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Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff!
After some minor delays (like all rawhide flights grounded for a few days of repair...), the Fedora Project is proud to announce the release of Fedora 9 Preview! This is a Preview release, it is fairly close to what the final product will be like. This is the most critical release for the Fedora community to use and test and report bugs on. This is the last major public release before the final GOLD Fedora 9 release on May 13th (we hope). For this Preview release, we will be doing a staged offering. The first stage, available now, will be via bittorrent. The second stage, which should be available early next week, will be via our world wide mirroring system, and will include jigdo. Live images, KDE Live images, CDs and DVD options are available. http://torrent.fedoraproject.org has a section marked "F9-Preview". Please us bugzilla to report any problems you find (after making sure that somebody else hasn't already reported the issues). Thanks again for all the great testing work that the greater community does throughout our development cycle! You make Fedora possible. You are Fedora! -- Jesse Keating Fedora -- All my bits are free, are yours? -- fedora-announce-list mailing list fedora-announce-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-announce-list (Log in to post comments)
Great headline! Posted Apr 18, 2008 18:35 UTC (Fri) by heinlein (guest, #1029) [Link] Best-ever headline for an LWN article! Backwards, it sounds like "Windows is dead, man!"
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 8:59 UTC (Sat) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] I just booted up the Fedora Preview live cd to see if it does better than Ubuntu with PulseAudio, the reason being that in Ubuntu sound stutters if your CPU isn't very powerful (typically when you minimize/maximize a window or some other activity that causes a brief spike in CPU). Here is the bug, which I guess won't be fixed before release: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/190754 Sadly I was unable to test PulseAudio on the Fedora 9 Preview. First, I couldn't get my microphone to work, even after fiddling with all the little options for quite a while (note that this is a desktop - the mic hardware is very standard). So no luck in recording something then play it back to see if it was smooth under CPU load. Next I tried to go to one of my existing partitions, to play a music file from there. Fedora wasn't able to mount them, and gave an embarrassing error message, I don't remember the exact words, but something along the lines of "Don't show these error messages". And the Fedora live cd doesn't come with any sound samples in the Music or Movies folders. It was worth a shot. So I have no idea how well PulseAudio works in Fedora, sadly, because I was considering installing it if it did better than Ubuntu Hardy, whose stuttering sound bug is quite annoying. Looks like I'll stick with Ubuntu for now.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 9:59 UTC (Sat) by Felix_the_Mac (guest, #32242) [Link] Have you tried the -rt kernel available from Ubuntu (in Synaptic) to see if it helps?
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 10:15 UTC (Sat) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] To be honest, fiddling with kernels and kernel options isn't really my area of expertise, I don't feel comfortable doing it. More likely I'd mess something else up than fix anything. Part of this is the reason why I like Ubuntu, things generally work out of the box. But not this time.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 13:36 UTC (Sat) by Felix_the_Mac (guest, #32242) [Link] You would just need to install the linux-rt package through Synaptic Package Manager and then select the -rt kernel when you reboot. No fiddling required! Worth 10 minutes to test I would suggest :-)
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 16:41 UTC (Sat) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Ok, if it's that simple why not... Tested it. No improvement, sound still stutters and crackles when moving between windows, etc.
Audio stutter and the -rt kernel Posted Apr 19, 2008 18:21 UTC (Sat) by Felix_the_Mac (guest, #32242) [Link] Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I should say at this point that I am nothing more than an -rt fanboy and don't have much knowledge on the subject. So take anything I say with a grain of salt and I would welcome correction from more knowledgeable readers. I have often wondered whether the mere act of running the -rt kernel will provide a more responsive system albeit with lower total throughput (and pondered whether it should therefore become the default desktop install). Or whether, on the other hand, to gain appreciable benefit you have to: a) have a workload suited to its purpose b) tune your system (primarily through nice) to produce benefits. The single data point that you have provided me with leans to the second position. (Unsurprisingly) So to give you some more of my ignorant suggestions ... to address your problem maybe you need to run PulseAudio with a priority above the default. Potentially that could work on the standard kernel and/or -rt kernel. Have you tried nice?
Audio stutter and the -rt kernel Posted Apr 19, 2008 18:25 UTC (Sat) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] No, I didn't try nice or any other priority tinkering. Mainly because I'm not really knowledgeable about the fine details. But also because I presume that if this were a simple case of changing priorities, then the bug could be fixed, but people have worked hard to no avail (judging by the comments).
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 15:08 UTC (Sat) by michich (subscriber, #17902) [Link] PulseAudio works for me nicely in F8 and F9. The sound skips you're seeing could be related to a scheduler bug which was patched by Ingo Molnar right before the release of Linux 2.6.25. 2.6.25-1 is now in Fedora 9.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 16:16 UTC (Sat) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] Thanks for the heads up. I've noticed audio 'pops' (not sure how to describe them and thus googling has been a fruitless task) when Pulseaudio grabs the audio device either at startup or after a period of idleness. This isn't a bug report, just an observation. More on topic. I've been following Fedora Rawhide after a number of years snug in Ubuntu's arms and it was frighteningly unstable initially but it is very close to upstream sources which is exciting and yum/pup/pirut/whatever aren't as bad as I remember them though they're still nowhere near Ubuntu's version of dpkg/apt-get/synaptic/yada with the trigger patches and what have you. One perplexing puzzle I have with Fedora 9 is that gdmsetup seems to have vanished and I can't work out how to automatically log in as my default user. You'll probably say that this is a bad idea but to be honest if somebody has access to your machine they can log in easily as root using grub can't they? The gdm documentation is out of date I believe. For me the 'Year of the Linux Desktop' has been and gone :) It is interesting that Fedora avoids OpenOffice by default. As a result I've briefly flirted with Abiword and Gnumeric and they're both great apps. I'd imagine they don't have the breadth of file support that OpenOffice has, especially when compared to the Novell Suse version, say. Shoot me down if I'm wrong. Finally: I had to set Selinux to permissive mode because it was interfering with npviewer.bin, Pulseaudio, Skype and a couple of other things that escape my memory right at this moment and I couldn't fix the problems even though I followed the advice of the Selinux troubleshooter so I eventually gave up and turned it half-off. Yeah I know, I suck. I lose. I can see why some folks are enamoured with AppArmor. *ducks*. Regarding Skype: I know that it's proprietary but it just gained webcam support and at least they have a native Qt/Alsa/Xv/V4l version, no? I know some of you think that I'll go to hell for using it but I don't care! I'd like to say thanks to all who contribute to Fedora. "Thank you."
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 17:13 UTC (Sat) by michich (subscriber, #17902) [Link] Yeah, pup/pirut are very simplistic tools. They're gone in F9 anyway, replaced by PackageKit. And have you seen yumex? The new gdm has been heavily rewritten, and gdmsetup hasn't been completed for it yet. I don't remember if OOo is installed by default or not, but it's certainly available.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 22:25 UTC (Sat) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] Okay :) pup/pirut were here until not so long ago! They've been took away. Oiks. I've noticed PackageKit. It's got style and it's goals are laudable. I see this *Kit trend with Gnome - cute. yumex: I recognise it from one of my colleague's desktops. I'll check it out. Heh, I just did a 'yum search yum'. Never thought about doing that before. Whoa - crikey! 'yum install yum-fastestmirror'. Why isn't this installed by default? I wish I had discovered this six months ago. OOo is not installed by default. I think the reason may be political. Though that remark could be way off the, er, mark. Both Abiword and Gnumeric are very Gnomic, no? OOo _is_ certainly available. 'yum install openoffice.org-writer openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-base' which would approximate to what is installed by default in Ubuntu yields a total size download of 123MB. And it wants to install Tomcat. I am _allergic_ to Tomcat - I had to configure it one time too many in work.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 23:13 UTC (Sat) by skvidal (subscriber, #3094) [Link] Open office is not on the live CD b/c if we included it then the livecd would not fit on a CD any longer :) Nothing political - just trying to get under the cd size-barrier.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 18:49 UTC (Sat) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] You mention the triggers support in dpkg fork in Ubuntu but note that RPM has triggers for a long time. While it isn't used much in Fedora, it can be quite handy indeed. Similarly RPM also supports multi-lib and file based dependencies. GDM in Fedora is a new rewrite http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewGdm It supports nice features like smoother interaction, power management and accessibility even from the login screen and others. There are still some missing pieces however. For voice and video support, you might want to consider Empathy which just recently gained these features. Also SELinux issues are quickly handled in fedora-selinux list and bugzilla. General issues with the pre releases can be discussed in fedora-test list too. Lastly, you are quite welcome. Keep providing us more feedback esp on the mailing lists where developers interact often.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 20, 2008 13:46 UTC (Sun) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] Hi there, Multi-lib clearly rocks. I avoided Fedora 64-bit because of the pain I had with Ubuntu 64-bit. I will re-install and try it out when F9 hits the mirrors because I feel like my Athlon 64 is going to waste :) Ah, the new GDM looks cool. If I may be so bold though, I consider the lack of a GUI tool to configure GDM a regression. Maybe the new inproved GDM should have been held back by one release until all the pieces were in place? An internet search reveals that I am not the only one wondering what happened. It's not a big deal. I was just surprised and I have been forced to learn a bit more about Gconf than I wanted to! I will follow F10 using the mailing lists and Bugzilla as you suggest.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 20:04 UTC (Sat) by dany (subscriber, #18902) [Link] Hi, don't worry you dont suck! Not only you is turning off SELINUX, even experienced admins, who need to install commercial software do the same. Not so long time ago, there was article pointer about selinux here at lwn (and i think source was from ibm developer webpage). Well, it was so bloated, that I could't understand those "simple" examples. Your ego should be ok now :-)
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 20:19 UTC (Sat) by dany (subscriber, #18902) [Link] Just to be complete, I found that SELINUX article. http://lwn.net/Articles/269372/
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 20:40 UTC (Sat) by michich (subscriber, #17902) [Link] That article was about how a security expert would implement a custom security policy. It was not about everyday life on a SELinux enabled system. :-)
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 22:48 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Serge started the article with a quote talking about simplifying administration. I finished it wondering how hellish complex the administration could have been beforehand if *that* made it simpler...
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 20, 2008 0:36 UTC (Sun) by michich (subscriber, #17902) [Link] Serge probably had a different meaning of "administration" in mind than you. He meant the kind of administration where you actively take advantage of SELinux and confine your custom applications by writing MAC policies for them. You do this by adding SELinux types, roles and rules. If you find it too difficult, then don't do it. You can simply run your application unconfined, while leaving at least all the usual daemons in their confined domains. But writing completely new SELinux policies is not what the vast majority of administrators have a need to do (but if they do, they can start with the SELinux Policy Generation GUI tool).
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 20:36 UTC (Sat) by michich (subscriber, #17902) [Link] Here's some documentation how to configure gdm. Automatic login works for me after I put these lines into /etc/gdm/custom.conf:[daemon] TimedLoginEnable=true TimedLogin=michich TimedLoginDelay=10
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 20, 2008 13:25 UTC (Sun) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] Thanks michich. Perfect.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 22, 2008 15:13 UTC (Tue) by wtogami (subscriber, #32325) [Link] > Finally: I had to set Selinux to permissive mode because it was > interfering with npviewer.bin, Pulseaudio, Skype and a couple of > other things that escape my memory right at this moment and > I couldn't fix the problems even though I followed the advice of > the Selinux troubleshooter so I eventually gave up and turned > it half-off. Reminder: You are using a nightly snapshot. Things will break, get fixed the next day. In this particular case selinux-policy broke a few days in rawhide. It was fixed in subsequent updates, however the previous break was such that an upgrade wouldn't automatically fix it. New installs are fine however. getsebool -a |grep nsplugin allow_nsplugin_execmem --> on allow_unconfined_nsplugin_transition --> off Make sure these two booleans are set this way to make nspluginwrapper work. Regarding skype, I dunno. It works for me with defaults.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted May 12, 2008 5:59 UTC (Mon) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] Awesome. Thanks.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 19, 2008 18:44 UTC (Sat) by Felix_the_Mac (guest, #32242) [Link] AFAICS, that bug would only have affected people running 2.6.25-rc5 <> 2.6.25.0
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 20, 2008 7:07 UTC (Sun) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link] You may also want to try UbuntuStudio, which is an Ubuntu derivative designed for audio/video work (see http://ubuntustudio.org/) - it includes a low latency kernel, which also ensures that the main program you're working on gets most of the CPU. However, it's not a panacea - see discussion here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=442942 which indicates that for slower CPUS, Dynebolic may be better. Dynebolic (see http://dynebolic.org/) is a live CD that has many neat-looking features, and claims to run in 64 MB, which I'm a bit sceptical about since they use XFCE not Fluxbox/JWM - I've found that Damn Small Linux works OK in 96 MB as long as I don't run very large apps.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 24, 2008 20:13 UTC (Thu) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] Does anyone know how UbuntuStudio 8.04 handles JACK? AFAIK Ubuntu has switched to using PulseAudio by default, but last time I checked, their pulseaudio package does not have JACK sink/source modules because JACK is in universe.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 21, 2008 4:25 UTC (Mon) by charris (subscriber, #13263) [Link] I attempted takeoff, but met major turbulence and crashed. 1) It took two tries before the DVD booted, it hung the first time. 2) The install program hung in a loop after checking the DVD. 3) Anaconda came up in the wrong screen resolution. 4) Annoying popups covered the city names in the time setting map. 5) Anaconda crashed while I was selecting custom install partitions. That did it for me. I hope the final release clears up these problems, but time is short.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 21, 2008 7:59 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] Do file bug reports. Hope doesn't accomplish stuff without associated action.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 22, 2008 0:52 UTC (Tue) by rarecactus (guest, #51688) [Link] If your CD is scratchy, or your drive is on its last legs, it will often just "go out to lunch" when the OS asks for information. Often this will be accompanied by wheezing or scratching noises as it tries to spin up and fails, over and over. On older hardware, it takes a few tries before the machine will boot off of a CD-- any CD. Laptop CD drives are the worst-- the older ones will sometimes even choke on factory-pressed CDs. Every time I try to install a new OS, I invariably get checksum errors on my install media. Never fails. The moral of the story? DVD/CD drives are flaky. Burned discs were always a semi-standard hack. Just do a min-install by CD and then pull everything else from the network. Much less hassle.
Number 9, number 9. Fedora 9 Preview has been cleared for takeoff! Posted Apr 22, 2008 15:28 UTC (Tue) by crimsun (subscriber, #13750) [Link] As I stated in that bug report, the issues lie not with PulseAudio but with the particular kernel config in -generic for Ubuntu.
My review of Fedora 9 Preview Posted Apr 20, 2008 4:27 UTC (Sun) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] I wrote up a mini-review of Fedora 9 Preview which can be found here:http://www.montanalinux.org/fedora-9-preview-review.html Enjoy. Obligatory quote: One new feature that I am excited about is the LiveUSB with persistant data. While the ability to create a LiveUSB stick from the LiveCD media has been a feature of Fedora for a while, the ability to have persitant data is new. For more info on that, see the interview with Jeremy Katz in Red Hat Magazine. I originally thought that the persistant data feature was only for user data but as it turns out it applies to the complete system... so not only can you store your documents... but you can also install updates, new applications, create accounts, and save settings. There is nothing special you have to do... it works just like a hard drive would.
My review of Fedora 9 Preview Posted Apr 20, 2008 17:43 UTC (Sun) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] I've also got the live "CD" on a USB device with persistent storage. As you point out, it would be nice to find out how to make the updated kernel boot, though.My guess is that the updated kernel is installed in the wrong place and has to be copied to vmlinuz0 in the syslinux directory, but I haven't tried that yet.
My review of Fedora 9 Preview Posted Apr 21, 2008 22:47 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] A followup on the above: it should be possible to replace the kernel and the initrd from the /syslinux directory to update the stick, but the problem is that the initrd installed by "yum upgrade" in /boot is the wrong kind of initrd for a live "CD": it's only half the size and is missing a number of things. So a replacement initrd would be needed to go with the new kernel.
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