Submitted by “Fedora 8 is currently under development and is scheduled for release in November of this year (2007). This is a quick overview of the proposed features. As these are proposed features and it is still about 4 months from release some of these will change.”
The delta RPMs will be an awesome addition, considering the rate that Fedora receives updates. Although I’m no KDE fan, that KDE4 screenshot looks pretty slick as well. The only mentioned that concerns me a bit is the bootup changes. They mentioned a prettier bootup splash, like Ubuntu, but I sure hope I still have the option to hit F2 or Enter to see bootup messages, unlike Ubuntu. Ubuntu’s bootup is either all graphical and tells you absolutely nothing, or if you turn it off in grub, the text boot is a mess and effectively tells you nothing.
you can see messages using ubuntu’s splash as well. alt f2 or some such.
Remove “quiet” or change it into “verbose” in /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Err, that KDE4 shot… Is that a mockup? You know, it looks like a carbon copy of Mezzo [1], the desktop environment used by SymphonyOS.
And what really worries me is the following headline: “Bigboard Replacement for GNOME panel that uses online services via mugshot”. They’re not replacing the GNOME panel with that online mugshotmyspace nonsense, are they? That would be the stupidest move in desktop Linux’s history.
I’m assuming that mughshotmyspace nonsense sidebar is not a replacement, but a possible addition. Let’s hope so.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzo_(desktop_environment)
The text says “Bigboard is basically a sidebar for linux that partially replaces some of the top and bottom panel’s functionality”. Note ‘partial’. So, yeah, doesn’t sound like they’re dropping the regular panel.
As far as actual panel replacements go, I love gimmie.
I’m Clarence Pearson and that is my screenshot of my Kuartet Desktop Project ( http://kuartetdesktop.sourceforge.net ) running under KDE 3.5. You are correct in that it was heavily influenced by Mezzo. However I stopped working on it last year due to limitations in superkaramba ( lots of CPU usage), lack of time, and Plasma development ( I’m not a plasma developer but am eagerly awaiting the API documentation to continue implementing some of my desktop ideas ).
I don’t know how somebody confused my project which has been in a long period of inactivity with the recent KDE4 development, but hey I’m not knocking the free publicity 🙂 I should probably contact the Fedora team and let them know about the mistake.
How exactly does Policykit prevent xorg from being run as root when the description of the kit is:”PolicyKit provides a flexible framework for granting users access to privileged operations.”?
Still about time xorg being run with the currently logged in user credentials and no more.
The article? doesn’t say anything about running xorg as a non-privileged user. It says it allows running xorg applications that require root permissions without running them as root. To go off topic for a bit, it’s been possible to run xorg as a regular user for a long time but it requires some sacrifices and a little work that apparently none of the Linux distros are interested in. OpenBSD runs and has run xorg as the _X11 user for quite some time.
With little research, here is more details about PolicyKit is under the link provided by the article
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeaturePolicyKit
and
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/hal/2007-June/008815.html
The answer is under TODO list of PolicyKit package. Note it depends of dbus notification which is currently developed :
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dbus/2007-June/007874.html
Thanks for the info.
Looks promising, i hope more distros will implement policykit although it seems more effective together with SELinux or grsec.
I recently saw an article here that talked about the tickless kernel. The author used the 2.6.21 kernel from F7, and then used the vanilla kernel 2.6.22. There were better results with regards to power consumption. The funny thing is, F7 still uses the 2.6.21 kernel, but rawhide, according to Distro Watch, has the 2.6.23 kernel. Did Fedora skip 2.6.22? If not, why has 2.6.22 not been migrated to F7? It seems that Fedora can improve laptop performance *right now*.
a 2.6.22 update is currently in updates-testing for F7, feel free to test it.
Well that pulseaudio may be all find and dandy for people with multiple(Fedora) computers in their house…
but I would rather see them getting all the sound mixing
for single on-board(AC’97 and cousins) sound done right first.
ALSA is so buggy because many applications(ALL Java ones) use oss and cannot mix sound with alsa apps without a lot of work( for java applets maybe there is no solution).
Why not consider the new opensound OSS system(documented at http://www.opensound.com)? They are now opensound and I have replaced ALSA with it.
It solves some problems but doesn’t integrate well
into Gnome or VMware system sounds. Ultimately there should be a kernel compiled to use it..but those are future plans.
I think this really should be watched as sound in linux is probably the worst I’ve seen in any unix system.
Installing ALSA-OSS compatibility (one package) and adding “aoss” as a command line prefix is not that much work
actually that depends on your audience..if you are
trying to reach the linux beginner – and stuff like
codecbuddy seem to suggest that Fedora is trying for this goal – then saying “well start your application manually using aoss” is something that WILL send beginners back to
windoze.
But that aside, please tell me how to use aoss on Java
applets run from inside your favorite browser..
Here’s another show-stopper..please tell me how
to run vmware with guest OS XP and linux host and get full sound mixing.Aoss won’t help at all.
It’s quite embarrassing to me but maybe i am the only person who likes to seriously multitask when using Fedora as a Desktop.
Actually, Pulse helps out a lot with that as well. It’s the best option I’ve found yet for single-system mixing.
”
ALSA is so buggy because many applications(ALL Java ones) use oss and cannot mix sound with alsa apps without a lot of work( for java applets maybe there is no solution).
”
Link? Google doesn’t seem to return anything useful.
AFAIK, some products (Older skype, vmware) continue to use OSS simply because it’s legacy code that semi-woks.
If Alsa has bugs, someone should report them (or better yet, help fix them) instead of using the almost-deprecated OSS.
”
Why not consider the new opensound OSS system
”
At least to me, ALSA is far less buggier then OSS, and unlike OSS supports mixing and multiple speaker setups.
– Gilboa
http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?PHPSESSID=e67723be5…
That’s one thread..the fact that there is no direct bug link seems to me to point to ALSA being simply dead on this issue. But it’s not dead in the how-to forums.
You are right that someone SHOULD fix the problems of buggy apps but noone seems to be doing that.
In an integrated OS like FreeBSD or Mac OS X such issues are critical!
Maybe you should read http://www.opensound.com..
It is NOT the old OSS and does FULL sound mixing and multiple speakers. I use it now and it works better
in Fedora than ALSA for most things(but needs kernel integration for perfect setup)
… AFAICS the problem is java related and -not- ALSA related.
And as for OSS being better, well, too little, too late.
OSS should have been GPL’ed long, long ago.
Too much effort was spent in getting ALSA’s support matrix look like it does now. I doubt that anyone will be willing to switch back to OSS.
– Gilboa
Using the link above and this link [1], you can see a side by side comparison of the proposed changes for next release of Fedora and Mandriva.
[1] http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2008.0/What‘s_New
Instead on thinking more on how to embellish the boot sequence, I would like to suggest that the devs concentrate more on the boot speed and significantly increase it, it’s so important for many users (especially knowing that firewire gets broken after a suspend or hibernate resume….).
Also, I really like the actual boot graphics, the problem is that it has to load X twice (one for boot another for dektop).
Already addressed under FCNewInit:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FCNewInit
Possible steps to enhance boot startup:
– Clean up all initscripts
– Clean up /etc/init.d/functions
– Replace /etc/rc
– Make gdm/prefdm an initscript with early login
– D-Bus support
Possible steps to enhance boot startup:
The only way to make it fast is to execute actions in parallel.
Right now boot is serial and wastes 99% of cpu speed.
Linux boot time is insanely slow.
Edited 2007-07-17 17:59
Parallelization is mentioned on the link I posted but is not a magic bullet. Quoted from the link:
Without proper handling of dependencies from services at boot startup, parallelization is useless.
Don’t fancy CodecBuddy if it’s only going to link to the GStreamer commercial codecs instead of the free (of charge) codecs from Livna etc.
I really don’t fancy NetworkManager as the default network configurator, having never actually got it to work properly (yeah cos I really want to switch from GigE to wifi just because you can pick up a signal!) It seems to me that its only useful for people who use DHCP, unencrypted wireless (assuming your wireless device is even supported) and only one network device.
If that BigBoard is going to be like XP/Vista’s default menu, then I don’t fancy that either. I prefer the list of applications in full rather than the “here are the programs you used recently or we think are useful” style.
I like the way they keep referring to Rhythmbox, jees does anyone outside of the Fedora-Dev team actually use that rubbish instead of XMMS or Amarok?
Presto/DeltaRPM will be great, my ISP will prefer it to me downloading 15Gb of RPM’s like I just did for my local Fedora7 mirror.
The other features I couldn’t care less about really, especially the virtualisation stuff – having looked at the useless GUI for Xen/QEMU under F7/RHEL5, I think I’ll stick to VMWare Server.
I’m getting a bit fed-up with Fedora – FC5 had to be the last groundbreaking version, FC6 was dead iffy and F7 is just OK, nothing special.
yes, i would venture that a majority of gnome users use rhythmbox instead of either of the above mentioned eyesores.
yeah right, as most users really give a damn what audio players look like.
and hey i use gnome, i am a fedora user after all, and most ubuntu fanboys use amarok or audacious/xmms too.
next argument.
Wow, you are a really boring person. Try backing your argument up with some facts instead of just trolling.
You don’t know what ‘most users’ want. You just presume it’s the same as you.
Edited 2007-07-18 12:35
Recently, I’ve been playing with Exaile, and it is excellent.
Amarok has 500,000,000 features, but is somewhat cluttered and not the best for new users. Exaile is similar to Amarok in style and layout, but seems to be a bit cleaner.
Obligitory screenshot:
http://www.vivaolinux.com.br/imagens/artigos/comunidade/exaile.jpg
”
Don’t fancy CodecBuddy if it’s only going to link to the GStreamer commercial codecs instead of the free (of charge) codecs from Livna etc.
”
Gee. Maybe this [1], this [2] and this [3] has something to do with it.
You know what, contact Fraunhofer [4] and get him to exempt Fedora (and Feodra-based distribution) from the need to pay licensing fees and Fedora will auto-install MP3-codecs by default, OK?
[1] http://www.mp3licensing.com/patents/
[2] http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070222-8910.html
[3] http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/26/HNmp3lawsuits_1.html
[4] http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/fhg/iis/EN/bf/amm/index.jsp
For those who would like to compare them side by side, here is a decent set of links to read through.
http://linuxupdate.blogspot.com/2007/07/proposed-fedora-8-features…. Fedora
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/gutsy/ Ubuntu
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2008.0/What‘s_New Mandriva
http://lwn.net/Articles/233614/ OpenSuse new features
Edit:
Changed opensuse as to not point to a pdf.
Edited 2007-07-17 23:01
excellent post! thanks for the info
cant say i like that idea think i will be making the switch if Fedora devs go with that idea,,
I assume it is something you can turn off/on.