The Fedora Project is pleased to announce the release of Fedora 16 ("Verne"). For detailed information, see the release notes:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Release_Notes/
Fedora is a leading-edge, free and open source operating system that continues to deliver innovative features to many users, with a new release about every six months. Fedora 16 brings exciting new features for desktop users, for system administrators, and for developers. Highlights of these features can be found below. If the mere mention of Fedora 16 is all you need, download options can be found at:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora
Dedication
During the preparation of Fedora 16, the computing world lost one of its great contributors: Dennis Ritchie. Ritchie co-invented Unix and the C language. He also co-authored The C Programming Language, a book that taught many programmers just at the time personal computing was exploding. Without Ritchie computing would be nothing like it is today.
A humble man, not well-known outside his field, Dennis will always be remembered by those of us who practice the craft. Thank you, Dennis.
What's New in Fedora 16?
For desktop users
A journey to the center of the desktop:
- GNOME 3.2, the latest update to the most popular desktop environment, brings new features, including:
- System Settings gains an "Online Accounts" panel, which provides a central point for managing online accounts like Google, Facebook, etc.
- A new contact management application is integrated with Empathy, Evolution and the new "Online Accounts" settings panel
- A new document management application provides a simpler alternative to traditional file management for both local and "in-cloud" documents.
- KDE 4.7, the most recent version of this feature-rich desktop environment, brings substantial updates, including:
- DigiKam 2.0 adds face detection and recognition, geotagging and more.
- An updated Plasma Workspaces window manager (KWin) makes KDE better suited for mobile devices, and also adds improvements for desktop users.
- A new shutdown dialog allows users with multiple operating systems to select the OS to boot next.
For developers
Twenty thousand lines in C:
- Perl 5.14, a new version of Perl, brings many enhancements, including Unicode 6.0 support.
- GCC Python Plugins extend GCC with Python 2 and 3, without dealing with the C internals of GCC.
- D2: Fedora 16 is the first Linux distribution to include the newest version of D, a systems programming language combining the power and high performance of C and C++ with the programmer productivity of modern languages such as Ruby and Python.
For system administrators
Around the world in eighty columns:
- GRUB2: This leap forward allows better configuration options and better support for non-x86 architectures.
- New system account ID numbering: Fedora 16 starts user IDs at 1000, providing more room for system accounts and making it easier for administrators not have services run as root. This improves interoperability with other Linux distributions that start user IDs at 1000.
- Chrony: Chrony provides network time protocol (NTP) client and server pieces which are more tolerant of unstable clocks and Internet connections which are not always on.
- ext4 driver mounts ext2 and ext3: Fedora 16 uses the ext4 driver to mount ext2 and ext3 file systems, reducing the size of the kernel code.
- Improved virtualization tools:
- Fedora 16 provides improvements to virtual networking, making large deployments easier.
- Virt-manager guest inspection is a unique-to-Fedora tool allowing read-only access to guest file systems, applications, and Windows registry.
- Fedora 16 provides locking of virtual disks to prevent a disk being used by multiple virtual machines simultaneously.
- Cloud goodies galore:
- Aeolus, a cross-cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, which consists of a web-based user interface and tools for managing cloud instances across heterogenous clouds.
- OpenStack, another IaaS platform, which takes form as a collection of services for setting up and running a cloud compute and storage infrastructure.
- Pacemaker-cloud, which provides application service high availability for cloud environments.
- HekaFS, a cloud-ready version of GlusterFS, which extends the filesystem to be suitable for deployment by a cloud provider by adding in stronger authentication and authorization, encryption, and multi-tenancy.
This is only a taste of what is included in Fedora 16. A more detailed list can be found at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/16/FeatureList
Download and Upgrade
Fedora 16 is not science fiction. It is here right now:
To launch Fedora 16 instances in the cloud, refer to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Cloud_images
If you are upgrading from a previous release of Fedora, refer to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading
Fedora 16 full release notes and guides for several languages are available at:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/
Fedora 16 common bugs are documented at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F16_bugs
Fedora Spins
Fedora spins are alternate version of Fedora, tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application set or customizations. They can be found at:
http://spins.fedoraproject.org
Contributing
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!
Contact information
Journalists and reporters can find additional information at: