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+Fedora 17 has arrived. The Fedora Project has released the first beta of its upcoming Fedora 17.
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+Sporting the terrible nickname "Beefy Miracle," this release is not, fortunately, as bad as its name sounds. On the other hand there's nothing particularly miraculous about this release either. Instead the Fedora 17 beta paves the way for another solid, if stolid, update to the Fedora line.
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+Among the more noticeable changes in Fedora 17 is GNOME 3.4, the latest version of the GNOME 3 desktop. While the Fedora DVD still ships with a variety of desktops, the live CD defaults to GNOME and for some time now Fedora has served as a showcase for the development of GNOME 3.
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+GNOME 3.4 continues to polish GNOME 3, particularly the shell where the search features have improved significantly. Not only do results come up much faster, the shell was much better at guessing what you want. For example GNOME 3.4 had no trouble suggesting Gvim when typing "vim", a seemingly simple linguistic leap that Ubuntu's Unity shell <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/02/ubuntu_12_04_beta_review/">fails to pull off</a>. 
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+Other smaller improvements in GNOME 3.4 include smooth scrolling support and some redesigned applications like the Documents and Contacts apps, both of which now have a streamlined look that's more in line with the <a href="http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.0/">GNOME 3 human interface guidelines</a>.
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+Despite some more polish on the GNOME 3 interface, not everything in GNOME 3.4 is a step up. For example, the window scrollbars are smaller making them harder to see, harder to grab with a mouse and harder to use. 
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+GNOME 3.4 introduces a new application level menu that sits on the top of GNOME Shell bar and contains items that affect the whole application. It pretty much mirrors a very similar feature in Ubuntu's Unity interface. But unfortunately not all applications use the new menu yet, making GNOME 3.4 feel a bit unpredictable and more inconsistent than previous releases. 
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+On the plus side Fedora 17's GNOME 3.4 can now run on hardware without a native 3D driver. The gnome-session app will no longer treat llvmpipe as an unsupported driver, which means the GNOME 3 interface will work without issues in virtual machines.
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+One thing you won't find in the Fedora 17 beta is the newly improved Epiphany web browser which GNOME developers have been devoting considerable effort toward lately. Now rebranded simply "Web", the Epiphany browser is a bit more usable, though why exactly the GNOME team considers this a priority when far better web browsers not only exist, but ship as the default in most distros, remains a mystery. Fedora, apparently, is equally unimpressed and for now is still shipping Firefox as the default web browser.
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+Another far more disappointing thing missing in Fedora 17 is the Btrfs file system, which was originally slated to become the default with this release, but did not end up making the cut. You can still opt to use Btrfs during the installation process, but it won't be the default until Fedora 18.
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+Under the hood Fedora 17 has started the migration to a new unified file system layout -- that is, everything now lives under /usr. The plan is to get rid of the separation of /bin and /usr/bin, as well as /sbin and /usr/sbin and so on. All files from the top level directories will now be found under their /usr equivalent. Fedora is the first of the major distros to tackle a unified file system.
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+Before you panic, fear not, there are symlinks aplenty so none of your apps are going to break. Most desktop users will probably not even notice the change. But down the road the underlying Fedora file system layout will be cleaner and more predictable for developers.
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+The other major new backend improvement in this release is the new multitouch support. At the moment that won't mean much for end users, but this release links together a full multitouch stack that runs from the kernel to the X server to GTK+ 3.4. All that remains to do now is for actual applications to implement multitouch. Oh and someone needs to actually build a Linux-based tablet.
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+When it comes to applications, Fedora 17 has the usual slew of GNOME-related updates with new versions of the Evolution mail client, Firefox, Shotwell and others. The Fedora 17 DVD now includes GIMP 2.8 out of the box. GIMP 2.8 isn't a final release just yet, but it should be by the time Fedora 17 is final (no, really, after 3 years of development GIMP 2.8 is finally being released in May). In the mean time you can play with the new and long-awaited single-window mode, which gives the graphics editor a more Photoshop-like look feel.
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+There's plenty more worth exploring in Fedora 17, including a major update for OpenStack, the open source cloud computing platform (think Amazon EC2) and the latest version of KDE for those that don't want the GNOME desktop. The Fedora 17 roadmap calls for a final release on May 15. Until then I suggest sticking with a virtual machine to test Fedora 17, it is a beta release after all.
+This release also sees the beginning of Fedora's great migration to a saner file system layout. Technically this is referred to as a "unified file system" layout. Instead of the current seperation between /bin and /usr/bin or /sbin and /usr/sbin and so on -- all of which dates back to disk space issues that were solved decades ago -- everything will now live under /usr. It sounds more tramatic than it actual is; most users will never notice the change thanks to copious symlinks that make everything look pretty much the same for now. 
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+Eventually though the directories really will be gone leaving a cleaner and more predictable directory structure for developers. Fedora is the first of the major distros to tackle a unified file system, though most will likely follow suit.
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+Anyone looking to use Fedora 17 as a platform for the open source cloud computing platform, OpenStack, will be happy to know that Fedora has updated to "Essex," an OpenStack update released last month.
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+Among the the other major backend improvement in this release is the new multitouch support. Of course there's not much you can do with that at the moment since Fedora-based tablets aren't yet rolling off the production line. But this release links together a full multitouch stack that runs from the kernel to the X server to GTK+ 3.4. All that remains to do now is for actual applications to implement multitouch. Then the Fedora tablet production lines can fire up.