Releases/10/Beta/ReleaseNotes

Fedora 10 (Cambridge) Beta Release Notes

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This page will not become uneditable until we get closer to the Beta release.

What is Fedora?

Fedora is a set of projects sponsored by Red Hat and guided by contributors. These projects are developed by a large community of people who strive to provide and maintain the very best in free, open source software and standards. The center piece of the Fedora project is an operating system that is released twice a year, and is based on the Linux kernel, that is always free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute.

To find out more information about Fedora, refer to the following Web pages:

• Fedora Overview
• Fedora FAQ
• Help and Support
• Join Fedora!

Formal Announcement

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Add link to official fedora-announce-list mail

What Is The Beta Release?

The Beta release represents a sanitized snapshot of Rawhide, the development branch of Fedora, and signals the feature freeze. This means that all major features must be complete or in a testable state, and so the Beta release provides a good indication of what users can expect from the final release. It is aimed primarily at developers and early-adopters, and gives testers an opportunity to provide feedback and bug reports to help ensure that the next release is as good as possible. Users who are interested in helping with testing are encouraged to do so with the live media (bootable CDs, DVDs or USB sticks).

How To Try Beta

Thanks to the infrastructure that was developed during the Fedora 7 release cycle, Beta is accompanied by installable live CDs of both the GNOME and KDE desktops. With a Live CD users can perform testing and demonstration without installing any software to the hard disk. As the Beta release is largely targeted at developers and contains many bleeding edge packages, this is the best method for less experienced users who want to get involved with testing. The Live CDs also have an option to install Fedora to the hard disk for the more intrepid users.

The best way to download Fedora 10 Beta is through BitTorrent -- visit the Fedora torrent server for a listing of available images.

Beta images can also be downloaded from any of our mirrors. Remember that live images can be used on USB media via the livecd-iso-to-disk utility available in the livecd-tools package on existing Fedora systems. Refer to the USB How-to for more instructions.

You can also use Jigdo to download the i386, x86_64, or ppc versions.

Fedora 10 (Cambridge) Release Schedule And Feature Details

Development continues on Rawhide during and after the Beta release, leading up to the Release Candidate before the final release. The links below provide the release schedule for both the pre-releases and the final release, as well as the wiki pages for tracking the various features planned for inclusion in Fedora 10.

• Feature List
• Schedule

Providing Feedback

As mentioned above, the Beta release provides an opportunity for the wider community to begin testing the next release of Fedora. You help the Fedora Project continue to improve Fedora when you file bug reports and enhancement requests. These links explain what needs testing for the Beta release and allow you to submit your feedback:

• Create Bugzilla Bug Reports
• Beta Installation Test Details

Release Overview

As always, Fedora continues to develop and integrate the latest free and open source software. The following sections provide a brief overview of major changes from the last release of Fedora. For more details about other features that are making their way into Rawhide and set for inclusion in Fedora 10, refer to their individual wiki pages that detail feature goals and progress. Also, throughout the release cycle, there are interviews with the developers behind key features giving out the inside story.

Features for this release are tracked on the feature list page.

Desktop

Fedora 10 Alpha features the development version of GNOME 2.23 and the KDE 4.1 release. In addition to that, the following are major features targeted for this release.

• Artistic 1.0 License Removal -- Remove all packages licensed under only the Artistic 1.0 license.
• Better support for infrared remote controls -- Make it easier to connect to remote controls and have them just work with many applications.
• Wireless connection sharing -- Enable adhoc network sharing.
• Glitch free audio -- Rewrite the PulseAudio sound server to use timer-based audio scheduling
• OpenChange -- Natively access Microsoft Exchange Server using OpenChange.
• Features/BetterWebcamSupport -- Improved webcam support.

System

Boot up

The graphical boot up system used in previous Fedora versions is being replaced with a new system called Plymouth. There are a few issues with Plymouth in the Alpha:

• The graphical boot splash screen that comes with Plymouth requires kernel mode setting drivers that are not shipped in the Alpha. To see the graphical plugin before the drivers land in rawhide, add vga=0x318 to the kernel grub command line. This uses vesafb, which won't necessarily give you the native resolution for your flat panel, and may cause flickering or other weird interactions with X. Without vga=0x318, Plymouth uses a text-based plugin that is plain but functional.
• Plymouth hides boot messages. To view boot messages, press the [Esc] key during boot, or view them in /var/log/boot.log after boot up.
• If you mistype your password on your encrypted root filesystem, Plymouth crashes quietly, giving no indication what went wrong. This is a known issue that is fixed post-Alpha.
• Plymouth doesn't behave well with fsck and maintenance mode login shells in the Alpha.
• Plymouth has other assorted problems. It can be disabled by removing rhgb from the kernel command line.

Anaconda Installer Improvements

• Anaconda/Features/NetConfigForNM -- Anaconda is now using NetworkManager for configuring network interfaces during installation. The previous backend tool was libdhcp (which was a replacement for libpump). We are now using NetworkManager and communicating with it via D-Bus during installation. The move to NetworkManager in anaconda is still ongoing and some things are not yet 100% functional, but the bulk of existing functionality has been retained. NetworkManager is enabled by default on newly installed systems, so moving to NetworkManager in anaconda allows the installer to use the same network management tool that the final system will be using. The move to NetworkManager brings some changes, most notably the removal of the network interface configuration screen in anaconda. You are no longer asked to verify the network settings during installation. The screen now simply prompts for the hostname. The settings used during installation will be written to the system.

RPM 4.6

• Features/RPM4.6 -- Update RPM to 4.6, which includes many enhancements and bugfixes.

Security audit

• Security Audit -- A new security audit system and intrusion detection system that includes a new UI, libraries, and tests.

Kernel 2.6.27 development version

Fedora 10 Alpha includes a development snapshot of the 2.6.27 kernel. More details at

• http://kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges

Development

Objective CAML (OCaml) coverage greatly extended

• Fedora 10 contains the OCaml 3.10.2 advanced programming language and a very comprehensive list of packages.

Improved Haskell support

• Haskell support -- provide good support for Haskell development and use, with a high number of quality libraries and tools available.

Known Issues

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