Fedora 7 - Enter the new world (Download links at bottom)

Its been quite a while since Fedora 7 was released (10 days is really a long long time). Im really eager to get dirty with it, especially since I heard about a lot of the major changes going on in features.

And while I wait for the distro to download fully, I thought ill share some insight here.

The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and community supported open source project.
Its goal is the rapid progress of free and open source software and content. It offers cutting edge softwares for desktop usage. The latest version of the popular Linux distribution has a lot to offer users and developers.

You might want to take a tour of the new and latest fedora 7 here.

A small note: Till now the Linux distribution was called "Fedora Core"....The core is now off and its simple fedora 7. And its power packed with features that make ur PC a lean machine!

The Exciting new features:

1.) Spins

This is a first for fedora. Spins are basically like distros. We've got millions of linux distributions out there and those that are built from the fedora base(or rather, are variations of fedora) are basically clubbed into a group, of which each member is a 'spin'.

Technically, they are variations of Fedora built from a specific set of software packages. Each spin has a combination of software to meet the requirements of a specific kind of end user.

There are mainly 3 spin choices.

• One is a GNOME and KDE desktop environment based bootable Live image for hassle free disk installation.
• The other one is the regular desktop image intended for desktops & servers. The adv with this is that its got a well documented and neat upgrade path for those using fc6 (fedora CORE 6!).
• And the last one is the set of dvds that have all the fedora repository you will need to install. (I said 'need' not 'want' :-P).

2.) A small boot.iso image for network installation.
Setting up fedora 7 in a lab is not a difficulty anymore!

3.) Desktop Environment

This release features GNOME 2.18 and KDE 3.5.6.
Read more about them here: GNOME 2.18, KDE 3.5.6
Ill be sticking to the standard Gnome Env while I prepare to get my hands dirty. (Its already 36% downloaded....:)

4.) Xorg server 1.3 included and ConsoleKit enhanced...

Xorg server promises hot diplay device plug-n-play capability. ConsoleKit integration promises fast user switching but we'll have to substantiate that ;)

5.) Some other Misc points worth noting:

• Firefox 2 includes a host of new features.
  
• Fedora 7 includes a refreshing new "Flying High" theme, which is part of a continuous team effort from the community and the Fedora Artwork Project:
• A new comprehensive graphical administration tool for SELinux, system-config-selinux is available by default in this release.
• nVidia Card holders: Fedora has arrived! It now integrates the experimental nouveau driver within Xorg and the kernel. The nouveau driver, which is disabled by default in this release, aims to provide free and open source 3D drivers for nVidia cards. The Fedora 7 team seeks comments on this inclusion for feedback on further such attempts. Do put in a line if you find it useful! we might well have more driver integration in future.
• This release integrates Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology with Fedora’s graphical virt-manager and command-line virsh tools. KVM provides a hardware accelerated virtualization solution, and users have a choice between KVM and Xen, along with Qemu, in this release.
• In this release, the performance of yum, Pirut, and Pup have been significantly improved.
• This release features integration of a new FireWire stack in the kernel for more robust device handling.
• Python 2.5 is included in this release, and all of the Python software available in the repository uses it. (Ill be starting my Python-learning-drive soon :) )
• This release of Fedora includes Liberation fonts, which are metric equivalents for several well-known proprietary fonts found throughout the Internet. These fonts give users better results when viewing and printing shared or downloaded documents.

6.) A Really exciting development (skip to the downloads section)
This is a truly exciting development.

Fedora now includes improved power management through implementation of dynamic ticks in the kernel

Humble as it may seem, it represents a generation of change in kernel development. Ill try to simplify what it means and the difference it will make.

There is a general trend among kernel developers to create a 'tickless' kernel for improved power efficiency. It abandons traditional time-keeping methods for a more power-friendly technique.

In simple terms...lemme put it this way. When you have multiple things(processes) running on your PC, there is a lot of scheduling that is being done .. and very frequently too. so then the kernel has to "check for work to be done" very frequently. And remember, our processors have capabilities ranging in gigahertz. So that means a Lot of checks are futile (no work to be done :( ).

The tickless kernel, instead of frequently checking for work to be done, schedules the hardware to interrupt when it knows a future job will require attention. Again simplifying it, you may say its like reaping the advantages of using interrupts rather than polling!

Ill write another detail post on this exciting technology some time later. For now, here are some download links:

Download Links

• Fedora 7 DVD ISO download
  - Visit mirror to download Fedora ISO images (2.7 GB)

• Fedora 7 DVD ISO BitTorrent download
  - Download from BitTorrent (requires a BitTorrent client)

• Fedora 7 Live CD ISO download
  - Use Live CD (700M) if internet connection is slow or you just want to see how Fedora works and looks in its new flavour. You can install fedora from Live cd (Thats the best part about this time's release. Nice work, fedora team!).
  

Upgrading from Fedora Core 6 to fedora 7 with YUM package.

With its improved YUM performance this release, Here is a very interesting Article describing the Upgrade for those of you already on the fedora bandwagon!

Alright...time to get my hands dirty with fedora!