Fedora 22 released

http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-22-released/

by bndr • 11 years ago

118 88 11 years ago

fedoramagazine.org

baldfat3• 11 years ago

Not sure where Fedora sits in the current system.

1) Cutting Edge - Rolling releases of Arch or Gentoo

2) Stable - Debian (Slow and Steady on the Main Release)

3) Cutting Edge and Stable - OpenSUSE (One I mostly use)

4) Ubuntu - Ubuntu (Not sure where to place it, since is its own thing now to me compared to the rest of Linux blazing its own whatever it wants to do)

I am hoping that Fedora isn't just the break things fast and often it has been for me in the past.

I still remember the frustrations of having a good Fedora that ran out of updates. I would skip to the current version and not be happy with my computer for months. Last version I have tried to use for my own personal use is Fedora 14 (Used it since Core through 14). Fedora was never my main distro and I always had hopes for it to work for me, but alas ...

btgeekboy• 11 years ago

Personally, I find it to fit in your list where OpenSUSE is -modern and moves quickly, but is reasonably stable for everyday use.

DanBC• 11 years ago

Wait what? Fedora20 is chock full of bugs. Most that I found were trivial (a programme having three different names, for example) but some were more important. Yum package lock was pretty annoying.

It's fine for what it is, but peoples definitions of "reasonably stable" are probably different.

meddlepal• 11 years ago

I haven't had too many issues running Fedora as a main workstation OS... I'd say it's something like Cutting Edge and Stable-enough.

I've been using it since 19. The only issues I usually run into are related to Nvidia graphics drivers. I'm always a bit wary of updating the kernel or drivers and usually leave those updates along until I have time to deal with potential headaches.

grp• 11 years ago

Maybe: 5) Cutting edge and free (not as in "free beer")?

rplnt2• 11 years ago

What if I just want a RHEL-flavored distro? And not be stuck with enterprise (read obsolete) software as I would be with CentOS?

bsg752• 11 years ago

What is "obsolete" on CentOS?

SEJeff• 11 years ago

This is what software collections is for: https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/

http://developerblog.redhat.com/tag/developer-toolset/

Redhat knows they messed up regarding newer stuff in RHEL5-6. That shouldn't ever happen again thanks to scl, which makes it quite trivial to get super new stuff in supported RHEL instances.

notacoward2• 11 years ago

I think the Fedora philosophy/positioning is pretty well summarized right there on the project page.

Freedom. Friends. Features. First.

Fedora is a cutting-edge distribution, but a Linux distribution is too large a thing to have only one cutting edge. Sure, if you want the latest applications and higher level libraries/frameworks, you might find them in another distribution first. On the other hand, if you want the latest core/infrastructure bits - e.g. system daemons, compilers, hypervisors - you'll probably find them in Fedora first because that's the distribution in which those kinds of developers do most of their work. Those other "cutting edge" distributions you mention might not have to wait for an actual release, but they still have to wait for the patch from the original developers plus the repackaging into their own native formats and repositories. "Cutting edge" is contextual. It all depends on what you're doing.

Disclaimer: I'm a Red Hat employee and some-time Fedora contributor. But at least I'm not being gratuitously negative about others' work.

kbenson7• 11 years ago

If I'm not mistaken, that's because Red Hat funds a lot of work in those areas. Even where it doesn't fund it, those are the really interesting bits for a server/enterprise OS, and that's what Fedora is a feeder for, so they get a lot of attention.

amyjess3• 11 years ago

I don't really see a point in separating Ubuntu from the others. Normal releases should go in the "cutting edge and stable" category, and LTS releases in the "stable" category.

With that said, I'd place Fedora in "cutting edge and stable". It has a six-month release cadence just like Ubuntu.

sciurus• 11 years ago

Canonical is developing their own desktop environment (unity), their own windowing system (mir), their own package manager (snappy), etc. I think that is what the author was referring to when it said Ubuntu is doing "their own thing." That makes them a bit hard to compare to other distributions that are largely adopting the same technology at different paces.

cstoner• 11 years ago

I've been using Fedora pretty solidly since 20. I use it in a VM to get all of my "actual work" done and just use my host machine for email and web browsing. It's been pretty stable for me.

The main reason I use it is that our production environments run CentOS and I want to get used to upcoming features before they're included in mainline (systemd, firewalld, dnf, python3, iproute2, etc).

Fedora has actually gotten a lot better since around Fedora 19. If you haven't given it a shot in a while you might be pleasantly surprised.

craigching2• 11 years ago

Same for me, use it in a VM, etc. I've been doing this since 18 and have found it to be very stable. My only complaint would be Fedora 21 seemed like the filesystem was a bit slow. But I yum update pretty regularly and it seems good now. This is all anecdotal, just noticing startup times of the product I work on and other programs I use daily.

EDIT: I just remembered something important about my use and might be why that you say it wasn't good before 19. I use MATE mostly because 18's Gnome3 was really bad. I still don't like Gnome3 and stick with MATE. Gnome3 is just too slow for me and some of the workflows get in my way.

baldfat3• 11 years ago

That was what I was digging for. I liked the idea of Fedora but I always seemed to get in trouble with stability. I just might give it a try again on a secondary machine.

edcastro2• 11 years ago

I feel that Fedora is the closest of a rolling release without the hurdles involved into running a rolling release.

I've been using as my main OS for some time now, and with the exception of rpmfusion breakage, Fedora been quite stable.

So, I'd say it's close do OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with some release cadence and support.

baldfat3• 11 years ago

I don't find Arch to have many hurdles (Until there is something broken and placed on the webpage). They should have some tie in with Pacman to say read the front page before updating or front page was updated on date so and so ... Would fix the last hurdle that Arch has over other ditros.

krisdol2• 11 years ago

It fits in at 3, just a different package manager and different philosophy on what to include and exclude by default.

For debian-based systems:

1. Cutting edge - Debian sid (also aptosid/sidux)

2. Stable - Debian Release

3. Less Stable but more modern - Ubuntu, Mint

4. Broken/Insecure - Debian Testing

For red hat:

1. Cutting edge - Fuduntu

2. Stable - RHEL/CentOS

3. Much less stable but more more modern - fedora

For arch/pacman

1. Cutting edge - Arch Linux

2. Slightly less cutting edge - Manjaro

3. Stable - no such thing, they're all rolling-release AFAIK

For Gentoo

1. gentoo

Don't know much about SUSE-based, but I know that OpenSUSE:Tumbleweed is the rolling release version containing the latest stable versions of software, while OpenSUSE is stable/fixed release.

darkr• 11 years ago

4. Broken/Insecure - Debian Testing

Often, testing gets security patches at the same time as stable + unstable (dependent on the scope of the issue). Sometimes it takes a few days for a package update to make it's way from unstable to testing.

Obviously you wouldn't run testing on a server, but for a dev workstation it's not a bad choice. Far from 'Broken/Insecure'..

craigching2• 11 years ago

I use Fedora for my day-to-day development and love it. 21 seemed a bit bad on performance initially, but I keep upgrading and it now feels about right. When I saw this, though, I thought "Isn't it a bit early? 21 just came out in December and they're on yearly releases." Then I read the link:

  Also with this release, we return to our traditional six-month cadence —
  we’ll see you back here sometime around Halloween!

Nice. Guess I'll be upgrading soon!

kbenson7• 11 years ago

Am I old fashioned in that I usually run CentOS for my workstation? After a year or two it can be a pain getting some third party RPM, but generally I find that's a pain I'm willing to deal with to not have to worry about updating my workstation until I want to.

Although, I do port my highly customized Fvwm2 config every time I update, so maybe it is just me being old fashioned. Although I think anyone that thinks most modern WM are "fast" really is missing a bit of perspective. You haven't seen fast or efficient until you've custom tweaked a Fvwm2 config (or something equivalent).

e40• 11 years ago

    Am I old fashioned in that I usually run CentOS for my workstation?

No, you're not. CentOS is a fantastic distro. The stability of it is what drew me away from Fedora.

merb3• 11 years ago

I'm using arch, currently and it looks rock solid aswell, even that it is really really bleeding edge

fierycatnet• 11 years ago

I used to run CentOS on my laptop for couple of years, very stable and did everything I needed. It was one of the very few distros that never gave me any issues. Latest software can be a problem but nothing major.

bsg752• 11 years ago

Nope - CentOS 7 + XFCE 4.12 seems to be enough for me.

Its also convenient when workstation and servers are based on the same distribution.

cbd19843• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure old-fashioned would be using Yggdrasil.

jrapdx3• 11 years ago

Hey, I still have the Yggdrasil CD, ca. 1994, Linux 1.06 as I recall. (CD is at home in the "archives".) Walnut Creek was the big supplier in those days.

In the mid-90's I used Red Hat, later other distros. At work still have one really old box with Stampede Linux from 1999. Also one of our servers runs on FreeBSD 6.0 installed in 2005.

Often enough, the most dangerous thing to do is "upgrade".

Frondo• 11 years ago

Yes, but if your work or hobby doesn't depend on staying on top of the latest (or even the last few decades' worth of) developments, then it probably doesn't matter. I still like KDE for its old-fashioned start menu and windows with title bars, etc.

johnchristopher• 11 years ago

Files. The updated layout in Files gives a better view of your files and folders, and a new view popover makes it easy to change the zoom level and sort order from a single place. You can also now move files and folders to the trash intuitively using the Delete key, rather than the Ctrl+Delete keyboard combination.

It's 2015 and it still baffles me that a basic file manager still need such tweaking, rewriting and brainstorming.

Is there no such thing as a `problem solved, let's not touch it again' in the FOSS world [0] ?

I say that as someone using Debian with xfce and awesome everyday.

[0] Don't know why I specifically mentionned FOSS. Closed source is plagued as well as mentionned bayle a child poster. Chalk it up to fatigue.

cbd19843• 11 years ago

Is there no such thing as a `problem solved, let's not touch it again' in the FOSS world ?

Is there such a thing in the closed-source world?

Because Windows 1... err, Windows 3 (now with tiling windows!), uhhh... Windows 95 (now semi-3D!) uhhh... Metro! That's it!... is certainly a case study in how nothing changes and UI is a solved problem, right?

Oh, and I've used WindowMaker across multiple distros, from Red Hat (pre Fedora) through Slackware and now Ubuntu. (Yes, Ubuntu without Unity. Shock and horror and "Can such things be?!?!" line starts on the left.)

vezzy-fnord3• 11 years ago

Desktop UI has barely budged since WIMP became the dominant paradigm in the 80s. There have always been alternatives (Oberon, rio, Cedar, zoomable UIs, etc.), but they've never had any widespread adoption.

As of more recent, there have been attempts by various parties (Microsoft, GNOME, Canonical...) to create these tablet-centric, opaque but outwardly simple UIs that are positioned as being groundbreaking and challenging norms, but in reality are some subset of WIMP with certain properties being given more weight than others (e.g. menus and icons over windows and pointers), but with little in the way of any true improvements in discoverability and interaction. Nothing like how all the text on screen is programmable, like in Oberon. That's groundbreaking.

Because the desktop shell is what most people ever see, it's a decent proxy for programmers to use providing an illusion of change and progress.

sigzero• 11 years ago

Wow WindowMaker! That brings back memories. I could never choose between GNUStep and WindowMaker.

chimeracoder• 11 years ago

It's 2015 and it still baffles that a basic file manager still need such tweaking, rewriting and brainstorming. Is there no such thing as a `problem solved, let's not touch it again' in the FOSS world ?

This isn't exactly unique to free software. You don't have to search very hard on HN to find threads of people complaining about Finder on OS X and Explorer on Windows, and enumerating the things they wish they could change about it.

l1ambda• 11 years ago

Recently installed the Fedora 22 beta on my desktop and am blown away. It even automatically resized my Windows partition for me and works with my UEFI BIOS. 3D, printer, sound, all my mouse buttons worked out of the box. Thanks to systemd, the whole system boots up in a few seconds. Everything feels really smooth and polished. There's even a maps and software app now! The new GNOME is really beautiful and easy to use, easier than mac even, and I didn't have to tweak anything. You can even download RPMs and double click them to install.

jordigh• 11 years ago

I've had really good experience with systemd on Debian stable too. Suspend has worked flawlessly, and the bootup time is quite a bit faster too. I kind of miss seeing the startup scripts output to stdout what they were doing during boot time, but I suppose that if I really care, I can always go digging in binary logs.

mmastrac• 11 years ago

IIRC you can hit escape while booting to view the script output.

rogerbinns3• 11 years ago

I upgraded my main workstation to the recent Ubuntu with systemd, and sadly that has turned into a big problem. I use btrfs, and have several subvolumes as well as multi-drive filesystems. At some point systemd decides to filesystem check something it doesn't need to, and then times out. Sadly this kind of thing is really difficult to diagnose. The exact same devices are already mounted - the second mount is just a different subvolume. If it just went ahead and mounted instead of outsmarting itself, then all would be good. Thankfully I can make it boot using upstart which works fine.

It is very frustrating that /etc/fstab has just worked for several years, but now systemd does the wrong thing. I really want to like and use systemd.

An Ubuntu bug report did not help (ignore the wrong title) https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd/+bug/14478...

hobarrera• 11 years ago

UEFI BIOS. 3D, printer, sound

Have you been away for the last decade? This is pretty standard for decent linux distributions. UEFI support has been around for a few years now (I first used it almost three years ago). 3D has worked fine for a very long time unless you're on ati or nouveau.

reidrac• 11 years ago

I'm running Fedora 20 as my main home desktop/dev platform (upgraded from Fedora 19, it worked just fine this time!).

Fedora 22 means 20 will be EOL soon and I've been thinking what to do next.

I've realized that I don't use many things from the default install, and Debian Jessie provides reasonable versions for the important software I use every day (XFCE, Mesa libraries, Python, pip, gcc, vim; things like that), and for the other software I can install it from 3rd party repos (Chrome and Skype mainly) or compile it (I track SFML git repo, for example; and pip is amazing), so I won't be upgrading or reinstalling Fedora any more (since Fedora 12, I've been mostly a happy user after moving from Ubuntu -Debian before that-).

To be honest, I don't know what's going on. May be is the OSS I use that is now mature enough to not care any more if I'm running the latest version or not, or if it's me that is mature enough to just get things done (I was going to say "boring", but I'll stick with mature).

Fedora has been very useful for me when it was bleeding edge and I needed the new an shiny stuff, and because Fedora was a great community effort and it was really open to contributors (and I contributed!).

Since Gnome 3 and Unity, I'm not interested in the new stuff, and tired to see how any non-mainstream opinion makes you a hater (like anyone was interested in my blog; tip: nobody); but I digress.

Nice to see Fedora going strong, but please give me stability and something I can use every day without changing things because there's a vision and a plan and I'll be happy!

EDIT: I said when it was bleeding edge; and it still is. I guess other distros are catching up and that's not that relevant.

merb3• 11 years ago

just upgrade to Fedora 21 as soon as 20 is EOL or use ArchLinux, thats what I did after I had enough from too many things that didn't worked out of the box in Fedora (like propriatary WLAN drivers, my current wlan stick is still really old stable, but it isn't inside the Fedora Kernel, however its already inside the arch linux kernel).

Also I would still be happy if ANY linux distribution could fix monitor plug & play, thats already really screwed. I mean things gotten better, but as soon as you deal with a retina display and plug in two 1920x1080 monitors in and out things getting screwed up really really fast. Also 3 monitors didn't worked out really well on login managars in the past years, however thats fixed now when you have the same resolution. That makes me really sad.

thwarted• 11 years ago

I've written a script that looks at the output of xrandr and reconfigures the screen layout, based on which outputs are plugged in and what the resolutions are. This is then bound to a key via the window manager so I can seamlessly move between laptop only, laptop+1 external, laptop+2 externals, or 2 externals only with just a keypress after coming out of sleep. This has been pretty solid on MacBookPro10,2, running the XFCE spin of Fedora 21. Some people have questioned if I'm running Linux when they see this work.

The background on the login screen doesn't always render correctly, but I look at that as often as I reboot (which is like once a month), so that doesn't impact me much (just like boot time, ahem).

My main concern is that as things become less shell-scriptable (like requiring complex dbus interactions), doing this will be less accessible to work around design or implementation quirks to achieve the desktop experience one wants. This is the price we pay for progress, I suppose.

ciupicri• 11 years ago

XFCE is still alive and kicking.

keithpeter3• 11 years ago

Have a look at CentOS 7, the no-cost binary equivalentish(1) version of RHEL 7. Has long term support. Has familiar package management and administration. I don't follow this aspect closely but there was talk of 'software collections' allowing more recent versions of programming languages &c

(1)CentOS is compiled from the RHEL source code distributed by RedHat but the checksums for each binary will be different as branding/images are changed to remove copyright material.

fideloper• 11 years ago

New Linux releases always remind me that I'm in the minority (??) for not giving a single ...care... about the desktop version of the OSes.

Mac OS is great for a workstation OS (better user experience, application support). Linux for me is very much a CLI-only experience.

Edit: I mean to say that I only use linux for servers, typically web servers. I personally have no use for linux desktops. In theory they'd be nice (Docker running natively on Mac would be a dream) but I need Photoshop/Word products and really do not need to deal with the random issues of Linux desktops (e.g. getting wifi to work, dealing with sound driver funkiness, getting drivers/off-brand productivity apps, etc)

zxcvcxz3• 11 years ago

Linux for me is very much a CLI-only experience.

What's it like in 1999?

really do not need to deal with the random issues of Linux desktops (e.g. getting wifi to work, dealing with sound driver funkiness, getting drivers/off-brand productivity apps

Personally I have bigger problems with Apple products. OS X has all sorts of random issues(and even worse driver support). People like to pretend like Apple products "just work" but the reality is that OS X is just as buggy (if not more so) as Linux. The fact that Apple curates the hardware for their devices and has their OS coupled tightly to their ecosystem means these problems are inexcusable, they only need to ensure the OS works on around 5 models but they can't even get that right:

Sound not working after upgrade on OS X:

  http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/151045/why-is-the-audio-is-not-working-after-upgrading-to-yosemite

  http://www.iphonetopics.com/no-sound-after-upgrading-to-os-x-yosemite/

  https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6606695

[the list could go on]

Wifi not working in OS X:

  http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/30/yosemite-wi-fi-connection-issues/

  http://osxdaily.com/2015/01/30/os-x-10-10-2-yosemite-wi-fi-problems/

  http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/the-worst-bugs-in-os-x-yosemite-and-how-to-fix-them-1652690924

[the list could go on]

Upgrade disasters:

  http://www.macworld.com/article/2837811/bugs-and-fixes-solving-a-yosemite-post-install-disaster.html

  http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/161368/mac-os-x-yosemite-broke-my-imac

There are over 500 Ubuntu Certified PCs whereas there are ~5 current Apple models.

It's astonishing that apple users go out of their way to buy specific hardware just to get OS X up and running but refuse to do the same thing for other OS's, then go and claim that OS X "just works". I assume most apple users attempt to install Linux on their macbook only to find that Apple has made this process extremely hard and deliberately chosen hardware that uses closed source drivers that are hard to get on other operating systems, then they blame Linux.

Imagine if the situation was turned around and you were trying to install OS X on your Ubuntu Certified PC. Would it still "just work"? I'd wager installing OS X on anything that isn't a mac is a bigger headache than installing any other OS anywhere.

It would be like me building a custom computer, creating my own OS that only works on that computer, and then claiming my OS is good because it "just works" on my one specific machine.

OS X has the worst hardware support of any OS. You can get better hardware support and a computer/OS that "just works" by taking the time and energy you took to buy a PC specifically made to run OS X and use it to buy a PC specifically made to run Linux.

timc3• 11 years ago

Not everyone uses or needs a desktop on a OS. Personally I think anyone that installs a GUI on a server obviously doesn’t know what they are doing.

0xCMP• 11 years ago

Great. It's a little cloudy though...

themodelplumber• 11 years ago

I find that I care very much about desktop versions whether I'm on Mac or Linux. On Mac OS, it's been "is my CAD app ready for me to upgrade to Yosemite yet? Because I really need that weird behavior with system app X fixed." On my Linux desktop sitting next to the MacBook, it's been "I have everything just right, but the latest version fixes the memory leak in cups-browser!" In both cases the version question is very much in play.

keithpeter3• 11 years ago

You are not alone in your views

http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/

I used to tweak and customise, now I use defaults and transfer what I laughingly refer to my 'environment' over to a new install by copying some dotfiles a few scripts and my actual work files across (I'm not a programmer).

I use GNU\Linux because I can install it on recycled commodity hardware (currently Thinkpads with the older longer travel keyboards) without hackintoshing around, and the desktop software available supports my needs.

There are server-relevant changes in this new Fedora release.

foodstances• 11 years ago

Off-topic, but does anyone know what laptop is shown in this image on Fedora's site?

https://getfedora.org/static/images/workstation/workstation-...

mattikus• 11 years ago

Looks like a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon, 2nd Generation based on the modifier keys.

vetrom2• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure that's a first generation, as there is no 'Fn' mod key on the left.

2nd gen has the 'Fn' key but still has the fingerprint reader on the right margin like the 1st gen. 2nd gen is also distinguished by having the split middle button on the trackpad.

3rd gen (the current one?) moves the fingerprint reader below instead of to the right from the keyboard.

vetrom2• 11 years ago

That's a GIMP'd up version of the 1st gen Lenovo Thinkpad x1, or some knockoff build.

You can tell from some hints of red highlight on the trackpad where the buttons on the old X1 are.

Other indicators are the keycaps, webcam position, and screen rim being identical to the X1.

There's also the oddly clipped fingerprint reader off on the right side, and the fact that the X1 has a somewhat unique profile. Here's a comparison picture of one not shooped up: https://blog.hboeck.de/uploads/x1carbon.jpg

whitehat2k9• 11 years ago

I really want to like Fedora but the short lifecycle is, at least for me, unsustainable. I wish there was something like Ubuntu's LTS releases.

currysausage2• 11 years ago

In a way, that would be CentOS ...

groks• 11 years ago

What's the attraction of antique, buggy software which no one is maintaining?

If you're responsible for a power station, satellite etc. then OK, better the devil you know than the possibility of a destabilising bug among all the new features and bug fixes. But for your laptop?

Tip: use ansible to configure your personal machine. Once every six months you boot into the live media, install, reboot, run ansible, reboot, done. You'll spend more time boiling a kettle and drinking a beverage than fettling a new release, and no more time trying to hand install the latest version of package X on a 3 year old base OS.

UserRights2• 11 years ago

could you point me to some ansible scripts that setup a fedora 22 desktop? Thanks!

disordinary• 11 years ago

Fedup works well though. I haven't done a new Fedora install since 19.

keithpeter3• 11 years ago

Tried Fedora 22 on my laptop - installed from the live image dd'ed to a USB stick

Gnome 3.16 looks well slick although those new scroll widgets take a bit of getting used to (middle click for drag-scroll), e.g. Terminal | Edit | Profile then try changing the terminal font.

Playing mp3 music: gstreamer1-plugins-ugly package not available in Fedora repository. RPMFusion repository does not seem to work at present, the /etc/yum.repos.d entries refer to rawhide as well as Fedora 22. So I just used an old copy of the Fluendo mp3 codecs from Centos 6 installed with rpm -i --nodeps. I find it strange that in the second decade of the 21st Century playing a music track should take a significant amount of tweaking. Just works on Debian, who are very careful about licensing.

NTFS format external hard drive: ntfs-3g and fuse installed, but my (harmless) 500Gb external drive does not automount. Entry present in dmesg but can't see it in Files.

'Software' application reports failure to install just about every package, command line install using '# dnf install foobar' works much better.

Fedora 22 released

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