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The Fedora 20 "Heisenbug" beta release has arrived with a preview of
the latest fantastic, free, and open source technology currently under
development. Take a peek inside:
*** What is the Beta Release? ***
The beta release is the last important milestone before the release of Fedora
20. A Beta release is code-complete and bears a very strong resemblance to the
third and final release. Only critical bug fixes will be pushed as updates up
to the general release of Fedora 20. The final release of Fedora 20 is expected
in early December. Meanwhile, download the beta of Fedora 20 and help us make
it even better:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease
We need your help to make Fedora 20 the best release yet, so please take some
time to download and try out the beta and make sure the things that are
important to you are working. If you find a bug, please report it – every bug
you uncover is a chance to improve the experience for millions of Fedora users
worldwide. Together, we can make Fedora 20 a rock-solid distribution. We have a
culture of coordinating new features and pushing fixes upstream as much as
feasible and your feedback will help improve not only Fedora but Linux and free
software on the whole. (See the end of this announcement for more information
on how to help.)
Since it's a beta release, some problems may still be lurking. A list of
problems that we already know about can be found at the Common F20 bugs page,
found at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F20_bugs.
== 10 Years of Fedora ==
The Fedora 20 release coincides nicely with the 10th anniversary of Fedora. The
first Fedora release (then called Fedora Core 1) came out on November 6, 2003.
Since then, the Fedora Project has become an active and vibrant community that
produces nearly a dozen "spins" that are tailor made for desktop users,
hardware design, gaming, musicians, artists, and early classroom environments.
== ARM as a Primary Architecture ==
While Fedora has supported a number of hardware architectures over the years,
x86/x86_64 has been the default for the majority of Fedora users and for the
Linux community in general.
ARM, however, has been making massive strides. It already dominates the mobile
market, and is becoming a go-to platform for hobbyists and makers, and is
showing enormous promise for the server market as well.
In keeping with Fedora's commitment to innovation, the Fedora community has
been pushing to make ARM a primary architecture to satisfy the needs of users
and developers targeting the ARM platform.
*** Maturity and Advanced Features ***
Sometimes it's not the big new features that make a users' experience better,
it's the little enhancements or long-awaited tricky features that really help
make a new release the bee's knees.
=== NetworkManager Improvements ===
NetworkManager is getting several improvements in Fedora 20 that will be
welcome additions for power users and system administrators.
Users will now be able to add, edit, delete, activate, and de-activate network
connections via the nmcli command line tool, which will make life much easier
for non-desktop uses of Fedora.
NetworkManager is also getting support for bonding interfaces and bridging
interfaces. Bonding and bridging are used in many enterprise setups and are
necessary for virtualization and fail-over scenarios.
=== No Default Sendmail, Syslog ===
Fedora 20 removes some services that many users find unnecessary, though (of
course) they will remain available as installable packages for users who might
need them.
The systemd journal now takes the place as the default logging solution, having
been tested and able to manage persistent logging in place of syslog.
Also, Sendmail will no longer be installed by default, as most Fedora installs
have no need of a Mail Transfer Agent (MTA).
=== Cloud and Virtualization Improvements ===
The Fedora 20 release continues the Fedora tradition of adopting and
integrating leading edge technologies used in cloud computing. This release
includes a number of features that will make working with virtualization and
cloud computing much easier.
=== First-Class Cloud Images ===
The Fedora Cloud SIG has been working hard on providing images that are
well-suited to running as guests in public and private clouds like Amazon Web
Services (AWS) and OpenStack. If you're using public or private cloud, you
should definitely test-drive the beta images today!
=== OS Installer Support for LVM Thin Provisioning ===
LVM has introduced thin provisioning technology, which provides greatly
improved snapshot functionality in addition to thin provisioning capability.
This change will make it possible to configure thin provisioning during OS
installation.
=== VM Snapshot UI with virt-manager ===
This change will make taking VM snapshots much easier. qemu and libvirt have
all the major pieces in place for performing safe VM snapshots/checkpoints,
however there isn't any simple discoverable UI. This feature will track adding
that UI to virt-manager, and any other virt stack bits that need to be fixed/
improved. This includes adding functionality to libvirt to support deleting and
rebasing to external snapshots.
=== Role based access control with libvirt ===
Libvirt role based access control will allow fine grained access control like
'user FOO can only start/stop/pause vm BAR', but for all libvirt APIs and
objects.
=== ARM on x86 with libvirt/virt-manager ===
This change will fix running ARM VMs on x86 hosts using standard libvirt tools
libvirt virsh, virt-manager and virt-install.
*** Developer Goodness ***
As always, Fedora 20 will include several new features and updated packages
that will be of interest to all manner of developers.
=== ACPICA Tools Update ===
Fedora 20 includes an update to the ACPICA tools from the Component
Architecture (ACPICA) project. This provides developers with a significant
number of additional tools that have never been included in Fedora before --
for example, tools that allow one to create an ACPI table and execute the
methods contained in the table in user space, instead of having to modify
existing tables. The update brings Fedora up-to-date for ACPI development and
exploration, and reflects the reference implementation as closely as possible.
=== Ruby on Rails 4.0 ===
This update will keep Fedora up-to-date and will ensure that the current Ruby
on Rails developers stay with us as they will get support for system-packaged
Ruby on Rails of the latest version. Apart from that, Rails 4.0 also bring
improved functionality, speed, security and better modularization.
=== GNU C Library 2.18 ===
Fedora 20 includes the GNU C Library version 2.18, which brings the project up
to sync with the upstream release from the GNU project, released in August.
This resolves a number of bugs from upstream as well as security issues. This
upgrade should be backwards compatible.
*** Even More Changes ***
Fedora prides itself on bringing cutting-edge technologies to users of open
source software around the world, and this release continues that tradition. No
matter what you do, Fedora 20 has the tools you need to help you get things
done.
A complete list with details of each new change is available here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/20/ChangeSet
*** Desktop Environments and Spins ***
The Fedora project strives to provide the best desktop experiences possible for
users, from desktop environment to application selection.
== GNOME 3.10 ==
Fedora 20 Beta will have a preview of GNOME 3.10. GNOME 3.10 will have a number
of new applications and new features that will please GNOME-lovers in the
Fedora 20 release. This release includes a new music application (gnome-music),
a new maps application (gnome-maps), a revamp for the system status menu, and
Zimbra support in Evolution.
== KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.11 ==
The Fedora KDE SIG has rebased to KDE 4.11 for Fedora 20. This release includes
faster Nepomuk indexing, improvements to Kontact, KScreen integration in KWin,
Metalink/HTTP support for KGet, and much more.
== X2Go ==
The current nx package in Fedora is based on the last open source release from
NoMachine. NoMachine is no longer developing nx as an open source project. The
X2Go project has taken the nx code and is maintaining it as well as developing
new client and server code around it.
*** Spins ***
Spins are alternate versions of Fedora. In addition to various desktop
environments for Fedora, spins are also available as tailored environments for
various types of users via hand-picked application sets or customizations.
To see all of the Official Fedora 20 Release Spins, see the Fedora 20 Release
Spins link.
Nightly composes of alternate Spins are available here:
http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes
*** Note on performance ***
Fedora development releases use a kernel with extra debug information to help
us understand and resolve issues faster; however, this can have a significant
impact on performance. Refer to the kernel debug strategy for more details. You
can boot with slub_debug=- or use the kernel from nodebug repository to disable
the extra debug info.
*** Issues and Details ***
Heisenbug Alpha is a testing release. To report issues encountered during
testing, contact the Fedora QA team via the mailing list or in #fedora-qa on
freenode.
As testing progresses, common issues are tracked at
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F20_bugs
For tips on reporting a bug effectively, read
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_file_a_bug_report .
*** Contributing ***
There are many ways to contribute beyond bug reporting. You can help translate
software and content, test and give feedback on software updates, write and
edit documentation, design and do artwork, help with all sorts of promotional
activities, and package free software for use by millions of Fedora users
worldwide. To get started, visit http://join.fedoraproject.org today!
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