another notable advancement with FC6T1 is the integration of a new printing system -- a new system-config-printer and CUPS v1.2.1. The new system-config-printer interface is very easy to work with.

The road to GNOME 2.16 is certainly shaping up quite nicely, and we have been pleased by the GNOME 2.15 development releases thus far.

Yes, KDE continues to be bundled in Fedora Core 6 contrary to belief that it may move to being community managed, and/or moved into the Extras project.

Some of the other items in the Fedora Wiki for Core 6 include trimming down the Core, replacing sysklogd with syslog-ng, use early log-in and get rid of rhgb, sound server replacement, better firewall configuration utility, home user backup, support Fedora Extras and custom repositories during the installation, CD image generation tool, encrypted file systems, and more.

patented codec support?

[prockcore]

Do I still need to jump through ridiculous hoops to get mp3 support in rhythmbox and get *any* support in totem?

Out of the box, Totem can't play *anything*.. completely useless.

At least make it like Ubuntu, where I can add a repository that has all the stuff they can't ship in the box.

Evolutionary rather than revolutionary

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone whose been using Fedora since Core 1, this release seems more evolutionary. Even without major changes between releases, the accumulated bug fixes contribute to a desktop that 'works' better and has the functionality I need. We all remember the bad old days of manually mounting your USB peripherals.. well now I have suspend, easy networking (thanks to NetworkManager) and useful stuff like Beagle to play with, so thats quite good progress. This release will be worthwhile just to get the latest of everything, and it looks as if some nice eye-candy will be ready in GNOME 2.16.

I personally would like to see a general reduction in memory usage in GNOME and various apps; it's been moving in the right direction, I hope it stays that way. I believe there is an effort to remove various deprecated libraries to help here.

Re:patented codec support?

[kasperd]

Yes, this is one of the great things about yum. There is a simple and clean way to have installation and upgrading of base software and third party software managed with a single interface. Livna is not the only such repository, personally I'm quite happy with freshrpms. Probably there are more.

I don't know if Ubuntu have something similar, but I guess they have.

I have seen how this is handled on Windows, I have seen how this is handled on Red Hat Linux, and I have seen how this is handled on Fedora Core. And except from the problem with rhn-applet being totally broken in FC4, I like the way it works in Fedora. I hope that has been fixed in FC5 (or FC6) or at least replaced with some alternative.

Re:Does Fedora still matters?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Ubuntu is moving in this direction. Consider also that Ubuntu is only what, 2 or 3 years old? And Fedora has the benefit of running upstream of a commercial linux distro where features like this are considered important. Ubuntu has been working backwards, hitting the desktop market first and only just now breaking into the server market.

With 1/5th the age of a distro that gets to exchange features back and forth with a commercial, enterprise linux if a few security features is all that you can complain about that's not too shabby. And according to it's creator Ubuntu will NEVER leave us hanging by commercializing and forking off into a crappier, less stable, free derivitive.

Besides, linux distros have not been including the technologies you link to for "years" and even if they have... Ubuntu is years behind simply by chronology yet still has managed to beat out fedora by making a professional desktop ready linux in a fraction of the time. Try to keep a little perspective and save your sour grapes *sighs* for apples vs. apples comparisons. Ubuntu is a baby in the distro market compared to redhat/fedora.

Fedora + KDE !=Genuine KDE

[nighty5]

Redhat hacks KDE beyond the feel and proper use of KDE. Fedora replaces a lot of QT applets with GTK ones to perform a lot of functions. KDEsu is a prime example although there is others.

If you are a KDE fan, than you're being shortchanged if you run Fedora or Redhat products.

SuSE used to be a great product, but 10.1 had so many problems I've lost confidence.

Give Mandrake, Gentoo, Kubuntu a try.

Re:fedora's problem...

[Waffle Iron]

The only reason that I am a little worried is I'm pretty sure yum will update me to core 6 automatically

I don't think that it will automatically upgrade your version number. However, over time you do largely end up with most of the software for the next version because of the huge volume of updates that happen in the current FC version. For example, the update to KDE 3.5.3 was recently posted for FC5.

This has actually been bothering me lately. Right now yum tells me that I've got more than 500 megabytes of updates to download, only a few weeks after the last time I did a full update. I haven't seen a simple way to tell it to *only* install security updates without me manually choosing the packages marked with [SECURITY] in the announcement list. As someone who goes by the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" principle, I'd rather not churn all of these versions through my system unless there's a really good reason. Maybe there is an automatic way to do only security updates, but it sure doesn't seem like they make it obvious how to do it.

No wait! It's too soon!!!

[erroneus]

When I went from FC3 to FC4, I was in an excited rush only to be disappointed by some bugs with sound and stuff. I was already accustomed to tweaking and figuring things out, but over the past couple of years, I have grown weary of it and prefer things to just work. As FC5 grew near, I was really hopeful that they learned lessons from the problems of FC4. But somehow, in my continuous updating of my laptop, ATI had finally gotten around to fixing their proprietary driver to allow for suspend to RAM/Disk. I had all but given up on ever having successful hibernation on my laptop, but when I discovered that it worked, I became very excited by the announcement of FC5test#.

I downloaded and installed it on another hard drive. Went straight for suspend and it just worked out of the box flawlessly. I think I might have wet my pants... it was some time ago and my memory is hazy on the details, but there was urination at some point immediately surrounding the event... maybe I closed the lid on my laptop, took a piss and came back to find that the laptop was able to resume where it left off. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was it. Anyway, I decided FC5 wasn't coming fast enough for me.

When FC5 arrived, I was not disappointed in the least. And with only one problem with periodic "yum" updates, FC5 scores an almost perfect record in my opinion.

Now there's FC6 around the corner? Why? I'm REALLY happy with FC5. I don't need FC6. Of course I will upgrade though. FC5 development will slow down and stop eventually. But I doubt I will scramble for FC6 without something really compelling. The improvements from the summary don't indicate anything compelling to me.

As for competing distros? Ubuntu is the name being used most. I still haven't tried it. It's not what I'm used to, and that's reason enough for me... for now. Maybe one day I'll bump into an Ubuntu user with the OS on his laptop and I'll get a demo I can appreciate. But where Fedora Core is concerned, I feel very well supported with RPMs available for everything I can think of. Only on rare occasion do I find myself stealing RPMs built for other distros because it's not available for FC5. And that's mostly due to the "I don't want to get sued" mentality coming from RedHat.

So yeah, that's the only beef I have with Fedora Core -- the "we don't support MP3 because we're scared" thing. Did the patent on GIF run out already? How much time left on MP3?

Re:patented codec support?

[JebusIsLord]

I'd just like to point out that the listening test you linked to, supposedly indicating Vorbis' superiority to MP3, actually states right at the top: "Let me try to be clear: there was no winner in this listening test". That test is also exceedingly out-of-date... the latest one can be found here [maresweb.de]. Results are still statistically insignificant @ 128kbps though. At lower bitrates Vorbis does okay, but doesn't come close to AAC-HE (AAC+). Anyhow... off topic.

Re:But it could be a lot easier....

[Alioth]

If you really need to do it via the GUI, just point your browser at http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm [livna.org] - Firefox as installed on FC5 understands by default what program needs to handle RPM packages.

I'm sure the Fedora team has thought of putting some 'install illegal codecs' button somewhere in the GUI, but RedHat's lawyers probably say it's a very bad idea. If Livna does it all independently then RedHat can easily claim clean hands and get the case dismissed if Fraunhofer tries to sue them. It might be harder to get the suit dismissed if they do as you suggest, and that means lots of money - a patent holder's lawyer would be able to argue that it is tantamount to Microsoft putting a link on the GUI to the Pirate Bay in Windows.

Re:Does Fedora still matters?

[Quino]

It might have more to do with the quality of package maintainers than the technology itself, but getting codecs or obscure packages installed from freshrpms, livna, etc. *often* left me with broken installs in Core. Fixing the problems meant uninstalling packages that I actually wanted to run, or picking between packages I wanted so as to not mix repositories.

Getting the same with Ubuntu has yet to be a problem, not to mention that getting all the weird repositories is done graphically, with less hassle than on RedHat. I say this as a former RedHat gushing fanboy too.

Again, it might happenstance, or it might have to do with how the two groups manage or coordinate (or don't!) the different package repositories.

Google Trends for Fedora and other distributions

[Snowhare]

Based on http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2C+fedora+%7 C+fc5+%7C+fc4+%7C+fc3%2C+RHEL+%7C+redhat+%7C+red+h at%2C++suse%2C+debian&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all [google.com] at Google Trends, my belief is that RH and Fedora are losing ground while Ubuntu is making a serious run at becoming the most popular distribution.

I'm still using FC5 on my desktop for now, largely because I found it the simplest to 'extend' with non-vendor apps and drivers (such as the proprietary ATI drivers and the intense multimedia support available via the Livna repository to replace the frankly useless sound and video "support" in the vanilla FC5). I am fairly likely to stick with it either until FC7 or until Ubuntu reaches the critical mass where most app and driver vendors explicitly support it as a preferred distro.