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Slowing down Fedora Core
A discussion has been going on in the fedora-devel list, starting with this post from Gilboa Davara, requesting that Fedora Core 4 (FC4) remain supported, by the Fedora Project, until FC6 is released.Last week FC3 went into maintenance mode with the Fedora Legacy Project, just as FC5 Test2 was released, as has been the typical schedule so far. The final FC5 release is scheduled for mid-March, about two months away.
According to this proposal, beginning with FC4, the Fedora Project would be responsible for supporting two releases while finalizing a third release. This would delay a transfer to Fedora Legacy for a few months and a few more bug fixes. Most of all, this proposal is an expression of concern about the Fedora Legacy Project's ability to support old releases.
It is true that a Fedora release does not receive the same level of support once it is transferred to Fedora Legacy. When the Fedora Project supports a release, they provide security updates, bug fixes, and occasionally upgrades and enhancements for various packages. These package updates can be seen in each weekly Distribution page, in the Package updates section. The Fedora Legacy Project provides security updates only.
So the level of support from Fedora Legacy is a bit less than that from the Fedora Project, but if it is only for a few months how much does that really matter? As long as your stable system can remain secure until you are ready for an upgrade, a few bug fixes aren't going to matter much. The volunteers building security updates for Fedora Legacy are competent and first and foremost they are building updates for themselves. They have a vested interest in making sure these updates work. Others should be able to benefit from their work, but those who want more from Fedora Legacy are encouraged to participate. Fedora Legacy is a community project, so those who want more from the project should be prepared to help accomplish their own goals.
It is also true that Fedora Legacy had a hard time getting up to speed. Early releases came into the Legacy project with large numbers of outstanding security problems. Both Fedora and Fedora Legacy have had some severe growing pains, and they are not finished ironing out the process. This transition was smoother than the last; FC3 has very few outstanding security issues. We should expect that as FC4 moves into its Legacy status, the process will be even smoother, especially if more people get involved and help out.
Some users expressed distaste with the word "legacy". The dictionary definition:
2. Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past
seems to capture the meaning of Fedora Legacy quite well, but for those who have worked on "legacy systems" this distaste is understandable. Many suggestions were given for changing the name of Fedora Legacy to something more palatable. Some of the suggestions were not bad, but ultimately people should ask themselves if they would rather have Fedora Legacy volunteers keep busy by updating the documentation, website, mailing list, and so on, to reflect a name change; or would their time be better spent maintaining the project's five currently supported releases (Red Hat Linux 7.3, Red Hat Linux 9, FC1, FC2 and FC3)? I would chose the later.
A more serious concern is that the process of moving to Fedora Legacy is difficult, or at least less than obvious. To begin with, users need to be aware that the status of their system has changed and that is time for them to make a decision of some kind. Should they decide not to upgrade, the move to Fedora Legacy requires that they change some configuration files to look at different repositories. There is nothing automatic about the process. A conscious decision must be made to either upgrade to the next Fedora release, or get support from Fedora Legacy. Users who wait for the little update icon to appear may unintentionally leave their systems at risk.
The Fedora Legacy Project is not insensitive to these concerns. Jesse Keating has proposed some changes for Fedora Legacy that will make an easier transition for users who want to continue running older releases. Fedora Legacy has come a long way since FC2 came into its care. It can be, and should be, even better by the time FC6 test2 is released and FC4 moves into its purview.
Fedora Core was envisioned as a fast moving distribution. Already it has slowed down, from six months between releases to nine+ months between FC4 and FC5. For those who like a slower pace, there are plenty of slower paced distributions available and for diehard Fedora fans, there is the Fedora Legacy Project.
For those people who argue that they should be able to skip a release and go from a supported FC4 to a supported FC6, ask yourselves this: would you really switch to FC6 on the day it's released? More likely you'd be asking for another month, and then another month after that. Meanwhile many Fedora users are happy with the current pace and would prefer that Fedora engineers spend the time between FC6 test2 and FC6 polishing FC6, not squashing old FC4 bugs.
Warren Togami expressed it quite well:
Fedora is supposed to be a community project, and Legacy is where fate of an older distribution is put within the hands of the community. If there is sufficient interest in maintaining a distro, then Legacy will keep it alive. If a given distro falls into disrepair, then the decision will eventually be made to retire it in order to better allocate resources on distributions that the users care more about.
Fedora Core should remain fast-paced. When Fedora engineers are concentrating on finalizing a release they should not be burdened with maintaining two other releases. Fedora Legacy is working and it can and will get better, especially if more people volunteer their time to help. If Fedora is too fast paced for you, and you can't or won't help the Legacy project achieve your goals, find another distribution that moves at a slower pace. I have little list that might be helpful in that regard.
New Releases
SUSE Linux 10.1 Beta1 Released
The latest openSUSE release, SUSE Linux 10.1 beta 1 "Agama Lizard" is ready for testing. Click below for a list of known issues. "Created within the openSUSE project, SUSE Linux 10.1 is designed for individuals looking to work with latest open source technologies -- a stabilized Linux operating system, solutions for desktop productivity, application development, web hosting, security and more completely integrated to make the world's most usable Linux. SUSE Linux 10.1 supports the Intel and AMD x86 and x86-64 platforms as well as the PowerPC platform."
Edubuntu flight 3 CD
Edubuntu joins Ubuntu and Kubuntu with a Flight 3 CD. This is a milestone release in the Dapper development cycle, suitable for testing.
Distribution News
Mentors for the Ubuntu-Women team
The Ubuntu-Women team is looking for mentors. "As a mentor you will be the role model who will be interacting with the new entrant/s along technical lines like bug triaging, writing patches, coding or packaging and testing, depending on their area of interest and yours."
Upstream Version Freeze for Ubuntu
The Upstream Version Freeze for Ubuntu 6.04 (Dapper) is currently in effect. The first phase of this progressive freeze means that no new upstream versions of packages should be uploaded without prior approval, and automatic package syncs from Debian will be disabled.
New Distributions
NetBSD live CD
There is a new NetBSD based live CD available. NeWBIE stands for (Ne)tBSD (W)are (B)urned (I)n (E)conomy. This distribution caters to the desktop-user (i.e. with applications for web browsing, chat, multimedia, document editing, etc) but will also serve as a core for creating a NetBSD-based live CD for network security auditing.
Distribution Newsletters
Debian Weekly News
The Debian Weekly News for January 24, 2006 covers a call for help with bug triage from Debian GNOME users, installing Debian sarge on a logical volume (LV) that resides on a number of disks merged together with RAID, the Kaffe compiler transition, web forums for Debian?, the draft GPLv3, and several other topics.Fedora Weekly News Issue 30
The Fedora Weekly News for January 23, 2006 is out. This week's articles include Announcing Fedora Core 5 Test 2, Fedora Core 3 Transferred to Fedora Legacy, FUDCon Delhi 2006 in India, Meeting Minutes for Fedora Ambassadors, Review: Looking Forward: Fedora Core 5, and more.DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 135
The DistroWatch Weekly for January 23, 2006 is out. "The developers of Fedora, SUSE and Ubuntu have moved one step closer to reach their goals during the past week when new test builds were announced by the three projects. SUSE's development process will now accelerate dramatically, while Red Hat has hinted on returning to a 6-month release cycle after Fedora 5. Also in this issue: the parent company of Turbolinux under investigation, features of SecureAPT, PCLinuxOS unveils a new web site, and AGNULA loses funding. Finally, we interview Alan Baghumian, the developer of Parsix GNU/Linux and one of the most enthusiastic and energetic Linux supporters in the Middle East."
Package updates
Fedora updates
Fedora Core 4 updates: autofs (include the latest stable patches), cdicconf (added gtk+-devel to BuildRequires), hal (fix some unicode issues), flex (apply a bugfix-fixing patch), logwatch (bug fixes), umb-scheme (bug fixes), texinfo (rebuilt for FC4), hal (copy filenames with utf-8 chars to FAT formatted floppy disks), dhcp (bug fixes), system-config-soundcard (backported fixes from devel branch).Mandriva updates
Mandriva has updated hwdb-clients for versions 10.1, 10.2, Corporate 3.0. This webmin update fixes a MySQL init script issue in version 2006.0.Trustix update
Trustix Secure Linux has updated postgresql to a new upstream version for TSL versions 2.2 and 3.0.
Newsletters and articles of interest
Choosing a desktop Linux distro (DesktopLinux)
With so many Linux distributions out there, picking the one for you can be tough. DesktopLinux attempts to narrow the choices based on some common criteria. "I think the best Linux desktop is the one that's best for a particular person based on their needs and level of Linux expertise. So, the next time someone asks you that question, I suggest you reply with a couple of questions of your own. For example, you could ask, "Do you want to replace Windows? For home? For work? Are you interested in Linux because you want to get some new life out of an old system? Do you just want to mess around with Linux?""
Distribution reviews
Review: Atomix Linux 3.2 (Linux.com)
Linux.com has a review of Atomix Linux. "One of Atomix's strengths is its multimedia support. MPlayer (and a package of additional skins) is available for displaying content in DivX format, and Atomix includes Xine for playing DVDs. If you decided during installation to install the video players package, you will get libdvdcss, so you will be able to watch commercial DVDs by default."
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