Slashdot Log In
Fedora 9 (Sulphur) Released
Posted by
timothy
on Tue May 13, 2008 12:41 PM
from the well-this-one-isn't-debian-based dept.
from the well-this-one-isn't-debian-based dept.
BrianGKUAC writes "Fedora 9 has been released as of 10 AM Eastern Time this morning. Release notes can be found here. Some of the more interesting new features include a new package management system, which can be used as an alternative to pup and pirut, known as PackageKit. This release also includes GNOME 2.22 and/or KDE 4.0.3, and Firefox 3 beta 5. Overall, there are a lot of improvements worth looking at, and the Bittorrent seeds are already feeding the release fairly effectively."
Related Stories
[+]
Linux: Fedora 9 a Bit Behind the Curve On Installation 110 comments
bsk_cw writes "Today, many Linux users are getting blasé about the ease with which they can install Linux. Possibly, they've been spoiled by distributions such as Ubuntu, which is actually easier to install than Windows. Unfortunately, Fedora 9, the latest version of this community edition of Red Hat, was a bit too much of a blast from the past for Computerworld's James Turner." (Except for bits about the installation, the review is actually quite positive.)
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
So (Score:4, Funny)
You forgot the most important feature... (Score:4, Funny)
PackageKit (Score:5, Informative)
See PackageKit site [packagekit.org] of the release notes [fedoraproject.org].
Re:PackageKit (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on your definition of yum I guess. It does/can replace yum, the command-line tool, but does not replace the yum database. The wording is misleading though.
Parent
PackageKit does not replace yum (Score:5, Informative)
Seed, damn you! (Score:4, Funny)
SEED, you bums! SEED!
Re:Seed, damn you! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I'm getting about 2.5MBits (213kBps) on my DSL at home. Once I got it there I'm gonna transfer it to my T-1 at work and seed it at both locations. Will be tossing 1.5MBits + 768KBits at it for the foreseeable future.
Now why did I ... (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry couldn't resist...
*waits for -1 mod points*
Re: (Score:2)
However, most sulphur compounds are very smelly indeed. Thioethanol (used in stink bombs) is reckoned to be the smelliest substance in the world.
Oh, and props to them for using the "old-fashioned" spelling!
Konsole disimproving? (Score:5, Informative)
that the new Konsole - has less features!
The buttons for quickly closing/opening a tab are gone. Right-clicking on tabs is gone. The ability to send input to all tabs
is completely gone, not even accessible through menus.
These are features I use every day while working on servers. KDE4 adds a lot of eyecandy (and a Vista-style 'start menu' - ick),
but why remove useful functionality?
Re:Konsole disimproving? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Konsole disimproving? (Score:4, Interesting)
that the new Konsole - has less features!"
They must be going for the Gnome look...
All kidding aside, I'm very surprised they went with KDE4. I've been playing around with it on Gentoo for several months now, and I could understand making it an option, but to not provide KDE3 out of the box at all (http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f9/en_US/sn-Desktop.html#sn-KDE [fedoraproject.org]) is shocking. I thought even the KDE folks were recommending waiting until 4.1. Oh well, Fedora always likes the latest and greatest.
Parent
Re:Konsole disimproving? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Konsole disimproving? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Konsole disimproving? (Score:5, Informative)
but why remove useful functionality?
--
Regards
Parent
Re:Konsole disimproving? (Score:5, Informative)
> The buttons for quickly closing/opening a tab are gone.
Konsole in KDE 4.0 is orientated more around keyboard shortcuts - which I think makes sense in a terminal. (Ctrl+Shift+N creates a new tab, Ctrl+Shift+W closes the current one, although I would recommend using the normal Ctrl+D combination to exit the shell)
Enough people complained (via bugs.kde.org) that I added the 'New Tab' button back in as an option in KDE 4.1. Plus there are Firefox-esqueue close buttons on tabs and support for re-arranging tabs by drag and drop or moving tabs between windows.
> The ability to send input to all tabs is completely gone
It didn't work at the time of the 4.0 release so it got cut. It has been reimplemented in KDE 4.1 with more flexibility in response to various RFE bug reports:
http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-04-13/files/konsole-copy-input-to.png [commit-digest.org]
It is not the case the Konsole in KDE 4.0 has 'less features' in total. The menus may look far emptier but there is actually not very much missing. In fact it has quite a few additions, mostly fulfilling a large backlog of feature requests in bugs.kde.org, which I think are very useful:
* The terminal setup UI was replaced with one which is simpler but also more flexible
* Split-view mode
* Incremental search
* Key binding editor
* Improved performance, especially scrolling in large windows
In any case, if you have a complaint then please report it at http://bugs.kde.org/ [kde.org] - I am much more likely to read about it there than on Slashdot. Plus it also allows users to vote on the issues most important to them which is helpful from my perspective trying to allocate the limited spare time I have.
Finally, as someone who followed KDE development discussion quite closely over the last two years, it is inaccurate to say that KDE is attempting to "copy" Windows Vista or is in some large measure "inspired" by it. The menu for example was originally developed by OpenSuSE for KDE 3 - a long time before Vista was released, based on openSuSE's own research. Evidence of this can be found in some notably different design decisions compared with Vista's menu. For example, both the Gnome SLED menu and KDE's "Kickoff" have a search facility but it is located at the top of the menu rather than the button because users couldn't find it when it was placed at the bottom.
I think the view that KDE is trying to "clone" Windows, if not trolling, boils down to the use of black on the bar at the bottom of the screen. I am not involved with that part of KDE but I understand that the look of it is quite likely to change somewhat for KDE 4.1.
Parent
Beta XORG as well (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
and download the 173.08 with experimental support for xorg-server 1.4.99.901
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Check here: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=9959d4806fa0925ec3b511c7d038fcb8&t=111460 [nvnews.net] and download the 173.08 with experimental support for xorg-server 1.4.99.901
Sorry but those have been available for a month now and for the most part they don't do much. If you follow those instructions you'll just get a Nvidia 2D driver. The Livna packagers have not pushed the Nvidia driver out of the development repository also.
Basically Nvidia Accelerated 3D will have to wait (compiz,etc.).
Re:Beta XORG as well (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Anyone test out the Kernel Based Mode Setting yet? (Score:4, Interesting)
The article (or snippit) says Fedora 9 has kernel based mode setting..
http://www.osnews.com/story/19661/A_Preview_of_Kernel-Based_Mode-Setting [osnews.com]
Anyone test it yet?
Comes with OpenJDK and Netbeans too (Score:2)
They moved from IcedTea, which was based on the upcoming java7 to the stable java6 release. Looks like some of the stuff in IncedTea made it into OpenJDK 6.
Will not install on Samsung hard disks (Score:5, Informative)
If your hard disk has a "/" character in its model name as reported through the ATA interface then Anaconda will fail. The Python error message reads like "ends with '/' and is not just '/'" and the kernel halts.
I have a very standard desktop Dell Optiplex that has one of these hard disks, model number "SAMSUNG HD080HJ/P".
The "/" character kills the installation.
So disappointing yet so simple to have fixed before release.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So disappointing yet so simple to have fixed before release.
--
Regards
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Something changed or regressed on the way to the final release.
Someone said "I thought we fixed that" on IRC when I asked about it.
Who wrote this? (Score:2)
...and Linux kernel was replaced by Gnome.
Sulphur story (Score:4, Informative)
The logic behind it is thus:
Some more suggestions
"sulphur"
"mayonaisse"
(like werewolves they react badly with silver)
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2007-December/msg01194.html [redhat.com]
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Names [fedoraproject.org]
The other options were:
vote_count , name
62 , Sulphur
54 , Bathysphere
43 , Chupacabra
39 , Mayonnaise
32 , Dragicorn
29 , Woodwose
23 , Tourette
13 , Asperger
13 , Barmanou
10 , Chingachgook
6 , Kingsport Town
5 , Marfan
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-January/msg00012.html
Release schedules (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Release schedules (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a bunch of components in this release that were ready in time. Perl 5.10.0 is one that will make a difference. (Especially if your code uses regular expressions heavily.) There is also a new code base for TeTex. A new version of OCAML. Many things have been upgraded here, not just the unstable bits.
Every release has this problem, not just Fedora 9.
Parent
And the alternative is? (Score:3, Informative)
The idea of Fedora is to push things along. If you are writing software or need the new features, yay!
If you are more happy with stability, CentOS is what you are looking for. Same stuff, but older and more stable.
Does YouTube work? (Score:3, Funny)
Or something like that.
Re:Beta software in a production release? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It looks EL 5 will be enjoying a very long lifetime as the platform of choice for EL shops. I'm happy with that.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Beta software in a production release? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Marketing 101 (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hope my issues with Fedora are solved (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Not Fedora's Fault (Score:4, Insightful)
You never even mentioned if you tried another distribution. Did you? Did you determine whether it's a Fedora issue or a CUPS issue? Did you file bug reports?
Anyone who complains about Linux problems but does not fill out bug reports is just an asshat as far as I am concerned. You are willing to leech from the efforts of others but you are not willing to make a contribution when the opportunity is right in front of you. Blah.
This particular printer was also advertised as having OSX driver support, but the driver is not available in the US unless you lie to their web site and tell them you are from Australia. Tell Samsung to get off their butts and make sure their printers work right in Linux AND OSX.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Anyone who complains about Linux problems but does not fill out bug reports is just an asshat as far as I am concerned. You are willing to leech from the efforts of others but you are not willing to make a contribution when the opportunity is right in front of you. Blah.
Especially since writing a bug report isn't exactly hard. It does not involve coding, just describing in plain text what hardware you have, what you did and what happened (and possibly how you expected it to work).
Of course, Joe Average may be too lazy to do even that, and instead ventures onto some forum to bitch and moan about how much the distro, or Linux, sucks.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that this OS is essentially worthless for normal users. Correct? And I suppose that's fine. Let's just not pretend Joe Windows can install this and be on his way, like he would with something like Ubuntu or Xandros.
The same issue would have been encountered with Ubuntu and Xandros. The grandparent attempted to use the provided Samsung drivers, which do not function correctly in Linux. CUPS happens to have a functioning driver, but you have to configure it for a different printer model for it to work.
Fedora has functioned wonderfully as an OS for normal users, my grandparents included. There are always some usability issues when compared to Windows, but those are generally to be attributed to driver support mo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone can fill out a bug report, even normal users. No programming skills are necessary.
Yes, yes, yes. And more too. Fedora is not for everyone and it makes no claim to that. I run Fedora on my laptop because it has better hardware support for that particular model than Ubuntu. I run it on my desktop because I need it for the software I work with. I run it on my server because
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I will recount my I had trouble with the last Fedora Distro.
I bought myself a second hand Samsung ML-2510 printer that Samsung touted as "supported" under some Linux kernel version and later.
You are not the only person that seems to have trouble with the binary drivers, look here:
http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Samsung-ML-2510_parallel_with_Samsung_PPD [openprinting.org]
http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Samsung-ML-2510 [openprinting.org]
There seems to be some workaround though, so it should work.
Anyway, http://www.openprinting.org/ [openprinting.org] is a good place to start regarding printing support.
--
Regards
Re:Hope my issues with Fedora are solved (Score:4, Insightful)
I see: you had trouble installing a printer that came with wrong instructions and an install CD that didn't work the way it should so Linux itself is bad. Has it occurred to you that the OEM may have given you the wrong instructions, or possibly instructions that only work for some other distro? Nah, it couldn't be...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Btw, the "core" has been dropped (FC9 -> F9).
Re:FedoraSoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Me, a personally doesn't give a damn about "buzz", I want a nice solid but modern distro that is free as in free speech, and Fedora is just that.
Btw. next time you bad mouth Red Hat, which seems to be popular though lame attitude among certain people, just remember which Linux vendor who has contributed the most to make Linux what it is today, and how much Red Hat still contributes to core linux technology. And Red Hat has never, ever waivered in its support of Free, OSS software, and eg. released some proprietary closed source software as part of their distros,
--
Regards
Parent