14 DAY TRIAL // A few minutes ago, the Fedora project team has released the second Alpha of the upcoming Fedora 8 Linux distribution. Test 2 features a 2.6.23 Linux kernel and the following improvements:
￭ A brand new graphical firewall configuration tool, system-config-firewall replaces system-config-security level ￭ Iced Tea, a free and open source Java environment from Red Hat and others derived from OpenJDK as well as a browser plugin based on GCJ that takes advantage of Iced Tea is available and installed by default. ￭ Compiz Fusion, the compositing window manager from the remerge of Compiz and Beryl is installed by default. You can easily enable it in GNOME via the desktop effects preference option. There is ongoing Xorg work to enable Compiz by default. ￭ There is a new look and feel for this release called Infinity from the Fedora Art team. ￭ GNOME 2.19. ￭ KDE 3.5.7 ￭ Nodoka, a fresh new GNOME theme created specially for Fedora! ￭ PulseAudio is now installed and enabled by default. PulseAudio is an advanced sound server which is compatible with nearly all existing Linux sound systems and allows for hot-switching audio outputs, individual volume controls for each audio stream, networked audio and more.
Fedora 8 is promising new features like:
￭ Optional replacement for GNOME panel that uses online services via mugshot; ￭ Enhanced Bluetooth support; ￭ Fedora 8 Bookmarks; ￭ Make core dumps self-identifying enough to find the exact correct versions of all relevant binaries and debuginfo; ￭ Buddy Helper app promotes Free alternatives and guides users trying to play content under restricted codecs; ￭ Fix the dictionary proliferation problem; ￭ Integrating KDE 4.0, a new major version of KDE; ￭ Improved support for using Fedora on Laptops; ￭ Support for Nepali Language; ￭ Nodoka, new default theme for GNOME; ￭ We need to remove pam_console and migrate all users to use the ACLs as set by HAL; ￭ Easy and painless administration; ￭ Using delta RPM updates by default. Saves heavy amount of bandwidth and time for updates; ￭ Feature rich sound server (Pulse Audio); ￭ Make rsyslog the new default syslog daemon. Rsyslog has an assorted set of new features that make system administration easier; ￭ TeXLive 2007 inclusion; ￭ Make the default x86_64 kernel tickless; ￭ Secure remote mangement for Xen, KVM & QEMU virtualization; ￭ Powertop is included. Need to start tracking egregious offenders; ￭ Don't start XFS font server daemon by default and fix font packages. Savings on performance and bootup time; ￭ Use and integrate XULRunner which is the Gecko browser engine separated from the user interface.
Fedora 8 release schedule:
7 August 2007 - Fedora 8 Test1 release 28 August 2007 - Fedora 8 FEATURE freeze, Fedora 8 string freeze, Fedora 8 Test2 development freeze 13 September 2007 - Fedora 8 Test2 Release 25 September 2007 - Fedora 8 translation freeze, Fedora 8 Test3 development freeze 4 October 2007 - Fedora 8 Test3 Release 23 October 2007 - Final devel freeze 8 November 2007 - Fedora 8 General Availability
About Fedora:
The Fedora Project is a Red-Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source project. It is also a proving ground for a new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products. It is not a supported product of Red Hat, Inc.
The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community in order to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from free software. Development will be done in a public forum. The project will produce time-based releases of Fedora Core about 2-3 times a year with a public release schedule.
You can download Fedora 8 Test 2 now from Softpedia.
You can download Fedora 7 now from Softpedia.