Red Hat has an ‘aggressive’ schedule for Fedora Core 2. Red Hat considers two items absolutely “stop-ship” — that is, they will slip the release if necessary to include them. These two items are the 2.6 Linux kernel and SELinux functionality integrated into the distribution. Other areas of technology that the Fedora Community (Red Hat and third parties together) will focus on will include GNOME 2.6 (tight schedule, particularly dependent on Gtk+ 2.4), KDE 3.2, more Java software using gcj (Ant, Tomkat, Jakarta, Eclipse, but not Mozilla plugins, AWT, or Swing), and integrating work on other architectures (at least AMD64, and possibly also SPARC).
Fedora Core 2 Schedule Posted
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’m truely happy to see that they plan to include not only the 2.6 kernel, but also the complete SELinux implementation as well. I’ve had my share of issues with Red Hat, but sometimes they’re on top of things.
I was already happy with Core 2 and it’s improved performance, but woth GNOME 2.6 and Linux 2.6 I think we have a winner…
What exactly is SELinux? Is it the kernel extentions or whatnot that make Lindows Laptop Edition have power management? Something else that I should be excited over?
SELinux is Security Enhance Linux developed by the NSA.
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/
What happened to Redhat including a Java implementation in their releases?
I have ran a pre-release Fedora version for the AMD64 on my Athlon 64, and it was pretty snappy even for a preview release. Also Right now on my other machine I have Fedora running with the 2.6test11 kernel, and I have noticed extremely fast desktop response. And all I did was an rpm -Uvh kernel.xx.rpm to get this done. No compiling and wasting time with Fedora. If you like being on the cutting edge and don’t mind upgrading every couple of months to a new relase to stay that way Fedora is pretty awesome. I don’t know what all the bad RH publicity /comments are about. As someone who usually bought every distro just to get new features/updated I am extremely happy with the Fedora project. If you want support on the other hand, I would have to say “pay up”.
Where can I get that RPM?
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development…
Or compiled to binary with gcj? I guess it will still need a JDK to be usefull, since it uses its own java compiler and only generates java bytecode. It would be nice if eclipse could not only be run as a gcj bynary app on unix, but use gcj/gcjlib as its work enviroment. That way we could create binary java applications with it directly.
I installed Fedora Core 1 the other day and was enormously impressed by the polish and careful construction. It was also surprisingly robust, considering Red Hat’s change in focus with the project.
On the downside, it was horrendously slow (much more so than my Slack, Gentoo and Debian test installations, and even Mandrake and SUSE), with lengthy bootup times and general sluggish performance.
Anyway, the main thing with Fedora is this: 8 months (at most!) of fixes. Fine for developers, but for a general purpose OS it’s too much hassle. Red Hat have a solid and respected enterprise lineup, and now a hobbyist always-in-beta plaything, but nothing for those of us who just want a decent, supported and well-tested all-round OS.
The goals of Fedora aren’t attractive — RH are pushing the “community participation” aspect but that’s not what people want! They want proper engineers to work together, have a plan and create a distro with efficiency. They don’t want to wait five days for a bugfix because Sven is on holiday.
Community distros can work with MASSIVE communities (a la Debian), and even then it has all the problems of infighting, lack of co-ordination and slow releases. Red Hat have thrown out an immensely valuable brand name, and are trying to push the distro development onto random folks rather than paid, experienced staff.
It could prove to be a monumentally bad decision…
Still, RH do a lot of good community work so I respect them!
I think Fedora is very good for staying cutting edge, and the new release is coming in 5 months!
Will we be able to do a apt-get dist-upgrade kinda thing to upgrade to core 2 when it comes out? Or will I have to reinstall or upgrade using CDs?
Reminds me of Mozilla. Always a Beta of someone’s product. Never meant to stand alone, only provide a base of testers for free. Not that Red Hat is AOL.
Is there going to be a Fedora-stable?
Actually It’s been possible (with some issues) for some time.
Some time ago I installed RH8.0 on a headless server. Then I upgraded it to RH9.0 using apt-get (AFAIR, I had to manually rebuild rpm database + force some packages because of broken dependencies).
Then I dist-upgraded RH9.0 to FC1. It went quite smooth and now I’ve got FC1 and rpm –verify says that the packages are correct.
I guess that FC1->FC2 should have no problems at all. The only problems I foresee are because of third party RPMs which may not be 100% compatible.
yep.. its Fedora Core 1 at this time. Been using it since its release, not an issue to have been had yet.
Sounds good. I’ve been using RH since 1999 but I’m not a techie just the std. desktop user that everybody says they need.
There are set releases (ie Fedora Core 1), but nothing following the usual “Stable” as in only uses mature components, and is supported for a long time.
Fedora Core 2 wants to jump to kernel 2.6 as soon as possible (could be a disaster — wait ’til 2.6.5 at least!), but the external and as-yet-unproven “Fedora Legacy” sub-project may keep the older release running a bit longer.
I might fell in love for Fedora if they ship my desired 2.6 kernel. Huhuhu. Go Red Hat
I tried putting redhat 8,9 and fedora on three of my friends computers. But I was embarrased by how slow redhat was. I couldn’t understand it. My computer running debian was atleast twice as fast (running the same software). So my question is, when is fedora going to tackle speed issues? Has anyone else noticed that redhat is significantly slower than other distros?
i find that this works just fine for speeding up fedora
http://www.linux-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11
that, plus run ntsysv and disable some un-needed services
hth
cheers
anyweb
Fedora tends to leave a lot of services running. Turning some of them off is helpful. Also, the current nVidia drivers don’t install correctly, which can really kill performance on some systems – the beta ones apparently fix this, BTW. Oh, and the “turn on DMA” tip is excellent. RedHat doesn’t turn on DMA by default – it’s up to you to add it.
I’ve not seen any serious performance issues with those fixes enabled. Kind of annoying to do all those fixes, I admit, but they’re fairly simple, and you only do ’em once.
Anyways, nice sexy targets like 2.6 and SELinux should give Fedora some much-needed positive publicity. I must admit that I kind of doubt 99% of people will actually USE the special features of SELinux, but hey, it’s fun to have!
-Erwos
Can anybody say whether the SELinux modification makes a dramatic improvement in security?
Have they fixed the Add/Remove apps program in FC2 betas?
Short answer: yes, provided the administrator knows how to make use of it correctly.
Long answer: read the FAQ (http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/faq.html).
It’s been fixed for a while now, check FC1 updates.
“Oh, and the “turn on DMA” tip is excellent. RedHat doesn’t turn on DMA by default – it’s up to you to add it.”
Heh.. that hasn’t been true for me for *years*.
Fedora Core 1 came with DMA enabled for all my IDE devices right out of the box, no tweak necessary.
“You can have the 2.6 kernel, what difference does it make? There are NO applications of anyuse in Linux other than the same old crummy ones with no functionality. Same old story, just use Windows…”
Well, I have a PC with an ASUS MOBO A7V8X-X and it comes with 4 or 6 USB ports. Every distro that I have tried on it with the exception of Knoppix has problems with this USB setup. As the new kernel seems to have better USB support that’s another shot at running linux again. Thank you
“You can have the 2.6 kernel, what difference does it make? There are NO applications of anyuse in Linux other than the same old crummy ones with no functionality. Same old story, just use Windows…”
Under Windows, for web browsing, I use Mozilla Firebird. For IMing I use gaim, for Document processing, I use OpenOffice.org, as I find these the best three applications to get my “work” done. But, wait, I also have all these applications under Linux, plus the stability and configurability I like. I could pay a lot of money to upgrade to XP to obtain mabye some more stability. But I can get that and more in Linux for free. When I boot up my computer, and it comes to that good ol’ Grub boot loader, I choose the option based on weather I feel like playing some game that obviously isn’t yet available for linux or not.
As for Fedora Core 2, this has gave me something to look forward too. I certainly can’t wait to try out Linux 2.6 and hopefully Gnome 2.6 also (mabye someone could update me on this. I checked out the gnome website but couldn’t figure out a proposed release date)
while gnome 2.6 isn’t out, just take your kernel of kernel.org, bam, you’ve 2.6 and it’s faily simple imho… debian even has images of it, if you’re not able to compile your own kernel (again, fairly simple)
it’s not like if it was a fedora primor or whatever.. actually i use 2.6 and gnome 2.5 on gentoo, there are ebuilds for all that so that’s cool. same goes for kde3.2 btw
no need for redhat for that stuff
that’s cool they will include it, others will too, that’s all
(or have almost already)
What is the performance impact of a system running SELinux? Will it be possible to disable or turn off SELinux?
I have been generally happy with the security on my linux systems. Admittedly I don’t know much about SELinux but I’m not interested in cluttering up my system or running anti virus type software if I don’t need to.
I agree here, why does the hobbiest want SELinux?
—-
Why do I even want sendmail?
I don’t choose to install it, it installs itself, even on a minimal install without X or any other app.
I try to remove it and then I get some other app, post something it is called.
Why don’t they just strip down this distro completely and offer the extra packages to other people who know what they are and need them.
I even think there minimal install is to big!
mozilla is now focusing on the end user, so it’s no longer true that they’re perpetually someone else’s beta product.
anyway that’s OT. looks like fedora is really designed to be upgraded to new versions very rapidly since its main purpose is to be a breeding ground of new stuff that red hat wants to inject into linux. if that’s fine by you, no problem. if that’s not fine with you, you have a lot of linux/bsd alternatives to choose from
I have not had the pleasant experience most people had with Fedora. As a matter of fact, the thing wouldn’t boot (it complaing that the language.png was missing, so there was no GDM). I ended up coming back to RH9. Maybe Core 2 will be a little different.
Actually, I use sendmail to… send mail on my laptop (my ISP doesn’t have a public SMTP server). So I’m really glad they install it by default. If I used Windows, by the way, I couldn’t send emails *at all* without using a webmail…
No ppc support planned, even though it is in the /development directory? That just sucks.
Well you r right when booting a message about the snaily speed of FC. And even with RH9, or provious versions.
Why?
-many services [ON]
-many scripts are created and they r quite complex (this is similar to Suse)
-GUI used to boot system,
-sysV init in nature it is not as simple as BSD init style and a bit slower
-binary RPM can not speed up and more responsiveness compared with a source install.
However, a new/modern system such Pentium IV would be fine with FC.
Lastword, I never see any Linux systems (RH, MDK, Suse, Debian, etc) which have a flash speed and quick resonsiveness like Slackware. Not only that, Slackware is very stable and less bugs (I tested quite carefully b4 make a switch from RH to Slackware)
I tried rhgb on RH9 when it was still in dev and it seemed really really slow. My boot time tripled!
I don’t understand why they don’t use bootsplash…
Well it is good that you find sendmail useful, as I am sure others do.
My problem is that it installs even though I don’t want it to.
When I remove it, postfix gets installed in its place. I don’t need either.
That’s all, I just want something more simple in the default install that could be built upon.
exactly-why do i would want to run a “secure” linux (or enhancements/patches to linux) from the _nsa_ (backdoor included?!).
that’s like the mafia sponsoring law enforcement, or the devil selling some tickets to heaven…
i mean, has anyone made a complete assessment of the source code before putting it into fedora-is it there by default?
with redhat becoming bigger an linux more important on the corprorate desktop, the nsa surely has an interest to gain access, no?
what would be better fitted for that purpose to an open-soure-environment than some allegded “security enhancements”?
even if not, i would use openbsd or something else which might be not as familiar to the nsa if i’d have to secure some real interesting stuff.
i _really_ hope this isn’t going in there by default.
“i _really_ hope this isn’t going in there by default”
You’re either really uninformed, a real troll, or possibly both. The NSA’s SELinux patches are a very good thing for both Linux and the people who use it. Unlike so many other hacks out there, this offers *REAL* security. I’m not one to trust people blindly, government orgs included, but the level of paranoia some of you people have is sickeningly amusing.
All SELinux is is a module that implements two things in the Linux kernel, “Type Enforcement” technology (developed by Secure Computing Corp. I believe), and “Role Based Access Control,” which basically eliminates the root user, and takes along with it the entire range of “root compromises.”
If you haven’t (properly) used SELinux or equivelent technology (like TrustedBSD on FreeBSD, or Trusted Solaris), then you haven’t used an especially secure system period.
One last thing, I know from netcraft that FreeBSD is being run on over two million active sites (not bad for an “obscure” project
and Linux has *WAY* more users than that, many of whom are developers. With SELinux being incorporated into the mainline 2.6 kernel (not to mention the fact that the source code has always been available since it’s initial release), I very highly doubt that this is some sort of evil government conspiracy to infultrate our homes, our work, or our freedom.
You’ll have to look to the DMCA (mostly corporately sponsored), and the “Patriot Act (sponsored by the folks you *REALLY* should be affraid of)” for that.
“You’re either really uninformed, a real troll, or possibly both”
neither nor – i’m just wondering that the nsa is obviously so concerned about the security of people’s (my) computers, means making effectively their own (main) job harder, even more so in the light of the “war on terror” and that linux is more and more used in countries like china which arent exactly friends of the us (not that the nsa isn’t also spying in countries like germany – someone has to rescue boeing…;-) etc.
“One last thing, I know from netcraft that FreeBSD is being run on over two million active sites (not bad for an “obscure” project
[…]”
i didn’t say that freebsd is “obscure”, that is, unless their patches aren’t submitted by the nsa also…
“(not to mention the fact that the source code has always been available since it’s initial release)”
which hopefully implies that someone competent and independent has thouroughly revised it, too…!
“I very highly doubt that this is some sort of evil government conspiracy to infultrate our homes, our work, or our freedom.”
just hope you’re right-but i still feel uncomfortable…
.