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Plans for Fedora 7

Bill Nottingham has posted a draft plan for Fedora 7. It includes a generally-available release date of April 24 date. It also has a list of 25 objectives for this release, some objectives are more serious than others.

Naturally there are some milestones that will need to be met; three test releases scheduled for January 30, February 27 and March 26. Things that aren't ready by Test2 are not likely to be included in F7.

The number one objective is to merge the core and extras build system. Merging core and extras code in source control comes next. Once these tasks are completed it should be easier for the greater Fedora community to be involved in the process, and it looks like the Fedora team will need their help to achieve the remaining objectives. Jesse Keating's name shows up quite a bit on this list and he has already requested a few clones.

What else can we expect from Fedora 7? A desktop version (with GNOME), a server version, a KDE desktop version, faster user switching, rock solid wireless support and improved boot and shutdown speed, RPM/yum enhancements, RandR 1.2, and much more.

Some items on the list will not be achieved unless someone volunteers their time to do the work. Init system changes will not happen until someone manages to evaluate the current options; like upstart, launchd and initng and presents the advisory board with some options for Fedora. Encrypted filesystems and syslog-ng remain much requested items in search of a maintainer (or two).

What do you want in your Fedora?

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New Releases

Announcing Foresight Linux 0.9.9 (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop covers the release of Foresight Linux 0.9.9. "What is new in this release? Compiz is now included. Also included GnuCash, GnomeScan, and the synaptics driver. There have also been lots of version updates..."

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LFS LiveCDs 6.2-4 and 6.3-pre1 released

The Linux From Scratch LiveCD Team has announced the release of x86-6.2-4 and x86-6.3-pre1 versions of the LFS LiveCD. Both versions should be treated as betas, the stable release is still x86-6.2-3.

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Distribution News

Bits from the debian-cd team; more CD/DVDs being built regularly

The Debian CD team has lots of CD and DVD builds available. Some with "etch" packages, some with "sid" packages for different architectures and desktop choices. Click below to see what's available.

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RPM -- plans, goals, etc.

Red Hat's Max Spevack answers questions about the future of the RedHat Package Manager (RPM). "The Fedora Project is leading the creation of a new community around RPM. One in which the leaders can come from Fedora, from Red Hat, from Novell, from Mandriva, or from anywhere. Job #1 is to take the current RPM codebase and clean it up, and in doing so work with all the other people and groups who rely on RPM to build a first-rate upstream project."

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Fedora kernel-fu

Fedora users, especially those running Rawhide, may be interested in this posting by Dave Jones on what's happening with the Fedora kernel. "I spent lots of time last week beating the rawhide kernel into a shape where it may actually boot for some people. It's been a bit of a challenge. First, the big change is the migration away from the crusty old parallel ATA drivers to shiny new ones that use the same libata infrastructure as the SATA drivers. A side effect of this is that /dev/hda becomes /dev/sda. This isn't a problem if you're using 'mount by label' (which has been the default in Fedora since forever). If you aren't, well, it's going to be fun."

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FUDCon Boston 2007

The next Fedora Users and Developers Conference has been scheduled. "On Friday, February 2nd, Fedora enthusiasts will gather at Boston University for the annual appearance of the world-famous groundhog Fedora Phil. According to legend, if Fedora Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of Fedora test releases."

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"Lessons for Lizards" Start Today

"Lessons for Lizards" is a new way to learn about openSUSE. It is a documentation project for and by the community (licensed under GFDL) that will be released on an equal footing with the internally produced documentation. Lessons are written in a cook book style and cover more specific or exotic topics than the traditional manuals.

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Xandros alert: Red Hat Server System Administrators Needed for Beta Test

Xandros has put out a call to Red Hat Enterprise Server system administrators to sign-up for the beta testing of a new Xandros product. Xandros has new monitoring tools that will allow administrators to manage multiple Red Hat Enterprise servers on various hardware architectures.

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Distribution Newsletters

Fedora Weekly News Issue 71

This week in the Fedora Weekly News; RPM -- plans, goals, etc., Important Fixes in flash-plugin-7.0.69-2, Firefox Flicks on TV, Southern California Linux Expo ramps up registration, Fedora's Legacy Wanes, OpenOffice.org 2.1 Is Here, and much more.

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Gentoo Weekly Newsletter

The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for December 11, 2006 covers EFIKA board shipping, dbus news, CFLAGS for Core/Core 2 and several other topics.

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Ubuntu Weekly News #25

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for December 11, 2006 covers upcoming meetings, the Kubuntu Community Council Meeting, improvements to gdm accessibility, the Ubuntu bug squad, updates to Feisty, Mark's letter to OpenSUSE, Ubuntu Canada's first meeting, and much more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 182

The DistroWatch Weekly for December 18, 2006 is out. "With the year 2006 closing down on us rapidly, this seems like a good time to take a look at the world of Linux distributions and their evolution during the past year. Who has done the best job of bringing Linux to the desktops of new users? And which distributions are the losers of the increased competition among the different projects, all vying for our attention? As always, opinions are likely to vary, but some trends aren't difficult to spot. In the news section: Fedora looks to regain control over the RPM Package Manager, KNOPPIX promises a new version of its live CD, Debian publishes a release update, and Arch Linux announces an easy-to-install CD for desktop users. Finally, warm wishes of a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to all DistroWatch readers! See you again in 2007!"

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Package updates

Fedora updates

Updates for Fedora Core 6: coreutils (bug fixes), mutt (bug fixes), ORBit2 (bug fix), desktop-printing (bug fix), poppler (add subpackages for poppler Qt bindings), bouncycastle (update to 1.34), libnotify (fix dependencies and typos), rsh (loads pam_env.conf file correctly), gdb (bug fix), vnc (bug fixes), irqbalance (bug fix), nfs-utils (stopped v4 umounts from ping rpc.mountd), libiec61883 (update to 1.1.0), checkpolicy (rebuild for new libraries), libselinux (fix matchpathcon to lstat files), policycoreutils (update po files), selinux-policy (bug fixes), cpuspeed (bug fixes), mkinitrd (update needed for kernel-2.6.19), autofs (bug fixes), util-linux (bug fixes), perl-PDL (fix release tag)scim (bug fixes), am-utils (bug fixes), gnome-vfs2 (fix crash on smb authentication), e2fsprogs (bug fix), iproute (upgrade to 2.6.19), php (bug fixes and packaging enhancements), libdrm (update to 2.3.0).

Updates for Fedora Core 5: java-1.4.2-gcj-compat (import Bouncy Castle 1.34), cpuspeed (fix latest acpi-cpufreq bugs), libiec61883 (update to 1.1.0), fontconfig (add -ppc64 patch).

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Mandriva updates

Mandriva has updated sendmail (bug fix) for ML 2006.0, Corporate Server 3.0 & 4.0 and Multi Network Firewall 2.0.

Updates for Mandriva Linux 2007.0: evolution-sharp (bug fix), hal (bug fix).

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Trustix updates

Updates for Trustix Secure Linux 2.2 & 3.0: mrtg, openssh (various bug fixes).

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Ubuntu updates

Updates for Ubuntu 6.10: gnome-system-tools (bug fixes), gnome-panel (bug fixes), gnome-applets (bug fixes), gnome-netstatus (bug fixes), system-tools-backends (bug fixes), synaptic (bug fixes), k3d (bug fixes), openoffice.org (bug fixes).

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Newsletters and articles of interest

Learning Ubuntu made easy (Linux.com)

Linux.com looks at UbuntuClips.org. "Good documentation has helped keep the two-year-old Ubuntu project among the most popular Linux distributions. To complement the traditional venues for help, such as FAQs, HOWTOs, bulletin boards, and mailing lists, Ubuntu uses interactive forums such as Internet Relay Chat to conduct training classes for new users. Now add UbuntuClips.org to the list of helpful sites. This project, not associated with Ubuntu, combines the best of Linux screencasting tools and video-sharing portals to offer audio/video clips that lead new users through common tasks."

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Debian Networking for Basic and Advanced Users (Debian Admin)

Debian Admin has a tutorial on networking. "If you are new to networking the graphical configuration tool is your best method for configuring new hardware in Debian.We are going to use GUI tool "network-admin" to configure networking. Remember, you must be root to run network-admin."

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The Perfect Setup - OpenSuSE 10.2 (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge sets up a server with OpenSUSE 10.2. "This is a detailed description about how to set up an OpenSuSE 10.2 based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (web server (SSL-capable), mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS!), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.)."

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Setting Up A PXE Install Server For Multiple Linux Distributions With Ubuntu Edgy Eft (HowtoForge)

HowtoForge sets up a PXE install server. "This tutorial shows how to set up a PXE (short for preboot execution environment) install server with Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft). A PXE install server allows your client computers to boot and install a Linux distribution over the network, without the need of burning Linux iso images onto a CD/DVD, boot floppy images, etc. This is handy if your client computers don't have CD or floppy drives, or if you want to set up multiple computers at the same time (e.g. in a large enterprise), or simply because you want to save the money for the CDs/DVDs. In this article I show how to configure a PXE server that allows you to boot multiple distributions: Ubuntu Edgy/Dapper, Debian Etch/Sarge, Fedora Core 6, CentOS 4.4, OpenSuSE 10.2, and Mandriva 2007."

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Distribution reviews

Xubuntu Gets Edgy (O'ReillyNet)

Here's a review on O'ReillyNet of the Edgy Eft release of Xubuntu. "Edgy Eft (version 6.10), the second release of Xubuntu, a variant of Ubuntu Linux built around the Xfce4 desktop and designed to be lightweight, was released in October. I've been using it since then and I've been impressed. The bugs and rough edges seen in the first release, Dapper Drake (6.06) are gone and the end result is a solid, reliable distribution that's a pleasure to use."

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Review: Xandros Desktop OS 4.1 Professional (Linux.com)

Linux.com reviews Xandros Desktop OS 4.1 Professional. "A few weeks ago, Xandros released an update of its Business Desktop OS with a number of new features, including 3-D effects and desktop search. The 3-D effects fell flat in my tests, but I found the distro to be a pretty good OS if you're looking for a Windows replacement."

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