7 ms·

Fedora 17 Released

98 points by udp 14y ago

dhx 14y ago
Release announcement: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F17_release_announcement https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F17_release_announcement Download: https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options Changes for Desktop Users: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Changes_for_Desktop.html https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_... Changes for System Administrators: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Changes_for_Sysadmin.html https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_... Gnome 3.4 Release Notes: http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.4/ http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.4/ F17 Feature List: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/17/FeatureList https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/17/FeatureList F18 Planned Feature List: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList DistroWatch package version comparison: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora Official release commentary (DVD extras style): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmWdYJTsKbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmWdYJTsKbM
- mdaniel 14y ago
  Please don't forget their bittorrent offerings, since that protocol was designed for the exact situation where a lot of people want a very big file at the same time. https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
truncate 14y ago
Minimum RAM for text-mode: 768 MiB Why would it require so much RAM on text-mode?
- basilgohar 14y ago
  I believe yum, Fedora's package manager, is the one with the RAM requirement. Packages are represented in Python (the language in which yum is implemented) as objects, which take up a chunk of memory per instance. EDIT: Explained what yum is.
- flink 14y ago
  I'm not sure that documentation is correct - there were some changes in the installer for F17 that lowered that memory requirement and we explicitly tested installs with 512 MiB (the hard coded minimum for install with Fedora 17). I've seen reports of successful installs with 384 MiB and enough swap (using the nomemcheck boot parameter) but AFAIK, that isn't supported and YMMV. As far as why the installer needs that much memory, there are several things but yum, rpm and selinux are big memory users. While it is a little old, one of the Anaconda (the name of the installer used in Fedora) developers did an analysis on where all the memory is used during installation [1] which I found to be rather interesting. [1] http://www.bangmoney.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/165-This-Week-in-Anaconda-11.html http://www.bangmoney.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/165... [EDIT] Fixed typo
- rwmj 14y ago
  As others said, it's because of the sucky Python install tools. Once installed you can get rid of that lot and it'll run in smaller amounts of memory, although still not nearly as small as one of the Linux distros that's designed to be minimal.
zokier 14y ago
Could anyone comment on using Fedora on small screen device, such as my 1024x600 netbook? My current installation, Linux Mint 12 needs upgrading, and doesn't handle the low vertical resolution well. Many dialogs are too large and/or are positioned partly outside the screen, and the two horizontal bar layout is not optimal.
- basilgohar 14y ago
  Fedora ships with support for several desktop environments, which are easily installable, such as XFCE, LXDE, Sugar, and several others (including, of course, KDE as well!). Fedora's default is Gnome 3, but that doesn't mean it's your only choice. The other options might be more suitable for a low resolution display. Through 3rd-party packages, other environments might also be available, such as Cinnamon and MATE.
  - flink 14y ago
    I'm not sure about MATE but instructions to install the unofficial packages for Cinnamon on Fedora 16 and Fedora 17 are available [1]. [1] http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=274611 http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=274611
- veeti 14y ago
  I think that the Gnome 3 UI works really well on a netbook.
  - krakensden 14y ago
    Really? I've been pretty unhappy with it on mine. The large, permanent top bar, the enormous window chrome, combined with the miserable vertical screen real estate on my netbook are all... aggravating. The performance on Atom's GPU is also erratic and often multi-second laggy (though it's much better than 3.0 was). I wound up switching to KDE, which has... strange characteristics, but window management is butter smooth, like you might hope for in 2012. About as smooth as it was before everyone switched to compositing.
gosub 14y ago
If someone is going for a fresh install, could he post the number of packages installed by default?
johnchristopher 14y ago
Is there an official minimal/lite fedora variant like minimal ubuntu or debian netinstall ?
- meta-coder 14y ago
  Yes, there is Network Install CD. http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all Approximately 200MB for i386.
  - mrintegrity 14y ago
    Unfortunately redhat based distros don't support keeping the install minimal past installing the first few things afterwards. There is no --no-instal-recommends --no-install-suggests for RPM based distros and no (easy) way to acheive that either. It's for this reason that I have, over the past year, discovered that my favorite server OS is debian minimal (with those above flags entered into apt.conf) while my favorite desktop is without a doubt Fedora / gnome3. This is exactly the opposite of the norm I think, but, fedora pushes the desktop boundaries far further than ubuntu and debian is so highly optimised for minimal server setups.
    - aeroevan 14y ago
      openSUSE is a RPM distro and it's package manager (zypper) has a --no-recommends when installing packages. But everyone forgets about use opensuse guys :)
    - bkor 14y ago
      Mageia and Mandriva can handle that just fine.
- gosub 14y ago
  I gave up using "desktop" distro (fedora and ubuntu) for keeping a minimal desktop installation. Too many packages installed by default, too many unrequired dependencies pulled installing new packages, too many problems updating to the newest release. Now I'm using Arch and pondering about gentoo/funtoo or other source based distro.
kijin 14y ago
Code name "Beefy Miracle"? And the next one is "Spherical Cow"? Why the sudden obsession with bovines?
- sciurus 14y ago
  The names that were voted on and how they fared- Votes :: Name ------------------------------- 1359 :: Spherical Cow 1087 :: Halva 1072 :: Chamoy 1035 :: Pamukkale 964 :: Tandoori Chicken 930 :: Frankfurter 821 :: Pop Soda 536 :: Ketchy Ketchup From http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2012-April/003067.html http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2012-April...
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Spherical cow is a physics instruction reference (consider a spherical cow...). Beefy miracle is just them being weird though I think.
- gee_totes 14y ago
  In case you're wondering why the logo for Beefy Miracle is a hot dog: http://beefymiracle.org/history.html http://beefymiracle.org/history.html
__mark__ 14y ago
I've been using the beta for a month or two now, and I must say that I'm impressed. I didn't think I'd like the new shell in Gnome 3, but I don't have any complaints and is actually pretty slick. I'm running it on a T420 and it supports all the hardware perfectly and seems to get better battery life than Kubuntu (Maybe different kernel version or something...). I love being able to install any needed development tools with a simple "sudo yum install".

98 points by udp 14y ago

dhx 14y ago

Release announcement: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F17_release_announcement https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/F17_release_announcement Download: https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options Changes for Desktop Users: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Changes_for_Desktop.html https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_... Changes for System Administrators: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Changes_for_Sysadmin.html https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Release_... Gnome 3.4 Release Notes: http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.4/ http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.4/ F17 Feature List: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/17/FeatureList https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/17/FeatureList F18 Planned Feature List: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList DistroWatch package version comparison: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=fedora Official release commentary (DVD extras style): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmWdYJTsKbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmWdYJTsKbM

mdaniel 14y ago
Please don't forget their bittorrent offerings, since that protocol was designed for the exact situation where a lot of people want a very big file at the same time. https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

truncate 14y ago

Minimum RAM for text-mode: 768 MiB Why would it require so much RAM on text-mode?

basilgohar 14y ago
I believe yum, Fedora's package manager, is the one with the RAM requirement. Packages are represented in Python (the language in which yum is implemented) as objects, which take up a chunk of memory per instance. EDIT: Explained what yum is.
flink 14y ago
I'm not sure that documentation is correct - there were some changes in the installer for F17 that lowered that memory requirement and we explicitly tested installs with 512 MiB (the hard coded minimum for install with Fedora 17). I've seen reports of successful installs with 384 MiB and enough swap (using the nomemcheck boot parameter) but AFAIK, that isn't supported and YMMV. As far as why the installer needs that much memory, there are several things but yum, rpm and selinux are big memory users. While it is a little old, one of the Anaconda (the name of the installer used in Fedora) developers did an analysis on where all the memory is used during installation [1] which I found to be rather interesting. [1] http://www.bangmoney.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/165-This-Week-in-Anaconda-11.html http://www.bangmoney.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/165... [EDIT] Fixed typo
rwmj 14y ago
As others said, it's because of the sucky Python install tools. Once installed you can get rid of that lot and it'll run in smaller amounts of memory, although still not nearly as small as one of the Linux distros that's designed to be minimal.

zokier 14y ago

Could anyone comment on using Fedora on small screen device, such as my 1024x600 netbook? My current installation, Linux Mint 12 needs upgrading, and doesn't handle the low vertical resolution well. Many dialogs are too large and/or are positioned partly outside the screen, and the two horizontal bar layout is not optimal.

basilgohar 14y ago
Fedora ships with support for several desktop environments, which are easily installable, such as XFCE, LXDE, Sugar, and several others (including, of course, KDE as well!). Fedora's default is Gnome 3, but that doesn't mean it's your only choice. The other options might be more suitable for a low resolution display. Through 3rd-party packages, other environments might also be available, such as Cinnamon and MATE.
- flink 14y ago
  I'm not sure about MATE but instructions to install the unofficial packages for Cinnamon on Fedora 16 and Fedora 17 are available [1]. [1] http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=274611 http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=274611
veeti 14y ago
I think that the Gnome 3 UI works really well on a netbook.
- krakensden 14y ago
  Really? I've been pretty unhappy with it on mine. The large, permanent top bar, the enormous window chrome, combined with the miserable vertical screen real estate on my netbook are all... aggravating. The performance on Atom's GPU is also erratic and often multi-second laggy (though it's much better than 3.0 was). I wound up switching to KDE, which has... strange characteristics, but window management is butter smooth, like you might hope for in 2012. About as smooth as it was before everyone switched to compositing.

gosub 14y ago

If someone is going for a fresh install, could he post the number of packages installed by default?

johnchristopher 14y ago

Is there an official minimal/lite fedora variant like minimal ubuntu or debian netinstall ?

meta-coder 14y ago
Yes, there is Network Install CD. http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-all Approximately 200MB for i386.
- mrintegrity 14y ago
  Unfortunately redhat based distros don't support keeping the install minimal past installing the first few things afterwards. There is no --no-instal-recommends --no-install-suggests for RPM based distros and no (easy) way to acheive that either. It's for this reason that I have, over the past year, discovered that my favorite server OS is debian minimal (with those above flags entered into apt.conf) while my favorite desktop is without a doubt Fedora / gnome3. This is exactly the opposite of the norm I think, but, fedora pushes the desktop boundaries far further than ubuntu and debian is so highly optimised for minimal server setups.
  - aeroevan 14y ago
    openSUSE is a RPM distro and it's package manager (zypper) has a --no-recommends when installing packages. But everyone forgets about use opensuse guys :)
  - bkor 14y ago
    Mageia and Mandriva can handle that just fine.
gosub 14y ago
I gave up using "desktop" distro (fedora and ubuntu) for keeping a minimal desktop installation. Too many packages installed by default, too many unrequired dependencies pulled installing new packages, too many problems updating to the newest release. Now I'm using Arch and pondering about gentoo/funtoo or other source based distro.

kijin 14y ago

Code name "Beefy Miracle"? And the next one is "Spherical Cow"? Why the sudden obsession with bovines?

sciurus 14y ago
The names that were voted on and how they fared- Votes :: Name ------------------------------- 1359 :: Spherical Cow 1087 :: Halva 1072 :: Chamoy 1035 :: Pamukkale 964 :: Tandoori Chicken 930 :: Frankfurter 821 :: Pop Soda 536 :: Ketchy Ketchup From http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2012-April/003067.html http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2012-April...
jlgreco 14y ago
Spherical cow is a physics instruction reference (consider a spherical cow...). Beefy miracle is just them being weird though I think.
gee_totes 14y ago
In case you're wondering why the logo for Beefy Miracle is a hot dog: http://beefymiracle.org/history.html http://beefymiracle.org/history.html

__mark__ 14y ago

I've been using the beta for a month or two now, and I must say that I'm impressed. I didn't think I'd like the new shell in Gnome 3, but I don't have any complaints and is actually pretty slick. I'm running it on a T420 and it supports all the hardware perfectly and seems to get better battery life than Kubuntu (Maybe different kernel version or something...). I love being able to install any needed development tools with a simple "sudo yum install".