It is still under construction and content may change. Do not rely on the information on this page. more coming soon!
Fedora 13 "Goddard" Alpha release is available! What's next for the free operating system that shows off the best new technology of tomorrow? You can see the future now at:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease
What's an Alpha release? The Alpha release contains all the features of Fedora 13 in a form that anyone can help test. This testing, guided by the Fedora QA team, helps us target and identify bugs. When these bugs are fixed, we make a Beta release available. A Beta release is code-complete, and bears a very strong resemblance to the third and final release. The final release of Fedora 13 is due in April.
We need your help to make Fedora 13 the best release yet, so please take a moment of your time to download and try out the Alpha and make sure the things that are important to you are working. If you find a bug, please report it - every bug you uncover is a chance to improve the experience for millions of Fedora users worldwide. Together, we can make Fedora a rock-solid distribution.
Among the top features for end users, we have:
- Automatic print driver installation We're using RPM and PackageKit for automatic installation of printer drivers this makes adding printers easier for everyone.
- Automatic installation of language packs Yum langpack support makes software installation smarter and easier for everyone worldwide.
- Redesigned user management interface The user account tool has been completely redesigned, and now makes it easy to configure personal information, make a personal profile picture or icon, generate a strong passphrase, and set up login options.
- Color management Color Management allows you to better control your colors when doing print work.
- NetworkManager improvements include CLI NetworkManager is now a one stop shop for all of your networking needs, be it dial-up, broadband, wifi, or even bluetooh. And now it can all be done in the commandline if you are into that sort of thing.
- Experimental 3D extended to free Nouveau driver In this release we are one step closer to having 3D supported on completely free and open source software (FOSS) drivers. Last round we got a lot of ATi chips working so this time we focused on nVidia.
For developers there are all sorts of additional goodies:
- SystemTap static probesWe have expanded the visibility of monitoring on a higher level what is happening inside language runtimes like Java, Python and TCL.
- Easier Python debugging We've added new support that allows developers working with mixed libraries (Python and C/C++) to get more complete information when debugging.
- Parallel-installable Python 3 The parallel-installable Python 3 stack that will help programmers write and test code for use in both Python 2.6 and Python 3 environments.
NetBeans 6.8 first IDE to support entire Java 6 EE spec
NetBeans IDE 6.8 is the first IDE to offer complete support for the entire Java EE 6 spec with improved support for JSF 2.0/Facelets, Java Persistence 2.0, EJB 3.1 including using EJBs in web applications, RESTful web services, and GlassFish v3. We also recommend it for developing with the latest JavaFX SDK 1.2.1, and for creating PHP web applications with the new PHP 5.3 release or with the Symfony Framework. [Are technologies like glassfish/java 6 ee, javafx, etc. packaged for Fedora and actually Free Software?]
And don't think we forgot the Administrators.
Improvements that make system administrators' lives better.
boot.fedoraproject.org
boot.fedoraproject.org feature
boot.fedoraproject.org (BFO) is a unique feature in Fedora. We're the first distro to offer it. It allows users to download a single, tiny image and install current and future versions of Fedora without having to download additional images.
Additional information here:
* http://boot.fedoraproject.org/ * http://boot.kernel.org/
BFO is similar to pxeboot which enables very small images (iso, floppy, disk) to bootstrap and to continue the installation process.
Summary sentence of talking point.
Authconfig UI redesign
Better integration of new SSSD technology in the configuration UI for authentication, and a full UI revamp making it much easier to configure your Fedora system to work in a number of different authentication environments.
Via SSSD By Default, a major benefit is offline logins.
Summary sentence of talking point.
Pioneering NFS features
NFSv4 by default feature, NFS Client IPv6 feature
Fedora 13 changes its default to NFSv4, resulting in improved performance with a seamless transition for users. Clients gracefully falling back to other versions if required by an NFS server. Continues Fedora's role as a front-runner for NFSv4 -- the first distribution to include it, the first to switch to it by default. The other major step forward in NFS is support for IPv6, so clients in mixed or IPv6 only environments can now make full use of NFS.
With NFSv4 Default, the latest version of the NFS protocol is implemented for better performance and with the NFS Client IPv6 in conjunction with recent kernel modifications allows for IPv6 support.
Summary sentence of talking point.
Zarafa
Fedora 13 now makes available a complete Open Source groupware suite that can be used as a drop-in Exchange replacement for Web-based mail, calendaring, collaboration and tasks. Features include IMAP/POP and iCal/CalDAV capabilities, native mobile phone support, the ability to integrate with existing Linux mail servers, a full set of programming interfaces, and a comfortable look and feel using modern Ajax technologies.
Experimenting with btrfs
System rollback with btrfs feature
Btrfs is capable of creating lightweight filesystem snapshots that can be mounted (and booted into) selectively. The created snapshots are copy-on-write snapshots, so there is no file duplication overhead involved for files that do not change between snapshots. It allows developers to feel comfortable experimenting with new software without fear of an unusable install, since automated snapshots allow them to easily revert to the previous day's filesystem.
Additional information here:
* http://blogs.igalia.com/aperez/2008/06/more-btrfs-goodness-snapshots/ * http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Getting_started
The System Rollback With Btrfs feature empowers the administrator to be able to have automatic as well as manual full filesystem snapshots, for example each time the yum transactions are processed.
And that is only the beginning.
A more complete list and details of each new cited feature is available here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/13/FeatureList
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:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_13_Alpha_release_notes
Thank you, and we hope to see you in the Fedora project!