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Spins

Fedora offers a DVD, six CDs and a freely downloadable ISO image of the network installer for installation and updating. The network installer is only marginally bigger than in Fedora 8 and is no longer available as an image for USB sticks, as before. In addition, the installation media can now also be downloaded with Jigdo.

Apart from the classic installation media there are also numerous versions of live CDs and DVDs, for example with GNOME or KDE desktop. Like live media for Ubuntu, these can also be used for hard disk installations. In addition, the live media can also be transferred to USB sticks with a script. The Live Persistence feature is designed to enable Fedora to present data when started from a USB stick, allowing users to carry a complete desktop environment including data on a USB stick.

Like all versions since Fedora 7 the new version of Fedora makes it relatively easy to assemble custom distributions or live media by selecting software from the available Fedora repositories. Apart from the already mentioned "official" live CD compilations with GNOME or KDE, Fedora also offers many other of these so-called spins: Fedora XFCE Spin (CD), Fedora Games Spin (DVD), Fedora Developer Spin (DVD) and Fedora Electronics Lab (CD). Additional user-generated spins can be found on the web, for example a spin with the German version of KDE.

Fedora peculiarities

Some of the negative and positive characteristics already known in previous versions of Fedora can also be found in version 9. Online repositories, for example, already contained about 100 updates when the distribution was released – as with previous Fedora versions, this is probably only the beginning of thousands of updated packages which will appear while the Project maintains Fedora 9 over the next 13 months. Fedora users are, therefore, advised to use broadband internet access.

Fedora 9 includes Firefox 3 as its standard browser.

Unlike other distributions, Fedora releases updates not only to close security holes found in the distribution's software, but also to deploy new program versions. The Fedora Project occasionally distributes new versions of software packages as vital as the Linux kernel via updates even when there are no security holes to be closed. Therefore, Fedora 9 is likely to receive the next three or four kernels in the same way as Fedora 8, which started with 2.6.23, was updated to 2.6.24 and is likely to be updated to 2.6.25 and 2.6.26. Because the Linux kernel contains many new and enhanced drivers, the distribution's hardware support is continually improved while the users of other distributions usually have to wait for new drivers until the next version arrives. To avoid leaving users with unbootable systems in case of a kernel problem, updates always install the respective active kernel as a backup.

As usual, Fedora contains no proprietary programs like RealPlayer, Adobe Reader or Flash Player; the latter can be obtained from Adobe directly via a Yum compatible package repository. The only Fedora software that is not open source is the firmware required by some components, for example by WLAN cards. The Project only allows these into the distribution because they are not executed by the host CPU but by the WLAN hardware itself.

Conclusion

Additional information:

• Fedora home page
• Release notes in German and English
• Overview of the most important new features of Fedora 9
• Fedora 9 Install Guide
• List of features
• Known problems of Fedora 9

Distributed by:

• Download via BitTorrent
• Download via an automatically* assigned mirror server
• List of all active mirror servers

* via IP localisation

Like other Linux distributions with a 6-month development cycle, the new version of Fedora offers a large number of evolutionary improvements. Therefore, version 9 is now the first choice when installing Fedora from scratch. Many existing Fedora users will probably also want to update to the new version. However, users who need proprietary AMD and Nvidia drivers should refrain from updating for the time being.

Fedora is generally not as beginner-friendly as other Linux distributions – this is the price paid for its self-imposed restriction to open source software and for its very cautious handling of patented and licensed software. In return, Fedora promises to be highly current by providing brand new program versions in its package repositories. The repositories are continually updated and even expanded to include new software during the distribution's support cycle. The new kernel versions, with their added functionality and drivers, ensure that Fedora's support for new and future hardware is constantly being improved – users of other distributions often need to wait for the next upgrade, or have to fire up their own compilers.

(Thorsten Leemhuis thl)

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