Fedora 7 Features

Fedora 7 was originally scheduled to be released on May 24, 2007. That target slipped a week, to May 31, 2007, so it may be out by the time you read this article. Fedora 7 has been called "the most ambitious release of Fedora that we've undertaken". The merger of Core and Extras alone was an ambitious project, and F7 has much more.

Not all of the features that were targeted for Fedora 7 made it in, but very many new features will be found in this release. Here's a list of some of the new features in Fedora 7:

• Consolidated dictionaries for each language - instead of a separate dictionary for OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird and aspell there is only one dictionary shared by these applications.
• Eclipse plugins.
• Fast User Switching allows multiple desktop sessions that are easily switched between without logging out.
• An Install Everything spin for those who want it all.
• A KDE spin for those who want KDE and not GNOME.
• The Prime spin can be used for a desktop/workstation/developer/server install.
• The ability to create a Targeted spin - include only the packages you want without the clutter.
• An improved firewire stack.
• Support for KVM in the kernel and virtualization tools.
• F7 uses libata for parallel ATA support, instead of the 'old-ide' stack.
• Installable Live CDs and DVDs.
• Core and Extras merged into a single CVS root and a single build system.
• A snapshot of the nouveau driver.
• RPM and Yum Enhancements.
• The default kernel is tickless for improved power management.
• Bodhi is the new Fedora Update System, rewritten for the new combined universe.
• Pungi is used for tree building instead of the internal builddistro/etc scripts.
• More wireless firmware support.
• Smolt is a hardware reporting tool that will allow Fedora developers to understand the hardware that Fedora runs on better.

Additional documentation for Fedora can be found here.

---

(Log in to post comments)