The Fedora 21 Alpha can be downloaded from Softpedia

Sep 24, 2014 07:36 GMT  ·  By

The Fedora Project has announced that the first Alpha release for Fedora 21 is now available for download and testing, marking the beginning of a new journey for this famous distribution.

The Fedora development team has been trying to get this Alpha release out the door for quite some time and they have been confronted with all sorts of problems that delayed the release. Now it's out and we get to test it properly.

Users shouldn't get their hopes up for the final release of Fedora. The developers don't have the best track record at keeping a tight schedule for the upcoming builds, so it's very likely that the final iteration will also be pushed back.

It's a new Fedora

Fedora 21 is the first distribution in the series that doesn't have a code name. The previous release was called "Heisenbug." Not many users liked it, so they dropped the naming process entirely. Besides this simple move, the developers have also split the project into Fedora Server, Fedora Cloud, and Fedora Workstation.

"The Alpha release contains all the exciting features of Fedora 21's products 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 21 is expected in December."

"We need your help to make Fedora 21 the best release yet, so please take some 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," say the developers.

Get the Fedora 21 Alpha and test it

As you can see, regular users should be interested in Fedora 21 Workstation, which is basically the desktop edition. The devs are tracking the GNOME 3.14 release and they will integrate it by default. Because the release has been delayed by a few weeks, it will no longer be among the first operating systems to adopt the new version of the GNOME desktop environment.

Check the official announcement for more details about this build. You can download Fedora 21 right now from Softpedia. This is a Live CD and it seems to work just fine from a USB drive. If you decide to install it, please don't use a production machine, as the distro is still under development.

Fedora 21 Alpha (11 Images)

Fedora 21 desktop
Fedora 21 launcherFedora 21 app selection
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