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The Fedora Project recently rolled out a major update in the form of [Fedora 21](https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/). This release marks the first that's built around the newly restructured Fedora Project.
Like most Linux distros Fedora is a massive, sprawling project that has, frankly, felt unfocused and a bit lost at times. Just what is Fedora? Fedora has served as a kind of showcase distro of GNOME 3 ever since GNOME 3 hit the beta stage, which would seem to target everyday users, but then at the same time the project pours tremendous energy into building developer tools like [DevAssistant](http://devassistant.org/). So is Fedora a developer distro? A newbie-friendly GNOME showcase? A server distro? An obscure robotics distro?
Recently Fedora did a bit of soul searching and discovered that the answer to all those questions is yes. The way to make sense of it all is what Fedora calls [Fedora.Next](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora.next).
Fedora.Next is Fedora's term for its new organization and release structure. There is a core (no, not like the old Fedora Core/Extras division, this is different), then there is a second layer, the APIs and such, and then the "Environments" that users like you and I interact with.
You can think of Fedora.Next's structure as a series of concentric rings where each ring is supported by the one inside it. At the center are the core components of the system, APIs that applications hook into and so on. Up from that are the actual system components and then the most visible of the new layers, what Fedora calls "Environments." For now the available Environments consist of Workstation (Desktop), Server and Cloud. Each environment is optimized to suit what it says on the tin. Because these are very modular it won't be hard for Fedora to add new Environments as needed. For example perhaps there will one day be a Mobile Environment.
The new pre-packaged Environments don't mean you can't configure Fedora however you like, just that these three Environments represent the primary areas of focus for developers. This offers Fedora a bit of direction and focus internally and more targeted "products" for users.
Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller [likens](http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-present-and-future-a-fedora-next-2014-update-part-ii-whats-happening/) the Fedora.Next structure to Lego: "One of the related (and perpetual) community discussions centers around what exactly Fedora is. Traditionally, the answer is: we take the 'raw plastic' of the software out there in the universe and we mold it into high-precision Lego bricks, and users can plug them together."
"The idea [with Environments] is," continues Miller, "we can take some of our bricks, and we can ship those as sets." That doesn't mean though that you can't build your own thing as well. Miller is quick to reassure long-time Fedora fans that the project is "not getting rid of the basic supply of bricks... we want you to build other things."
The renewed sense of focus apparent in the new Fedora.Next release structure seems to have re-invigorated the Fedora project -- at least it looks that way from an outsider's perspective. Whatever the case, Fedora 21 is one of the strongest releases the project has put out in recent memory and is well worth the upgrade.
## Fedora 21 Workstation
The Workstation Environment is what you would have installed previously if you had just downloaded Fedora Live CD and installed the defaults.
In Fedora 21 that will get you a GNOME desktop. The old "spins", which consist primarily of different desktops, are still available (and presumably build on the same basic set of packages found in the GNOME Workstation release), but as noted earlier Fedora has long been a showcase distro of GNOME 3.x and with that in mind I stuck with the default GNOME 3.14 desktop.
First though you have to install Fedora using what I think is supposed to be an intuitive installer that's so simple you can't fail. Except that instead of "can't fail", it's so simple you can't tell what you need to do. Perhaps I'm just too brainwashed by the form-based installers found in Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, ElementaryOS and well, just about everywhere, but Fedora's button-based installer -- buttons, which hide forms mind you -- drives me crazy. Why make me click an extra button to set up a user account for a workstation environment when I will obviously need a user account?
The Fedora installer isn't part of the GNOME project, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn the same developer who turned the Nautilus file browser into a useless toy also had a go at the Fedora installer. I'm sure you'll figure it out, it's not Arch (at least Arch's arcane install process is well documented), but it gets things off the bumpy start.
The best thing I can say about Fedora's installer is that you only have to use it once. Just remember to create a new user and set your root password.
### GNOME 3.14
Once Fedora 21 is installed you'll be greeted by the GNOME 3.14 desktop (assuming you found the button to create a user account).
Fedora leap-frogged over GNOME 3.12 -- Fedora 20 shipped with GNOME 3.10 -- so this is a major leap forward for Fedora fans. GNOME 3.14 brings plenty of new features, including a couple new applications, an updated theme and some more improvements in HiDPI screen support. In fact GNOME has long boasted some of the best HiDPI support around and this release continues to build on that, polishing the little details to the point that I haven't seen anything amiss running Fedora 21 in a virtual machine on a retina Macbook Pro.
Fedora's nearly stock GNOME 3.14 looks great on HiDPI screens and the updated GNOME theme gives the desktop a clean, simple look and feel.
If you're updating all the way from GNOME 3.10 you'll notice a completely rewritten Weather app that taps GNOME's new geolocation API to automatically pull in your local forecast. Fedora 21 does not, however, ship with some of the other new GNOME apps like Photos. Fedora 21 has elected to stick with the slightly more feature-rich Shotwell. GNOME Photos is available in the Fedora repos and has some new online account support, but in my experience it's a bit buggy for actually working with something as important as your photo library.
This release also brings the first real support for Wayland -- Mutter (GNOME's default display manager) can now work as a Wayland compositor. Just log out of the default session and click the gear icon to choose the "GNOME on Wayland" option. Fedora should seamlessly fall back to X where Wayland isn't supported.
GNOME 3.14 makes for a different, but perfectly usable desktop. At this point the 3.x line is well polished and feels mature. Its rather different take on the desktop interface is not for everyone, in fact it's not my choice for everyday use, but if you come around to its way of thinking GNOME 3 is perfectly capable of getting out of your way and letting you do what you want to do. The only real downside to GNOME I found is the default file manager, Nautilus, which is pretty limited. I swapped it out with the Nautilus fork, [Nemo](http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=198), and found I liked GNOME 3 a lot more after that.
If you haven't taken GNOME for a spin in a while it might be worth another look and Fedora 21 makes hands down the best GNOME platform I've tested.
### Yum, Now With More Yuminess
As much as I love some of the developer tools and little side projects Fedora churns out (like the GNOME color management tools it pioneered), I've never been a fan of Fedora's package manager. Fedora 21 changes that. Yum is no longer the slow, awkward beast it used to be and by extension neither is the Software center tools (which is the pretty-much-only-works-in-Fedora GNOME Software app).
There was a time when Ubuntu's Software Center was perhaps one of the best graphical software installation tools out there and yum-based distros like Fedora looked slow and ugly in comparison. These days more or less the opposite is true. Not only is Fedora's graphical software app one of the fastest I've ever used (speed will obviously depend somewhat on your internet connection speeds and available mirrors) but it's also clean, well organized and offers a great search tool.
And Fedora continues to target the developer audience with very up-to-date versions of Perl, Python, Ruby and most other languages you can think of. Anything that isn't there out of the box is most likely available in single DevAssistant command. If you're a developer and you haven't checked out DevAssistant you need to, it's the simplest way I've seen to get a complete development stack up and running.
### Kernel Updates
Fedora 21 ships with Linux kernel 3.17.1, which brings the usual slew of latest hardware support, but is also notable for giving Fedora 21 tentative support for ARM 64 chips. ARM 64 is not yet considered a "primary architecture" for Fedora, but most things should work according to [Fedora Magazine](http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-21-to-ship-the-3-16-linux-kernel-and-a-smaller-minimal-install-set/).
Fedora's kernel team has also adopted a more modular approach with this release, stripping things back a bit at the request of the Cloud environment developers. The result is a considerably smaller footprint for the Cloud environment, though both Workstation and Server will be roughly the same as the previous releases size-wise.
## Fedora Server
While the Workstation environment is a good base on which to build your desktop experience, the new Fedora Server Environment is more specifically tailored to the needs of sysadmins and the like.
The first release of the Server Environment features a few new tools, like Cockpit, a server monitoring tool with a web-based interface you can connect to with your browser. If you're new to sysadmin tasks -- things like starting and stopping services, storage admin, and so on, or, if you just dislike doing everything through an SSH session, then Cockpit is worth checking out. It's more or less everything you're already doing on the command line, but available via a web-based GUI. It's all the same processes in the end, you can start Apache in the web panel and stop it from the command line. It's probably not going to replace your hand crafted shell scripts and preferred command line tools, but it's a nice option for newcomers.
This release also bundles in a couple new-to-Fedora tools like OpenLMI, perhaps best thought of as a remote API for system management, and FreeIPA, which aims to simplify the process of managing user and groups securely.
Then there's RoleKit, which is a brand new Fedora creation that looks like it will be very handy in the future, though it's limited right now. In a sense RoleKit is the sysadmin equivalent of Fedora's DevAssistant. That is, RoleKit will help you install and configure packages aimed a specific role. For example, call up everything you need to run a mail server, or everything you need to run a LAMP stack. Promising, but thus far incomplete.
## Conclusion
I've used Fedora off and on since Fedora 6 (which at that time known as Fedora Core 6) and can say without reservation that this is the best release I've ever used.
That said, the GNOME desktop is not for me. Fortunately there are plenty of other "spins" available, including a version with the MATE-desktop, which can now use Compiz if you'd like to re-experience Fedora with wobbly windows just like the days of yore. There are also spins featuring KDE, Xfce and LXDE among other desktops.
More importantly, Fedora 21 sees the project plowing into the future with what feels like a renewed sense of direction and purpose.
If you're a desktop user there's a Fedora for you. If you're a sysadmin there's a Fedora for you. If you're chasing the dream of cloud server futures there's a Fedora for you. And of course if you're just looking for a distro on which to build the ultimate robot, there's still a Fedora for you.
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