The Fedora 15 "Lovelock" Alpha release is available! This release offers a preview of some of the best free and open source technology currently under development. Catch a glimpse of the future:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease
What is the Alpha release?
The Alpha release contains all the features of Fedora 15 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 15 is due in May.
We need your help to make Fedora 15 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. (Read down to the end of the announcement for more information on how to help.)
Need something deep and meaningful about ... something here. We had a bit about "emergence" and Robert Laughlin, but "lovelock" being a city in Nevada isn't quite as inspiring. HALP!
Features
This release of Fedora includes a variety of features both over and under the hood that show off the power and flexibility of the advancing state of free software. Examples include:
- Updated Desktop Environments. Fedora 15 will ship with GNOME 3, the next major version of the GNOME desktop. If you're interested in other experiences, KDE and Xfce will also be showcasing the latest and greatest in desktop technology from their respective projects.
- System and session management. Previously available as a technology preview in F14,systemd makes its full-fledged debut in Fedora 15. systemd is a smarter, more efficient way of starting up and managing the background daemons that services we all use every day - such as NetworkManager and PulseAudio - rely on. Refer to http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/FrequentlyAskedQuestions and http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/TipsAndTricks for common questions and answers.
- Cloud. Looking to create appliances for use in the Cloud? BoxGrinder creates appliances (virtual machines) from simple plain text appliance definition files for various virtual platforms.
- Updated programming languages and tools.. Fedora 15 features new versions of Rails, OCaml, and Python. GDB and GCC have also been updated. (Fedora 15 was built with GCC 4.6.0, too!)
These and many other improvements provide a wide and solid base for future releases, further increasing the range of possibilities for developers and helping to maintain Fedora's position at the leading edge of free and open source technology.
A more complete list and details of each new cited feature is available here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList
We have nightly composes of alternate spins available here:
http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/
Issues and Details
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_15_Alpha_release_notes
Need referring link added in hereA shorter list of common bugs can be found here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F15_bugs
Contributing
Bug reports are helpful, especially for Alpha. If you encounter any issues please report them and help make this release of Fedora the best ever.
Thank you, and we hope to see you in the Fedora project!