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Moonlight 2.0 Preview is Out and Why You Should Care

Microsoft Silverlight
Image via Wikipedia

Moonlight is a Novell-sponsored Linux implementation of Microsoft Silverlight, which is Microsoft‘s equivalent of Adobe Flash. We hate the idea of websites we can’t use, and like the idea of Linux-plugins that correct this. However, there is one show-stopping app for Moonlight: Netflix.

The Netflix Watch Instantly system is not supported under Linux, mostly because it uses Silverlight. It is particularly odd, as we know it could be supported under Linux. The Roku NetFlix/Video Player is Linux-based. Silverlight itself does not have the market-share Adobe Flash does, and we are thus surprised by Netflix’s choice.

The latest version of Moonlight, 2.0 preview, supports Silverlight 2.0, which is necessary for Netflix, but does not support the DRM stack, which is necessary for Netflix to run. We have high hopes this wll come someday. Until then, we guess we are limited to Flash-based web media.

Moonlight 2.0 Preview is available as a Firefox plugin for both 32 and 64-bit Linux distributions.

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Published on May 5, 2009
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Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope Released

Ubuntu logo
Image via Wikipedia

Ubuntu 9.04 was released this week, a month before the scheduled release of our preferred OS, Fedora.

Like the upcoming Fedora, a lot of the major updates were upstream. Gnome was updated to the latest version, for example. We’ve commented on that before.

“In version terms, Fedora 11 will be ahead of Ubuntu 9.04. Kernel 2.6.29 vs. 2.6.28, Firefox 3.1 instead of 3.0, Thunderbird 3.0 instead of 2.0, OpenOffice 3.1 vs. 3.0 and filesystem ext4 instead of ext3. Both ship with Gnome 2.26, KDE 4.2 and XFCE 4.6. But, we admit, new versions are not always better. Well, they are, that is the point. But sometimes new features result in new problems.”

The main focus of the new Ubuntu isn’t new features per se, although it does include Ext4 and their new notification system, but speed and stability. And all reports indicate they’ve achieved their goals.

We’ll be back next month with our review of Fedora 11, and we’ll see how the two compare when fully released.

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Published on April 24, 2009
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64-Bit Support

AMD64 Logo
Image via Wikipedia

Arch Linux announced that a previous announcement that they were discontinuing support for the 32-bit/i686 architecture in their distribution was, in fact, a an April Fool’s joke.

On a positive note, some users discovered that they were, in fact, running 64-bit processors, and many of them switched to the Arch Linux 64-bit version. As they put it in their original post, “the overall opinion of the developers is that the x86_64 port is now complete enough to justify this decision and that this is in keeping with Arch’s philosophy of supporting current generation hardware. The x86_64 architecture has been available since 2002 (compared to i686 which is from 1995), and we believe most of our i686 users have x86_64 compatible hardware.

If you are running a 64-bit processor, why shouldn’t you run the 64-bit version of your operatng system? While 64-bit Windows is still, for some reason, immature and undersupported, it is very mature on Linux, although some software has not be retooled to compile under it…Boxee comes to mind.

Fedora 11, the next version of Fedora we’re so enthused about, they are revisiting their architecture support. The 32-bit version of Fedora will now be built for i586 by default, instead of i386, indicating a removal of official Fedora support for older 32-bit processors. Realistically, anyone who is still running an older processor…you should upgrade. The update should produce speed increases.

The biggest advantage of 64-bit operating system is that it allows addressing of more than 3.5GB of RAM. With RAM becoming more and more affordable(Our first megabyte cost $80, now that’ll get you several gigabytes), the speed boost is a useful one. Further support under 32-bit Fedora for PAE-supporting 32-bit hardware(Pentium II/III/4, or Atom) will allow some support for more RAM under these processors.

And finally, 64-bit OSes can run 32-bit software. Backward compatibility is assured.

So, why not? Someone tell us.

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Published on April 2, 2009
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Ubuntu 9.04 vs. Fedora 10

The Big Green Tree
Image by tipiro via Flickr

We came across a post from last week comparing the features of the upcoming Fedora 11 with the upcoming Ubuntu 9.04 and decided that the comparison was worth making. Ubuntu 9.04, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope, scheduled to be released April 23th, followed on May 26th by Fedora 11, codenamed Leonidas.

In version terms, Fedora is ahead. Kernel 2.6.29 vs. 2.6.28, Firefox 3.1 instead of 3.0, Thunderbird 3.0 instead of 2.0, OpenOffice 3.1 vs. 3.0 and filesystem ext4 instead of ext3. Both ship with Gnome 2.26, KDE 4.2 and XFCE 4.6. But, we admit, new versions are not always better. Well, they are, that is the point. But sometimes new features result in new problems.

Fedora is cutting edge. They are always going for better features, but despite what some critics say, that doesn’t always mean instability. Ubuntu’s focus is ease of use, not that Fedora in our opinion doesn’t have that as well, but it is Ubuntu’s most attractive feature to most…it focuses on ease of use for new users. Many features first tested in Fedora now are part of Ubuntu.

Today, Phoronix released the results of its tests of the betas of each of the new distributions. Ubuntu, as of now, won 10 out of 15 of the tests they used, although they admitted that development builds of Fedora have debugging options enabled, which may slow its overall performance. We agree a more definitive result will be interesting once the two are in final release. Hopefully they’ll wait a few weeks after both are issued, to iron out any early issues.

All Linux distributions have their issues. Take this blog post we found from one dissatisfied Linux tester who tried out a LiveCD. An issue with a network card, one likely easily fixed with a simple keyword search online, turned the author off to adopting the Linux lifestyle. But, compared to years ago, when everything had to be manually configured, 99% of hardware works under Ubuntu, Fedora, or the other major distributions out of the box. It has been a goal of them to get to this point.

Many improvements are coming under the hood, so to speak. More efficient booting is a goal on both distributions, as is adoption of the ext4 filesystem and new versions of various softwares they have in common. We’ll be watching, either way.

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Published on March 31, 2009
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Linux for Netbooks

Knoppix to the rescue / Knoppix al rescate
Image by Oneras [what about peace?] via Flickr

We’ve been expanding our reading to include a variety of new information sources daily. After our recent thoughts on netbooks, we did a little research and found out that Knoppix released a new version last month.

We admire Knoppix, which was the original bootable live Linux CD, and did a lot to advance the cause. Now every distribution offers a live CD, but Knoppix is still known for its flexibility. Recently, Dmitri Popov of Linux Magazine said that due to its excellent hardware detection, blazingly fast boot process, and the lightweight LXDE desktop environment(which we previously mentioned), Knoppix 6.0 makes a perfect distro for netbooks.

Even though it isn’t designed specifically for netbooks, Knoppix can be installed to a USB key and offers a variety of boot options that would work. Also, the replacement of KDE with LXDE lightens the load considerably. Popov follows up in an additional article here. In that article, one of the commenters points out that most standard distributions are not optimized for the Atom processor, nor are they customized for the Solid State Drives(SSD) common on some systems.

Solid State Drives are limited in the number of writes compared to a conventional hard drive, but offer fast reads. Originally the primary drive type in netbooks, they have been replaced with more convention hard drives due to various problems in their longevity and reliability. One only need to read reviews of these items over at Newegg to see some complaints, leading us to believe that until further notice, SSD drives should not be relied on as a primary drive. There are ways to partition your drives to reduce wear, however.

A few distributions customized for netbooks are available. Easy Peasy is a customized distribution of Ubuntu for netbooks. Ubuntu has a Netbook Remix shipped with several netbooks based on the Moblin Project. The Moblin Project, sponsored by Intel, aims to create a netbook OS based on Linux and optimized for its Atom processor. Intel switched from an Ubuntu to a Fedora base for the project, claiming the move to Fedora was largely a “technical decision based on the desire to adopt RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) for package management” instead of Ubuntu’s Debian DEB extension. RPM offers the advantage of containing license information, thereby enabling developers to create collections of software by license type or exclude software by license type.

An alternative is Eeebuntu, another customized Ubuntu distribution specifically for the Eee, possessing a custom kernel for those machines. For additional distributions, check out Linux Netbook, or similiar sites.  Our favorite distribution, Fedora, is behind, although there is a SIG for Fedora Mini, which may pop up as a future spin. They are already focused on reducing dependencies so Fedora could fit into the smallest space possible for netbooks, mobile internet devices, and possibly future set top box hardware.

We look forward to more, as more distributions create optimized versions for the Atom Processors and special spins designed to work with these netbooks. Keep reading.

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Published on March 22, 2009
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Calling on Linux

The results of Lifehacker‘s Hive Five for Best Linux Distributions came out this week. Taking the lead are Debian-based distributions Debian, Ubuntu, and Linux Mint. Mint is a version of Ubuntu which is a version of Debian. Behind them was Fedora, our distribution of choice, then Gentoo. Fedora, is, of course, the distribution used by Linus Torvalds, the Father of Linux. We’ve stated and continue to state our thought about Linux on many occasions.

Coming in, interestingly enough, on the heels of the announcement was the release of Presto Beta. Presto is a $20 paid(or will be when it moves out of beta on April 13th) distribution of Linux based on Xandros, and is billed as a fast-loading Linux desktop you install from Windows. It was built for boot-up speed, and intends to give laptop users an alternative system to jump into when they really just want to do something quick without having to wait for a full OS to boot up. Manufacturers have been offering an alternate instant-on Linux-based system called Splashtop, which they have embedded into chips on many motherboards.

We are looking forward to the next version of Fedora, where they are trying to achieve a goal of a 20-second to login-screen startup. They may not reach it, but we’re sure they’ll get the time down as much as they can. We also, despite our interest in out-of-the-box bundles, can suggest a variety of tweaks for many Linux distributions to scale them down.

For example, Fedora and Ubuntu defaultly use Gnome as its desktop manager. Gnome can be replaced, for example, with XFCE or LXDE, both more lightweight. LXDE is recommended for netbooks for that reason. Openbox is a lightweight Window manager that will work under Gnome and offers many memory improvements and simplifications over alternatives. XFCE is another lightweight desktop manager, offered as the primary desktop on a special custom spin of Fedora.

With a few simple tweaks, one can get good results out of any Linux distribution on one’s hard drive. And the distributions, not just Fedora, are working on the issue as well, looking for places the default configuration can be altered to remove unnecessary or redundant commands that slow it, or for places to optimize.

For those of you with netbooks, check out this review of several custom spins of various Linux distributions optimized for netbooks. We have yet to see a community supported distribution of Fedora for netbooks, but we are sure someone will jump on that. Until then, we also wonder if there is a way to configure the boot loader to offer booting up into a stripped down desktop/window manager and configuration or a full Gnome launch, allowing you to switch between the two on the same OS from startup. If there isn’t, might be worth setting up.

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Published on March 20, 2009
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Dvorak Likes Linux – Good or Bad?

Dvorak hosting Episode 19 of CrankyGeeks.
Image via Wikipedia

We like John C. Dvorak. He’s a well known tech pundit, very outspoken, and interesting to read. However, one of the most interesting aspects of reading Dvorak is how often we disagree with him.

Dvorak has finally discovered Ubuntu 8.10, four months after the current version was released.

Many of its problems, for me, stem from its inability to run on my overloaded hardware, or the occasional driver that makes the OS impossible to use without hand-tweaking something or other.

To disagree with Mr. Dvorak, Linux has made great strides in hardware support, with both independent developers and hardware manufacturers working to ensure support. The simplest way to ensure you don’t come across a device that isn’t supported under Linux is to check before you buy it. Most devices are. So far, since we switched to Linux, we’ve only found a noname GPS receiver, a Canon Scanner, and a Radio Shack postal scale failing to work under it. But we usually check before we buy. Most minor hardware issues can usually be resolved with a little online searching. Even he admits Linux support is increasing on new hardware.

He does point out many good things about Linux during his exploration of Ubuntu.

  • The lightweight nature of it makes it perfect for older machines. Many distributions offer lower memory(RAM or HD) alternatives to programs, such as Abiword instead of OpenOffice, XFCE or Sugar instead of Gnome or KDE, etc.
  • “There is probably a Linux program that will substitute for just about any Windows programs with as much or more functionality.” Not sure we agree with him on Photoshop vs. Gimp, but we’re not artists.
  • Linux is mostly immune to malware and viruses, as the bulk of such things are written for Windows.
  • The Windows registry is ultimately flawed. It is an increasingly unwieldy database that over time, slows Windows to a crawl.

He does note that the Linux desktops are not as polished as Windows. However, we’re not sure whether or not he tried Compiz Fusion, which enables all those nice windows animations. We loved watching them, but we loved speed more, and ultimately turned them off. For productivity use, we’d rather simplify.

Even the French police recognize the wonder of Linux. They’ve saved millions by migrating to Ubuntu. Currently, they are running Ubuntu on about 5,000 workstations with long term plans to have their entire organization (90,000 workstations) running Ubuntu by 2015. Their budget has been reduced by seventy percent without losing any functionality.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Comment with your thoughts.

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Published on March 12, 2009
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Getting a Copy of Fedora

Fig 16. A mounted ISO image and a network moun...
Image by redhatmag via Flickr

No matter how much we learn, there is always more we can learn. We hate to be regurgitating comments to our own blog posts, but we continue to admit it when we’ve learned something new. But another comment from the head of the Fedora Project prompted us to write this post, on how to get a copy of Fedora if we’ve sold you on the idea of trying it out.

If you aren’t certain whether you want to install Fedora to a computer, you can try a Live CD. Fedora comes in two basic flavors(until the next version, where there will be a change in architectures). A 32-bit and a 64-bit version. We use the 64-bit version, as our processors can handle it. You may need to check. 64-bit only comes into play if you have more than 3.5GB of RAM, but if your processor can handle it, why not use the version that matches your computer?

In addition to the OS installation DVDs, you can get a Live CD which will launch a fully operational version of Fedora off a CD, or install that image to a USB drive so your settings will be saved in between boots. The basic version is a standard desktop which can be used to install the base operating system, after which the remaining packages you want will be installed and downloaded. This is also the design Ubuntu offers.

The nice thing about Live CDs is that you can test drive the OS without committing to it. The standard Live CD,called the Desktop Edition uses Gnome as its default desktop. Fedora offers an alternate KDE Live CD. It also offers some custom spins, which is defined as “a community release that has been created using one of the Fedora remixing tools, preferably either Pungi (regular images) or livecd-creator (Live CD/DVD’s). Custom spins should be strict subset’s of packages available in the official Fedora repositories.” Which means no official spins which add MP3 or DVD codecs can be hosted by Fedora. Current official Spins include:

  • XFCE – A version of the Fedora Desktop Live CD that uses XFCE as the desktop instead of Gnome or KDE
  • BROFFICE – Fedora will have for the first time the BrOffice.org brand for the office suite. This spin is intended to be a Brazilian Portuguese localized spin that provides the legal brand for OpenOffice.org in Brazil.
  • FEL – Fedora Electronic Lab, a high-end hardware design and simulation platform. This platform provides different hardware design flows based on the semiconductor industry’s current trend. FEL maps in new design, simulation and verification methodologies with opensource EDA software.
  • DEVELOPER – Live DVD jam-packed with various development applications, such as Eclipse, Anjuta, git, cvs, lynx, emacs, and a hex editor; and build tools like GCC, Inkscape, Koji, createrepo, mock, rpmdevtools, rpmlint and much more.
  • AOS – A JeOS spin for building pre-installed, pre-configured, system images. The Spin consists of a small set of packages upon which the appliance building tools can be used. The spin is part of the Appliance Tools feature. This feature consists of a tools and meta-data that make it easier for anyone (ISVs, developers, OEMS, etc) to create and deploy virtual appliances.
  • EDU-MATH – Educational spin tailored toward mathematics and scientific applications
  • GAMES – A LiveCD with a showcase of games from Fedora. Here’s a list of included games.

Fedora offers direct download of ISOs, torrents, and Jigdo. We mentioned Jigdo in a previous post. It is a JIGsaw DOwnloader. It takes RPM package files and assembles them into an install image. We had wondered why the custom spins and Live CDs are not offered this way, and had sent several emails asking, with no response, till the Head of the Fedora Project(maybe we should name him a Gadget Wisdom correspondent) came back with this answer.

Jeroen van Meeuwen from our Spins SIG was kind enough to send me this information on Jigdo:

“The jigdo method of distribution basically works as follows: for every file in a .iso that you tell jigdo is available from somewhere else, it strips the file (or slice, or piece of the .iso jigsaw) from the .iso leaving you with a relatively small .iso.template (only the parts of the .iso that are not available from somewhere else) and a list of files you can get from somewhere else.

“Now, with installation media, this means there’s a small part of the .iso you need to download in the form of a .iso.template, while the rest (install.img, and all RPMs) is available from any mirror (and you are going to use the closest and fastest one).

“With Live media however, the contents of the .iso is just a few files. Some of them are really small (vmlinuz0, initrd0.img), while others are very large and make up 99% of the size of the .iso (osmin.img and squashfs.img). Splitting those slices from the .iso isn’t very useful, because you would end up downloading a small .iso.template, several very small files, and then one single beast of a file (squashfs.img).”

Hopefully this helps clarify our jigdo availability. Thanks for the question!

So, our assumption that this would be helpful was incorrect, and we learned something new. We look forward to sharing other things we don’t know as we share and enhance our Fedora knowledge.

And for the Fedora Project…give it a shot. You certainly have a lot of ways to experience it, from full immersion to merely dipping your toes in. Hmm…maybe we should become a Fedora Ambassador, although we have yet to get someone to switch to Fedora for good. We came rather close with one person, but he fell off the wagon and went back to Microsoft.

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Published on March 5, 2009
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Fedora 11, Updates and Migration

Fedora Core 6 running GNOME with activated AIG...
Image via Wikipedia

We continue to want to write about Fedora, especially in light of our recent inspiration. We were reading this post on a blog about the fact that Fedora 11 will have roughly 60 new features, some of which we previously summarized. The last few releases have had less than half that. Today is the feature freeze for Fedora 11.

The author predicts these features will have other distributions rushing to catch up.  The beta freeze of F11 is in a week, with the Beta release on the 24th. The final release is set for the end of May.

Every time there is a new release of Fedora coming, we wipe and reinstall every system from scratch. Our preparations begin a month in advance, when we start mirroring the complete Fedora repository and the update repository for the release, as well as our favorite 3rd-party repositories. Every night, a cron job updates any changes made.

Jigdo allows us to use those files to assemble an install image. And we maintain the repository and keep it updated to keep our systems updated. As we mentioned previously, the new DeltaRPM system will save download bandwidth.

Creating a local repository is easy. You start with your installation DVD, if you have one, and copy the packages to a directory. Then, run the createrepo command on the directory(you may have to install it). The directory should be accessible on a local web server…we use lighttpd over apache for memory reasons(but more on that another time). Then, you can edit your yum configuration files in one of two ways…adding a local only repository file, or editing the existing files to redirect to the local server instead of one of the Fedora mirrors.

To sync a remote update use a command like this…

rsync -avrt rsync://mirrorsite/fedora/linux/releases/10/updates/x86_64/ /var/www/html/yum/updates/10/x86_64

Go to the Fedora Mirror List to find mirrors that work for you.

As a final step, the Fedora Unity project releases re-spins of the Fedora releases with updated packages, as well as the Fedora Everything spin, which is a multiple DVD release of the entire Fedora repository.

With hard drive space so cheap lately, and metered internet coming into vogue, this is a decent solution. Once one has the latest distribution, one has to figure out how to distribute it to multiple systems. We start by loading it onto one system, and breaking it in before distributing it elsewhere.

More to come…

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Published on March 3, 2009
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More on Fedora

Linux distribution
Image via Wikipedia

After our post yesterday on Fedora, we received a comment from Paul W. Frields, who is the Fedora Project Leader and chairman of the Fedora Project Board. He wrote:

I think the idea that we’re “regaining” users implies that we lost them somewhere along the way, which isn’t what our statistics show. Rather, as the total size of the Linux-user pie has become larger, we’ve continued to grow consistently. There will always be distro-hoppers looking for that elusive perfect Linux distribution — and more often than not, failing in that quest — but in general the strength of our development model, rapid release cycle, and putting the freshest software in front of users in a stable, easy to manage platform have retained users’ hearts for a long time. It’s true that we may not have the marketing push of Ubuntu; it’s a fine distribution and community, but given the choice between marketing features and creating them, we definitely choose the latter. We’re very happy that many of the features we create are adopted by other distributions, because that shows, first, the strength of the free software development model; and second, that our policy of working directly with the upstream, as opposed to creating a crazy quilt of technically questionable patches in our own distribution alone, is the winning strategy for long-term sustainability.

And he is right, we were inaccurate with the title. Fedora is improving its share of the overall Linux market, which continues to grow. There has been a lot of growth on the Ubuntu front, because of their aggressive marketing push. We’ve noticed developers seem to be releasing Ubuntu packaging and not is offering up-to-date Fedora packing.

Three pieces of software we’ve referenced on this blog come to mind. Dropbox, Boxee, and XBMC. Dropbox is a file sync application which offers a current Ubuntu package, but only a Fedora 9 rpm(which fortunately works with Fedora 10). XBMC and Boxee are both supported under Ubuntu, and maintained there, but require a series of source code hacks to work under Fedora.

Now, this is hardly a reflection on Fedora. XBMC and Boxee contain multimedia packages that Fedora cannot include for legal reasons…nor can Ubuntu for that matter. It is a reflection on our original point…essentially that Fedora(which we use) is gaining popularity. As Paul reminded us, one of the best parts of Fedora is that they work directly with upstream maintainers…those who write the packages Fedora is assembled from, such as the Gnome Desktop, which is a major part of multiple distributions, so that the alterations are done at a level above the individual distribution. Thus Fedora enhances the overall Linux experiences for all users, by being involved.

Reading a draft of this article on Fedora, it states that “the Fedora project has four basic foundations, the 4 Fs, its corner stones. Freedom, Friends, Features and First are the core values that govern us.”

“Freedom” represents the dedication to free software. It lays emphasis on the creation, usage and promotion of free, open source alternatives to proprietary or closed source solutions. Our aim is to provide software that is reliable as well as a hundred percent legally redistributable to everyone.

“Friends” signifies the strength of the community. The project consists of people from different parts of the world with different ideas and views with belief in Fedora’ s core values as their binding force. Everyone who wants to help is welcome at the community. Our decisions and steps are taken after a consensus is reached, as between friends!

“Features” represents our commitment to excellence. Fedora is responsible for the creation and constant improvement of software that takes the Linux world forward. It is for the benefit of all users of free software regardless of their distribution of choice.

Lastly, “first” represents our commitment to innovation. It signifies that every major step in the project is taken with a view of the future. Fedora is described as a bleeding edge distribution that always provides the latest available for Linux.

Fedora has some great features/goals for Fedora 11. They include, to name a few:

  • 20 Second Startup – Part of their continual goal to speed this up
  • Automatic Font and Mime Installer – Allowing programs on the desktop to automatically install fonts, codecs, and clipart
  • CrashCatcher – to help users with bug reporting
  • Ext4 – Replace the default ext3 partitioning scheme with ext4, its successor.
  • Updating the following included programs: Firefox to version 3.1, gcc to 4.4, Gnome to 2.26, NetBeans to 6.5, Python to 2.6, Thunderbird to 3, Xfce to 4.6, Xserver to 1.6.
  • Improved Fingerprint Reader support
  • Multiseat support – making it easy to  a single computer to operate with independent keyboard, mouse, and monitor for multiple users
  • Improve Power Management
  • Presto – Presto supports upgrades using DeltaRPMS. A DeltaRPM is a file that only has the differences between the last version of the software and the new one, allowing it to be much smaller. The DeltaRPM can be used to generate the updated package. This will reduce overall load on servers by not requiring users to download pieces of a file they already have.
  • Volume Control improvements – There have been problems with volume control since Fedora added Pulseaudio
  • Windows Cross-Compiler – Allows users to compile Windows programs without Windows

And many more…We look forward to enjoying them.

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Published on March 2, 2009
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