Fedora 11 beta is out
LINUX DISTRIBUTOR Red Hat has released its latest beta of its free Linux OS Fedora with new security, desktop and developer features.
Most of the new stuff includes features that are handy for people working on desktop PCs that connect to Fedora servers in the back end.
There is a new automatic content installation feature that uses Fedora's Packagekit software-management. This lets users automatically download a font or application they need if they come across a file that needs an extension not found locally.
It detects what a file needs and then opens the software repository running in Fedora. Unfortunately the repository includes only free and open-source software.
The OS also has extensions to its security model, SELinux. A new extension called Svirt provides access control for virtual guests and tells what processes the guests have access including which toilets and towels.
If a hacker gets their paws on the access to the virtual guest they can't do much damage because they can only see what the guest can see. Although as rock stars the world over will testify, a guest can do a lot of damage to one room.
Fedora 11 also includes a new cross-compiler for Microsoft Windows applications that lets developers build applications for the Windows OS. It lets developers choose what ever language they need. µ
L'INQ
fedoraproject.org/
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So many features to protect you against yourself because you, the user are stupid and should never run anything as root, especially from X.
But seriously, if you do try this, you will need to recompile your own kernel to get any use out of it.
It has great driver support and pretty good quality.
I'm stuck at Fedora 8 though: the adoption of KDE 4.x was a mistake - KDE 4.x is much less functional than 3.5.
Also, I wish Fedora would stay with one package management system for longer than a single release.
Just my $0.02
You read my mind! It has been a while since I tried Red Hat Linux (IBM). The last time I installed it years ago on a P4 rig it refused to play certain media formats with a denial of service pop up box. Basically saying you are under our control. I dumped it right there and installed Mandrake/Mandriva.
The security is there for you to use to protect against others, it’s not Fedora imposing them on you “for your own good”, like with certain other vendors I could name. The tools are only tools, they don’t define the policy—that’s up to you.
Free Software is all about the freedom to choose what you want your systems to do, not what other people might want them to do.