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The Fedora Project has released a beta version of Fedora 14, the next major release for the popular open source Linux distribution. Fedora 14, nicknamed "Laughlin," is so far a largely under-the-hood upgrade, with little in the way of cosmetic or even application changes.
Like Ubuntu -- also currently in the beta stage of its next release -- Fedora 14 may be most notable for what isn't included -- GNOME 3.0. The massive overhaul to the Gnome desktop has seen a series of delays that have forced the more mainstream distros to push back their plans for including Gnome 3.0.
While Fedora 14 is unlikely to elicit the same sort of mainstream user enthusiasm you'll find surrounding Ubuntu and its continuing onslaught of newer, shinier features, this release is still notable for several worthy updates.
Two of the biggest changes in the Fedora 14 beta include the new libjpeg-turbo and Spice, a new tool for virtualization.
The libjpeg-turbo support uses the enhanced fork of the original libjpeg project to add numerous performance improvements providing faster JPEG handling. For those running Fedora as a web server, that means faster compression and decompression for apps working with image files. The updated library should also speed up any other applications working with JPEG images, including photo managers, video editors and PDF readers.
The other big news is Spice, the Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments. Spice is part of Red Hat's Qumranet acquisition, which also brought the now standard KVM virtualization to both RHEL and Fedora.
The goal of the Spice project is to improve remote access to QEMU virtual machines. For those running Windows clients in a virtual machine Spice includes a few Windows helpers right out of the box including a video driver, an agent for performing operations inside the guest system and virtio serial drivers for talking to the agent.
Although Spice has been available in the Yum repos since Fedora 12, the new tools make getting Spice up and running much easier and should be good news for those with multiple virtual machines to manage.
Fedora 14 will also mark the first time the Fedora will concurrently release all its usual spins and a new Amazon EC2 image. That's great news for those using Amazon's cloud hosting to run Fedora machines. Until now the most recent Fedora release available for EC2 users has been Fedora 8 -- if you wanted a more recent version of Fedora on an EC2 instance you'd have to install it yourself. Thankfully, once Fedora 14 is finalized and released, that will no longer be the case.
This release will also see the expansion of Fedora's netbook spin integrating MeeGo for mobile devices. For most users that means netbooks, though MeeGo is designed to support multiple platforms -- think in-dash car systems, handsets and more.
For Fedora 14 the core MeeGo 1.0 packages are all available either as separate spin or through Yum: yum groupinstall meego-netbook. The MeeGo integration builds on the foundations laid by the Moblin spin in previous Fedora releases. The MeeGo Netbook UX is built on the GNOME Mobile platform, extending it with new technologies like Clutter, GUPnP and libsocialweb.
Fedora is a somewhat GNOME-biased distro, but there are KDE "spins" as the Fedora project calls them. Fedora 14 beta comes with KDE 4.5, the latest stable version of KDE. Version 4.5 now includes the WebKit rendering engine in its libraries, meaning applications can use WebKit to display content with the same level of integration as you'll find in the older KHTML framework.
Other smaller changes in Fedora 14 beta include updates for popular scripting languages like
Python, Ruby and Perl which have all been updated to the latest stable releases. The updated Ruby packages mean that Fedora 14 will support Ruby on Rails out of the box. For Python developers the ability to run Python 3.0 alongside older versions -- which was introduced in Fedora 13 -- remains available, making it easy for those looking to upgrade code without the need to install Python 3.0 from scratch.
Fedora 14 will also include support for D, a systems programming language that combines the power of C and C++ with the productivity-friendly approach of of modern scripting languages like Ruby and Python.
While Fedora 14 might lack some of the visual splash of its rival Ubuntu 10.10, the beta shows Fedora 14 shaping up as a great upgrade for those who want a faster system with all the latest tools
Overall Fedora 14 is already looking like a decent, if somewhat dull, upgrade to the Fedora line. While it may lack some of the flashier "everyday user" features Ubuntu has been focusing on, Fedora is still a very user-friendly distro, especially for those just looking to get work done without the bells and whistles of Ubuntu.
The new concurrent EC2 releases will also mean the Fedora may well be powering a cloud-based service near you. Given the project's focus on constantly improving developer tools and eschewing unnecessary features, Fedora may well end up the workhorse of EC2.
If you'd like to test out this beta release, head to the Fedora 13 downloads page and grab a copy today.
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