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No bull, Spherical Cow, is of course, Fedora's best release yet. You'll go through the hoof when you hear about the Grade A Prime F18 features. You can always cownt on us to bring you the best features first.
Can't wait for a taste? You can get started downloading now:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora
Detailed information about this release can be seen in the release notes:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/18/html/Release_Notes/
What's New in Fedora 18?
For desktop users
PLUS: Moooove over, stale desktops. We've got a small herd of choices udderly suited to your preferences.
- Gnome 3.6 The newest version of the Gnome desktop provides an enhanced Messaging Tray, support for Microsoft Exchange and Skydrive, and many more new features. For more information visit the Gnome release notes. http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.6
- KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9 KDE Plasma Workspaces has been updated with many new features and improved stability and performance, including updates to the Dolphin File Manager, Konsole, and KWin Window manager.
- MATE Desktop The MATE desktop provides users with a classic GNOME 2.x style user interface. This desktop is perfect for users that have been running Gnome Classic, or other window managers like XFCE.
- Cinnamon Fedora users now have the option of using Cinnamon, an advanced desktop environment based on GNOME3. Cinnamon takes advantage of advanced features provided by the GNOME backend while providing users with a more traditional desktop experience.
For developers
For developers there are all sorts of mootivating goodies:
- DragonEgg optimizes GCC DragonEgg is a plugin for the GCC compilers to allow use of the LLVM optimization and code generation framework. DragonEgg provides software developers with more optimization and code generation options for use with the GCC compilers. DragonEgg also allows GCC to be used for cross-compilation to target architectures supported by LLVM without requiring any special cross-compilation compiler packages.
- Fresh versions of programming languages Using Perl, Rails, or Python? All three of these languages are updated in Fedora 18 -- with Rails 3.2, Python 3.3, and Perl 5.16 now on deck.
- Clojure Clojure gets more love with the addition of tooling packages, including the Leinengen build tool, as well as Clojure libraries and frameworks, including Korma and Noir.
For system administrators
Keep track of your herd of infrastructure with these new features:
- Upgrade with fedUP Fedup is a new tool for upgrading Fedora installations that is replacing pre-upgrade and the DVD methods of upgrading that have been used in previous Fedora releases. It utilizes systemd for much of the upgrade functionality, doing the work in a unique boot environment.
- Offline System Updates Systems can now be upgraded offline, allowing for a more stable upgrade of critical system components.
- /etc/sysconfig Depreciations Several system configurations have moved out of /etc/sysconfig. For a list of changes read the release notes. http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/18/html/Release_Notes/index.html
For clouds and virtualization
Do you spend your days grazing, I mean, gazing into the clouds? Here's just a taste of some of the cloud and virt features coming in Fedora 18:
- Eucalyptus Eucalyptus makes its first appearance in Fedora, with their 3.2 release included in F18. This platform for on-premise (private) Infrastructure as a Service clouds uses existing infrastructure to create scalable and secure AWS-compatible cloud resources for compute, network and storage.
- OpenStack With the Folsom release in Fedora 18, OpenStack continues to have the newest releases in Fedora. This open source cloud computing platform enables users to deploy their own cloud infrastructure, for private or public cloud deployments. Heat, an incubated OpenStack project, is also available in F18, and provides an API that enables the orchestration of cloud applications using file or web based templates.
- oVirt Engine The management application for the oVirt virtualization platform, oVirt Engine, is updated to the newest version, 3.1. This includes a new web-based user interface for administrators and users, and extensive new features, including live snapshots, cloning virtual machines from snapshots, quotas, and more.
- Suspend and resume support for virt guests Virtual machines get love with this feature, enabling the ability to suspend and resume guests, with the close of a laptop lid or menu option - or via the command line.
And that's only the beginning. For a more complete list with details of all the new features in Fedora 18, steer over to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList
OK, go get it. You know you can't wait.
If you are upgrading from a previous release of Fedora, refer to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading
Fedora has replaced pre-upgrade with fedup a more robust solution and pushed several bug fixes to older releases of Fedora to enable an easy upgrade to Fedora 18.
Fedora 18 full release notes and guides for several languages are available at:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/
Everyone makes missteaks. Fedora 18 common bugs are documented at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs
Fedora Spins
Fedora spins are alternate versions of Fedora tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application set or customizations, from desktop options to spins for those interested in gaming, robotics, or design software. More information on these spins (and others) is available at:
http://spins.fedoraproject.org
Feature Deprecation
Fedora has always been full of great features, but sometimes we need to cull the herd. Saying good-bye is always hard, but here are the ones we had to put out to pasture this time around. {[Offer work-arounds or alternatives wherever possible. If a spin still covers this need, say so. Encourage the die-hard community to participate in the unofficial support of this feature.]}
Contributing
For more information including common and known bugs, tips on how to report bugs, and the official release schedule, please refer to the release notes:
There are many ways to contribute beyond bug reporting. You can help translate software and content, test and give feedback on software updates, write and edit documentation, design and do artwork, help with all sorts of promotional activities, and package free software for use by millions of Fedora users worldwide. To get started, visit http://join.fedoraproject.org today!
Fedora 19
Even as we continue to provide updates with enhancements and bug fixes to improve the Fedora number experience, our next release, Fedora 19, is already being developed in parallel, and has been open for active development for several months already. We have an early plan for an end of May 2013 release, final schedule is going to be based on the results of the planning process:
Contact information
If you are a journalist or reporter, you can find additional information at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Press
Cow words and puns
From which you should liberally steal while writing this:
- Milk (v and n)
- Cream
- Butter
- Cheese
- Spot
- Jersey
- Holstein
- Herd
- Barn
- Field
- Moo
- Bull
- Udder
- Steaks
- Graze
- Steer
- Dairy
- Slaughter