Fedora 8 reaches End-of-Life on January 7, 2009

Dec 2, 2008 12:17 GMT  ·  By

Codenamed "Werewolf," Fedora 8 was unleashed on the 8th of November, 2007 by Max Spevack (project leader at that time).

Like every new Fedora release, the Werewolf brought new and exciting technologies (very popular at that point in time), such as the amazing PulseAudio sound server; the Codec Buddy, a magical utility that automatically downloads necessary codecs for different audio and video streams; system-config-firewall, a new graphical firewall configuration tool; enhanced printer management; Bluetooth integration; improved Java support through IcedTea; NetworkManager 0.7, which provided improved network management; improved laptop support; Compiz and Compiz-Fusion, Online Desktop, a tool that transforms your desktop in the perfect window for online applications like GMail, Photobucket, Facebook, eBay; PolicyKit, the way to easy and secure administration; Rsyslog, a new system logging daemon; Transifex, a new translation infrastructure and, of course, a new look and feel.

After the Werewolf, there came the Sulphur, a.k.a. Fedora 9, and Fedora 10 (codename Cambridge), released last Thursday, on November 25. A few days ago, Jon Stanley posted a reminder on the Fedora announce list, that the Werewolf (Fedora 8) would reach its end of life on Christmas day, December 25, 2008. The end of life actually means that Fedora 8 users will not receive security/critical fixes and software updates any longer.

However, they decided to extend its life until January 7, 2009. "Also at or shortly after that time, all bugs open against Fedora 8 will be closed, since no more updates will be made." - said Jon Stanley. Therefore, we strongly suggest to upgrade your Fedora 8 machine(s) to the newly released Fedora 10, which can be downloaded from Softpedia.

What is Fedora? The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and community supported open source project. Fedora Linux is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, and that focuses on wide access, distribution and free modification. It's built by a worldwide community (the Fedora Project), which grants access to anyone wishing to further advance the development of open-source software. Fedora 10 is available as GNOME and KDE Live CD editions for 32bit and 64bit platforms, and the usual CDs/DVD edition for x86, x86_64 and PPC architectures.