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Fedora 17 released
"At the heat of a thousand hot dog cookers, the seventeenth release of Fedora shall be forged by contributors the world over, and it will be known as: Beefy Miracle. The mustard shall indicate progress. For six months, participants in the Fedora Project shall freely contribute to the release of the distribution, in the spirit of the Four Foundations -- Freedom, Friends, Features, and First -- and moreover, they shall relish in Fun, as a community without Fun would be like a day without sunshine. Upon release, a free and open source operating system shall be available to all, catering to a variety of tastes -- those of end-users, systems administrators, and developers, with a common thread that binds them all: No, not their love for hot dogs, silly, as we certainly know that Fedora shall be created and used by those whose dietary preference could be either Beefy or Leafy. Freedom, my friends, Freedom is the Great Condiment, which shall enable all users of the Beefy Miracle to Create, Share, and Do." -- The Book of Sauerkraut, Chapter 12, Verse 529 The Beefy Miracle hath arrived. Behold, for it is available to download now: http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora And lo, detailed information about this release can be seen in the release notes: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Releas... == Condiments == Frankly, we believe this is the beefiest release ever -- chock full of condiments, more commonly known as Features, to customize your experience to your tastes. We take pride in our toppings, and in our fine ingredients; Fedora 17 includes both over- and under-the-bun improvements that show off the power and flexibility of the advancing state of free (range) software. On the desktop: GNOME 3.4 introduces many user experience improvements, including new search capabilities in the activities overview, improved themes, and enhancements to the Documents and Contacts applications. A new application, GNOME-boxes, provides easy access to virtual machines. Additionally, GIMP 2.8, the newest version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program, brings new improvements, such as single-window mode, layer groups, and on-canvas editing. For developers: You never sausage a great array of development tools! Fedora 17 includes a pre-release of Juno, the release of the Eclipse SDK expected in June 2012. Java 7 (and OpenJDK 7) is the default Java runtime and Java build toolset, and GCC 4.7.x is now the primary compiler in Fedora. Other language refreshes include shipping Ruby 1.9.3, the latest stable version of the Ruby language; PHP 5.4, the latest PHP stack; an update of Erlang to the R15 release; and the D language has been updated to the 2.058 release. Under the hood, and in the cloud: Serving up hot dogs all day long? Increase your reliability and versatility with the new enhancements to the clustering stack in Fedora 17. Load balancing and high availability improvements have been made, allowing systems administrators to deploy Fedora in environments requiring greater availability and clustered file systems. JBoss Application Server (AS) 7 has also been added to Fedora 17; this fast, lightweight, and modular application server allows you to run full Java EE applications. oVirt, a server virtualization management system with advanced capabilities for hosts and guests, is also included. The automatic multi-seat feature enables multiple, concurrent end-users to utilize a desktop from a single machine, which any systems administrator can relish. And we couldn't possibly write this without talking about our foray into Hot Dogs as a Service (HDaaS)... oh, just kidding, we just had to make a cloudy joke. In all seriousness, though, OpenStack, a collection of services that can be used to set up and run cloud compute and storage infrastructure, has been updated to the latest release, 2012.1 (Essex), in Fedora 17. Ketchup with the full list of features for Fedora 17 here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/17/FeatureList === Download and Upgrade === Fedora 17: It's bun-believable. Get it now: http://get.fedoraproject.org If you are upgrading from a previous release of Fedora, refer to: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading Fedora 17 full release notes and guides for several languages are available at: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/ Fedora 17 common bugs are documented at: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F17_bugs === Fedora Spins === Fedora spins are alternate version of Fedora, tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application set or customizations. They can be found at: http://spins.fedoraproject.org == Contributing == There are many ways to contribute beyond bug reporting. You can help translate software and content, test and give feedback on software updates, write and edit documentation, design and do artwork, help with all sorts of promotional activities, and package free software for use by millions of Fedora users worldwide. To get started, visit http://join.fedoraproject.org today! == Behold, the history of His Meatiness == Who is this Beefy Miracle character? Ketchup on his history: http://beefymiracle.org/history.html == Contact information == Journalists and reporters can find additional information at: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Press Cheers, and enjoy. -Robyn -- announce mailing list announce@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/announce (Log in to post comments)
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 15:34 UTC (Tue) by apoelstra (subscriber, #75205) [Link]
Brilliant! I laughed at "Freedom is the Great Condiment".
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 16:32 UTC (Tue) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link]
Great, but should we remain hopeful to get Cinnamon flavor as a side?
It is elegant and works fine with my F16.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 16:53 UTC (Tue) by nirik (subscriber, #71) [Link]
It's under review: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=771252
Once it passes it should be available in Fedora.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 19:43 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
FYI
I noticed that they strongly recommend using a anaconda upgrade for Fedora 17 as it's 'special'.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading_Fedora_using_yum
I was going to try to use yum because I am using btrfs subvolumes for root and home, but I'll guess I'll have to take my chances with anaconda.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 19:57 UTC (Tue) by tnluker (guest, #1086) [Link]
"2.4.3. btrfs
btrfs is not available as a target file system during installation. This is a temporary situation and will be resolved in Fedora 18. btrfs is still available after installation."
I don't know if this affects upgrades but something to be aware of in case you need to reinstall.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 19:59 UTC (Tue) by kalev (guest, #58246) [Link]
Yum upgrades actually work fine, just need to follow special instructions at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading_Fedora_using_yum...
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 22:51 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Not sure whether a problem with "kernel panic" on reboot was fixed, but here is a heads up for you anyway. I hit it on 3 machines where I did upgrade using yum:
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-May/1...
Just in case you don't have "hands" to push that power button for you.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 30, 2012 10:48 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
> I was going to try to use yum because I am using btrfs subvolumes for root and home, but I'll guess I'll have to take my chances with anaconda.
Could you please elaborate? Maybe explain a tiny bit what brtfs subvolumes are.
It's definitely possible to preserve "normal" disk partitions with Anaconda.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 30, 2012 14:09 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> Maybe explain a tiny bit what brtfs subvolumes are.
Btrfs allows you to pool storage volumes together in a manner similar to LVM.
Although, I believe, it operates at a logical data/file system layer rather then block layer like LVM does. This allows you to do fancy things like stripe your metadata using a 'RAID10' and make your data 'RAID1'. Another distinct advantage to this is that your volumes don't have to match sizes or be of even numbers. So I can create a 'RAID1' array of a 500GB disk drive with a 1TB disk drive and a third 2TB disk drive. The file system just logically makes sure that any hunk of data is available on at least two devices. Newer versions of Btrfs allow you to rebalance and restripe your volumes on the fly in addition to being able to remove and add storage devices whenever you feel like it.
Btrfs allows you to break up your pool into separate file systems. Each with their own metadata and other such things in their own namespace. These divisions are called 'subvolumes'. By using subvolumes you can take easier advantage of features like snapshotting, different mount options, quotas, and the like.
If you look at the 'root' btrfs volume then subvolumes will show up as things that are like "/.subvolname". Although you can individually mount them and access them without first mounting the root subvolume.
So on my 'home system' which I use to house many KVM guests in addition to being my main desktop system I have, IIRC, 3 1TB drives combined with 2 2TB drives in a BTRFS storage pool.
The various file systems that I use shows up on the btrfs root volume as:
The initrd for Fedora is sufficiently btrfs-aware that I can specify that it use a subvolume to be mounted as '/' for my OS during boot up.
Now the problem with Anaconda that I have ran into the past is that is unless it's able to support the file systems I am using that I cannot seem to be able to use it to install or upgrade Fedora.
I would like it if I could just tell Anaconda to skip the whole disk formatting and mounting BS and just use something like /mount/target/ and let me figure out how to setup the file systems after it's done it's install. If I could do that then that would be the preferred method for upgrading my OS as I can use a live CD to setup the volumes how I want it and then just use Anaconda from there.
I haven't really looked into it too deeply right now and as far as I know the 'target' option may exist. I just am not that familiar with it. I haven't had time to download the Fedora 17 installer and play around with it since my original post.
Fedora 17 released Posted Jun 1, 2012 18:40 UTC (Fri) by charris (subscriber, #13263) [Link]
I didn't find either preupgrade or the DVD route to be hassle free. Preupgrade refused to work, finding the wrong boot partition sitting on another disk, unmounted at that. The DVD route put grub on the wrong disk and I wasn't able to make it do otherwise. It also left yum in dependency Heck, as apparently some *.i686 libraries I had installed weren't upgraded and some apps disappeared. Among other things, the kernel wasn't upgraded. By installing/erasing things in bits and pieces I was able to get back to a usable system but it took some work.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 20:20 UTC (Tue) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
Stay away from this (from Gtk 3.4, really) if you recognize the following:
pointer = 1 2 3 5 4 7 6 8 9 10 11 12
Yay progress!
Fedora 17 released Posted May 29, 2012 20:44 UTC (Tue) by scientes (guest, #83068) [Link]
what? whaat? whaaat?
context pls.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 30, 2012 0:05 UTC (Wed) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
You can just change VertScrollDelta in the Synaptics driver to a negative value instead of xmodmap; this will also work with smooth scrolling.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 30, 2012 4:07 UTC (Wed) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
Yeah, so there is a fix for synaptics touchpads.
But not for mice, trackballs or those funky rubber-topped thigies found in the middle of Thinkpad keyboards. The .Xmodmap incantation, of course, worked for everything.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 10:06 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
So I suppose I am suppose to guess from all of this that GTK 3.4 ignores Xmodmap ?
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 10:25 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
No. GTK+ 3.4 listens to the new smooth scrolling events from Xi 2.1 (i.e. xorg-server 1.12.0+). The smooth scrolling events are not affected by the xmodmap button map, so using xmodmap to set up reverse (or 'natural') scrolling no longer works. That's it.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 11:46 UTC (Thu) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
Leaving an option to turn off "smooth scrolling" (which is, I gather, a critical feature, even though I don't need it) was, obviously, out of the question. As is typical for the Gnome crowd.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 11:51 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
You could always just not upgrade. Or contribute a patch to make it optional since, y'know, no-one else has ever mentioned that they'd like to turn it off in the entire 18 months between the first patches for this feature hitting xorg-devel and now.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 12:20 UTC (Thu) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
I don't feel strongly about smooth scrolling one way or the other, actually, I just hate that it broke that xmodmap hack I've been happily using.
Anyway, let me break the pattern of just complaining. It is possible to have natural scrolling even with GTK+ 3.4, and not just for Synaptics touchpads. Like this:
1. Disable the button remapping hack (comment it out in your .Xmodmap or whatever) -- leaving it there would mean continued confusion.
2. Now, your pointing devices have to support the 'Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes' XInput property. For those that do (I don't have any mice around to check, but my Logitech trackball does, and so do TrackPoints):
xinput "${dev}" 'Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes' 7 6 5 4
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 12:29 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
Ideally though, there'd be a single, global, non-driver-dependent property, so you could just say 'xinput "$dev" "Scroll Direction" -1'.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 12:24 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
How do you setup the reverse scolling nowadays? I checked out xinput command line application, but I didn't see anything in there that was obvious.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 12:32 UTC (Thu) by cmm (guest, #81305) [Link]
For Synaptics touchpads, set the 'Synaptics Scrolling Distance' property to a pair of negative values (like -100 -100).
For devices that have the 'Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes'property , set that to '7 6 5 4'.
For regular mice with an actual scroll wheel, no idea.
Doing the equivalent of all this using just one line in .Xmodmap was definitely more convenient (not to mention more robust: any devices you would plug in at run time would scroll right without having to configure them specially), but I guess progress happens.
Fedora 17 released Posted May 31, 2012 15:15 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link]
If it's an xorg.conf option as well, then you can use an InputClass snippet in xorg.conf.d to automatically apply it to all devices, or only a certain subset of devices, or, or.
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