The latest Fedora Linux release, Core 5, delivers an
improved Linux Desktop. Fedora forms one of the main versions of Linux,
especially for home users and small organizations.
To better
concentrate on enterprise Linux and customers that can pay
enterprise-level subscription fees, Red Hat spun off the Fedora project to
produce a version of Linux available to the world for free. Red Hat then
uses Fedora as a base to create its Red Hat Enterprise Linux for its
paying customers. The rest of us, though, can download Fedora or
purchase CDs from a vendor such as CheapBytes.
If
you choose to download Fedora, you need to download the CD disk images,
called ISO files, for the five Fedora CDs, or a very large ISO file for
a single DVD. Once downloaded, you need to burn each ISO file to a
separate disc. When complete, you have the necessary installation CDs or
DVD.
In general, the installation follows the same set of steps
and same type of installation program since Red Hat 7 or so, as well as
all previous four Fedora Core releases. With the Core 5 release,
installation should be quicker, as the Fedora project streamlined the
installation program, and its options.
The Core 5 release includes
updated versions of many desktop applications, including the
OpenOffice.org office suite, Firebird Web browser, as well as a plethora
of new desktop applications. Many of these applications run on top of
the Mono engine, a port of Microsoft's .NET platform to Linux and other
operating systems (including Mac OS X). Highlights among these Mono
applications include Beagle for desktop searching and F-Spot for
managing digital photographs.
In addition, Core 5 includes the
popular Eclipse development platform for Java applications--but without
the Java language. Using gcj, a front end to the GNU compiler suite,
Fedora includes pre-compiled Java applications, such as Eclipse, that
were compiled into native code, instead of the more common Java byte
code. This allows Fedora to include these Java applications without
having to deal with the licensing terms for Sun's Java
platform.
As always with Red Hat or Fedora releases, multimedia
support is spotty at best. Due to the patent and licensing issues, many
Linux vendors excise packages using proprietary techniques. For example,
Fedora does not include support for playing music in MP3 format, due to
the MP3 patents. Instead, you're limited to playing music in Ogg Vorbis
format. Ogg Vorbis is a great format, and its patent free. But, the vast
majority of legal music files reside in MP3 format. Fedora similarly
limits video playback options.
Thus, adding
multimedia support becomes one of the first tasks Fedora users
embark on after installing a new release. The page linked above also
describes how to install the Macromedia Flash player, a DVD player, as
well as support for common video formats. You can also install support
for MP3 music from the offical GStreamer.
You can also use a new script called Fedora Frog
to add multimedia capabilities to your Core 5 installation. Frog
acts similarly to the Automatix script for Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is also soon to
be updated with an impressive new release.
To help manage software
packages and the all-too-frequent updates, Core 5 includes two new
applications: Pup and Pirut. Pup acts as a front-end to manage updates
to installed packages. Pirut replaces the older software for installing
new packages from CDs and other locations. Both programs are handy
additions especially for newcomers to Linux. --Eric
Foster-Johnson
