Submitted by The Feodra team has posted a set of 28 features for the upcoming Fedora 7 release, of which the biggest is this: “Starting with Fedora 7, there is no more Core, and no more Extras; there is only Fedora. One single repository, built in the community on open source tools, assembled into whatever spins the Fedora community desires.”
Nice to see that they plan to include Fedora DS.
OpenLDAP is good but this one is better, e.g.
having multi master replication and a nice GUI.
This will make it much easier to handle a lot of boxes and users, even though I suspect that most of the target audience for this type of software will prefer RHEL over Fedora, but it could prove useful e.g in schools or other organizations on low budgets.
Fedora DS have can be downloaded for FC6 and earlier, but so far it haven’t worked well in combination with SELinux, one could only hope this will be fixed when it becomes part of the Fedora Linux distro.
Fedora DS does look pretty good. I think they got rid of that horrible ldbm backend. But watch out for MM replication. MM is not generally needed (directories are used for heavy-read scenarios, RDBMS for read/write scenarios), and MM can easily break ACID (you change an attribute of one object at one master, I delete the object at another master – what happens?).
I’d actually just prefer some really good GUI admin tools for OpenLDAP, to farm out tasks to junior LDAP admins.
I think they got rid of that horrible ldbm backend.
I wasn’t aware that there was any ldbm back end. RHDS is the former Netscape Directory Server remember, and is not related to OpenLDAP in any way.
I’d actually just prefer some really good GUI admin tools for OpenLDAP, to farm out tasks to junior LDAP admins.
So would a lot of people, but unfortunately Red Hat don’t have, and aren’t using, the development tools needed to produce those quality administration tools. Unfortunately, if you want any decent GUI tools then you’re just going to have to use RHDS, which comes with the Java GUI tools it’s always had.
It really is imperative though that Linux as a whole gets a good LDAP directory server back end in order to make available the things that are so easy in the Windows world.
I’d actually just prefer some really good GUI admin tools for OpenLDAP, to farm out tasks to junior LDAP admins.
You could try:
http://phpldapadmin.sourceforge.net/download.php
or
http://jxplorer.org/
I don’t know if any of them will ship with Fedora 7 though.
For the items listed, IT IS ABOUT TIME!
Fedora 7 does indeed look very promising. I don’t really care that the Fedora Legacy project is gone because I always immediately upgrade anyway.
I’ll be waiting for it.
What is the CodecBuddy?
It is a user-friendly process to let the user known some codecs (mainly proprietary like mp3) are not supported and, if possible, refer to the url of these specfic codecs.
Edited 2007-01-05 22:05
I was just testing out Fedora Core 6 not too long ago and they still seem to prefer using the crappy Redhat Network configuration program. Well, ok maybe it’s just crappy in my opinion, but in my eyes the Network configuration in the stock Gnome-system-tools is much easier to configure, not to mention it actually worked when I set a Static IP address. For some reason when I set my typical static IP, it wouldn’t resolve DNS even though I had my DNS servers set correctly.
I know that the Redhat Network utility was around before the Gnome-System-Tools, but Fedora Core didn’t even have the system tools packaged for it!
I did go back to Ubuntu afterwards. I guess in the beginning when I was trying all the distributions (1996-1997 era) I had already chosen Debian, so I’ve learned that system well. So in that respect, I think RPM distributions usually feel very different to me, almost like they’re more geeky than even standard Debian.
But I did always think that Fedora Core had a more stock Gnome, but I guess I was wrong. I do really like the Authentication module though, it makes it much easier to connect up to ldap / active directory servers, and really is one thing that is missing in Debian / Ubuntu.
Months ago, someone was complaining about the lack of Pessulus and took the initiative to package it for Fedora Extras. After intensive reviews and acceptance, Pessulus is now avaiable for Fedora. The lesson is if a FOSS package is not included in Fedora, take the initiative to package it instead of complaining. This is not much different for Debian package maintainer who decides to bring an application not included in Debian.
So, are you willing to do it?
I wouldn’t mind doing it myself, except that I don’t run Fedora Core, not to mention I’ve yet to try doing any packaging. I have heard that it’s easier to prepare a package for RPM than for DEB, and I’m sure there are HOW TOs around. Maybe one day if I get the time.
Though something that replaces some of the Red Hat specific configuration things may not have such an acceptance into the distribution, but I could be wrong.
“I know that the Redhat Network utility was around before the Gnome-System-Tools, but Fedora Core didn’t even have the system tools packaged for it! ”
Fedora always had all the system-config* tools available from the first version.
This is what I’m talking about. Screenshots for the Red Hat / Fedora version are at http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/config-tools/redhat-config-networ… and the ones from Gnome (though these look slightly different than the Gnome 2.16 version, you get the general idea) are at http://www.gnome.org/projects/gst/screenshots.html
Yes, System-config-* tools precedes the development of GNOME tools, written in Python, well integrated with Fedora from the first version and has unique tools like system-config-lvm which is not in the GNOME set. So replacing one with another doesnt make much sense.
If you do want GNOME tools, feel free to get involved and be a maintainer. ANYONE interested can learn to do it.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Extras (Core and Extras has been merged now so some of the pages need to be reorganized).
Yeah, I realize this, I also realize that with Open Source software it’s not always an either / or. Generally we just want the best tool for the job. While Gnome’s system tools doesn’t handle lvm, it does handle networking pretty well, which is the first thing I noticed missing when I changed to Fedora Core for that brief day.
I know that the Gnome-System-Tools weren’t released until about Gnome 2.8 or Gnome 2.10. But I do think they are more user friendly. Hopefully one day they’ll have everything more tools for setting up other things, but right now they are distribution agnostic and work quite well with what they do support.
I’m mostly looking forward to them adding all of those wireless fireware drivers. It would be nice to have more out of the box wireless drivers.
I never had a problem adding them manually afterward, it’s just a pain sometimes… Ah well.
Punctual, clear, feasible and still challenging goals.
I’m very happy for most of the list and the simultaneous production of the Live CD is by far my favorite.
I’m just crossing the fingers that the joining of core and extras would finally solve the mess with the broken dependencies. Several days I couldn’t do a total yum update since the package ef2progs was broken with itself. I “love” when yum shows this kind of msg:
Transaction Check Error: file /lib/libblkid.so.1.0 from install of e2fsprogs-libs-1.39-7.fc6 conflicts with file from package e2fsprogs-1.37-4
file /lib/libcom_err.so.2.1 from install of e2fsprogs-libs-1.39-7.fc6 conflicts with file from package e2fsprogs-1.37-4
..
This happened with a upgraded FC5->FC6 box and with a FC6 box installed from zero (both X64 desktops). The thing that in the normal installation included e2fsprogs-1.37-4 (which refers to the i386 version, don’t ask me why anaconda decided to install it in a X64 for a desktop-default installation).
No big deal, I just removed the i386 package and that was it. But these problems appear quite often and sometimes it’s pretty hard to remove/reinstall broken packages that have a lot dependencies. I don’t use any extra repository such as livna that could broke the source control. I don’t care about speed of yum, if I have to choose between and glory-peace of non broken dependencies, I took the last one. Or at least it would nice that by default “yum update” makes all the updates that doesn’t broken anything and just notify you that a X package couldn’t be updated. In the current version, you have to re run yum and specify which packages need to be excluded from the update.
Just to let you know there is a plugin called yum-skip-broken that allows yum to ignore package with broken dependencies with this command:
yum –ignore-broken update
This example shows that yum is very much like Firefox i.e extensible. Even the downgrade plugin exists under the name yum-allow-downgrade. I do agree that I don’t care about speed although yum team acknowledged it can be really slow on low performance hardware like OLPC XO.
Thnx for the info!
What is a tickless kernel? Wish they would ditch yum and use smart instead, yum is slow.
http://kerneltrap.org/node/6750
Nice, I’m not a Fedora user but if they’re going to provide manpower and to support insertion of this feature in the mainline kernel, I’m going to enable it ASAP.
I’m interested in the libata PATA drivers and in randr 1.2 as well.
PS. IIRC, both tickless kernel and the wakeups survey are useful for the OLPC
Edited 2007-01-05 23:02
I have not used Fedora in awhile, so forgivce my confusion. From the project page Extra’s is non-oss stuff such as mp3 codecs, etc. With them going to this does that mean they will no longer be supported? Maybe I am confused on this, is very possible.
No, Core was basically reserved for RedHat employees and selected Fedora engineers. Fedora Extras was created to allow anyone to contrubute his/her own software as long as it matches packaging guidelines and doen’t break US patent law. Since the commutnity turned out to be performing very well, and sometimes even better than the Core maintainers, both projects will merge into one and allow the community to work on Core pakages too. In other words, Core becomes Extras. For patent encumbered software like MP3, users will still need to use FreshRPMs or Livna
And no one brought up the line that includes:
– Add the nouveau drivers for nVidia cards
That’s a good first step.
Fedora Core and Fedora Extras are 100% open source. They’re just combining the two into a single Fedora, so everything that was supported will continue to be supported. And things that are intentionally omitted (like MP3) will not change either.
I’m happy to see all my present concerns as a Fedora user addressed, but question one item: Make the update system useable by all. This, as many of the goals listed is not particularly specific and could mean a fair number of things.
Should they mean that all users (regardless of wheel) will be notified of updates and given the opportunity to enter the root password and select updates, I would see it as redundant since updates should only be a concern to users in wheel or with sudo.
If they mean that all users will be given sudo (or similar) access to the updater, I would object on the grounds that updates should only be preformed by administrators. An update may break something which a user may not have the privileges to fix or the knowledge required to do so.
This goal strikes me as silly and I don’t see any better solution than set it wheel-only. Has anyone else got a better interpretation?
I’m almost certain the goal is intended to mean that they’re ehancing the update framework to work better for users without high speed reliable Internet connections.
Here you go
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/UpdatesSystem
I have tried Fedora on and off and it disappoints me every time. This time I tried to update the packages and that failed miserably. And there was no suggestion of how to deal with it. That’s really the last time I have tried an RPM distribution.
Before that SUSE: dog slow, horrible new menu, disgusting YaST (as always) … No, thank you. I’ve had enough of these “enterprise distributions” (well, sort of) —
This is a good sign that Redhat will allow the project to change over time, and I think it is exciting for us Fedora users.
This could turn out to be better than the much vaunted Debian model, because if will have the best of both worlds. Some steering by a huge company, and community participation in a huge project. I see much success ahead for Fedora.