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Desktop selection

The standard installation of Fedora 9 includes the current version 2.22.1 of the Gnome desktop. The distribution also offers version 4.0.3 of KDE – an update to the recently released version 4.0.4 has already been prepared and is to be deployed after a trial period. A few KDE 3.5 components which don't yet function reliably in KDE4 have been included. Xfce 4.4.2 and several other desktops are not present on the regular installation media; however, they can be installed separately from the online repository during or after installation.

3D effects can be activated at a mouse click.

The new distribution's standard browser is a beta version of Firefox 3. The Fedora Project plans to provide future preliminary versions and the final release of the browser as updates. In tests, the Firefox beta worked just as reliably as Firefox 2. However, some of the Firefox extensions are not yet available for version 3, which could present problems to some users. Like OpenOffice and numerous other applications, Firefox uses Hunspell as its spell checker so users don't need to manually install and maintain the browser's dictionaries. In addition, Firefox's rendering engine is now a browser-independent part of XULRunner, a package which is also accessed by many other applications.

Details

So far, we've only discussed the proverbial tip of the iceberg of the new version's many improvements. Developers also claim to have further improved Bluetooth support in GNOME. PulseAudio has been updated to resolve some of the initial difficulties experienced with the sound server introduced with Fedora 8. OpenOffice has been integrated as a beta of version 2.4. A heavily updated version of GDM is used as a login manager, and a new program based on the RandR extension allows runtime monitor configuration.

Partitions can now be encrypted and resized in the installer. Fedora developers also further improved the NetworkManager, extending it to include ad hoc and PPP support, among other things – PPP support is, for example, interesting when GSM/CDMA cards are to be used. Optional in previous distributions, NetworkManager now looks after all the network devices by default, after installation is complete.

Package management continues to be handled by Yum – however, the Pup update applet and the Pirut package installation program have been replaced by the respective PackageKit applications which, like their predecessors, access Yum. In x86-64 systems, the package management tool now offers the option to only include 32-bit packages if there is a special reason to do so.

The new Fedora distribution is the first to use Upstart for system initialisation, but this hasn't substantially improved the very slow start-up times of earlier versions. For Flash playback, Fedora 9 automatically installs the swfdec component which accesses the GStreamer backend; the alternative gnash player is also included, but Adobe's proprietary Flash player has traditionally been omitted. While Fedora 8 included the experimental IcedTea runtime environment, developers have now integrated a beta version of OpenJDK complete with a web browser Java plugin.

Unlike before, the installation media are no longer required for upgrading to the latest Fedora version from an earlier one. Instead, PreUpgrade is designed to only download the required packages and prepare the system before the updated packages are installed after a system reboot. Experienced users can also use yum to install the update during operation. The Fedora wiki offers some tips.

Multimedia

Introduced with Fedora 8, the Codeina program for installing the multimedia codecs offered by Fluendo at no or marginal cost has remained in the distribution after prolonged discussions. Although project leaders had already decided to respond to the criticism by removing the program, they reconsidered their decision. In the coming months, the Fedora board will discuss whether a program which installs proprietary software at a later date is acceptable for the traditionally strictly open source Fedora.

However, seasoned Fedora users are unlikely to pay much attention to the codec buddy - ATrpms, Freshrpms and rpm.livna.org are RPM repositories for Fedora which simply allow the software required for playing back popular audio and video formats to be installed via the package manager.

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