Fedora Core 5 Linux Distro

Here comes the latest version of Fedora. Now it's faster, more beautiful and with more features, right from the installer to its themes and applications

Friday, May 05, 2006

Finally, the latest release of Fedora is here for download. We downloaded the DVD edition of FC5 and test ran it. We found that it is worth upgrading to the latest FC5. But if you are adamant on knowing what's new and happening in FC5, the answer is certainly its speed and looks. To add to it, the distro has quite a few system and application enhancements. Let us address them one by one.

Installation 
The first thing you will notice after you boot with the FC 5 installation media is the new Fedora Bubble theme. This theme is being used for the first time in FC 5 and looks better than the earlier Blue Curve theme. You will find this theme everywhere-in the installer, boot process, first boot as well all desktop environments.

Price: Free/OpenSource

Meant For: Linux users and enthusiasts

Key Specs: Modified and improved installer, latest gnome and KDE, faster

Pros: Faster GUI, better installer and package manager, support for virtualization (Xen)

Cons: Insufficient documentation for SELinux configuration

Contact: http://fedora.redhat.com/download

The package selection screen is a lot neater in Anaconda with this two-column layout

SELinux setup is a part of first boot, and definitely requires documentation to use

After booting with the DVD install media, when the boot prompt appears, you will see one new boot option other than the two standard expert and normal boots. This is the failsafe boot option. With this boot option you can fix older or broken installation on the machine. This is a very important feature because whenever someone tries to install another OS (like Windows) in the same machine and tries dual boot, usually Grub crashes. At this time, the failsafe CD comes into play and lets you reinstall the boot loader and other booting files, and recover the Linux OS.

Go to the installer (Anaconda) and you will see some real changes. It's been around five years that Anaconda has had the same looks. But this time there are noticeable changes. First thing you will notice is the absence of the Help window that used to appear on the left side of the screen. Does that mean that Linux installation has become easier enough that you don't need any help? But one thing is for sure that with the Help window going, now you have more space on screen for installation options. And Fedora guys have used the most of that free space by making the options and menus in two columns, thus, making the installer neater. 

While installing, there are some screens which you might miss. These include Security and Firewall Screen and the installation type window, from where we select the type of installation among options like Workstation, Server, etc. Some screens like the Installation Type screen have been permanently removed. And instead of that now there is a different package selection mechanism (see screenshot). Other screens have been shifted to a new location. For instance, the Firewall and Security screen has been taken to the first boot and is now more comprehensive. By comprehensive, we mean that it now has more SELinux options. This not only includes options like enabling or disabling SELinux but also for making and selecting policies from a drop down list. But this is something which still needs Help and good documentation, because the number of policies and options are huge and not so clearly mentioned for a beginner.

The desktop
This time Fedora has come out with the latest versions of the two most powerful desktop environments. (Gnome 2.14 and KDE 3.5.1). Additionally it also has XFce (the lighter window manager). All three desktop environments have a similar look   and feel with the bubble theme. Gnome is still the default desktop in FC5 as in the earlier versions. In the new version, the speed of Gnome is noticeable. When we ran it on a Compaq notebook, it felt as if the speed (response time of the objects) almost doubled in FC5 as compared to that in FC4. But the speed reduced drastically when we started the SELinux subsystem. So if you are among those who need a flashy and fast OS, you have to sacrifice policy-level security and disable SELinux. And if you are a security lover, do the vice versa.  

New applications
This time 'mono' has been added with FC5 and as a result we will see quite a few mono-based applications to be there as defaults. Some of these include: tomboy (note-taking application), F-Spot (a photo manager) and begal (desktop search tool).

Some more applications have been changed in FC5. There are no up2date (for updating FC) or system-config-packages for adding/removing applications. Instead we have Pup and Pirut for updating and package management respectively. Both of these are yum-based utilities and work pretty well. A big achievement of FC is migrating to Yum instead of RPM (not the file extension but the package manager). Another cool addon in FC is the out of the box support for Xen. The best thing is that they have not only added Xen to the package repository, but also provided applets and scripts to monitor and configure Xen easily. Now we have a command called xenguest-install, with which you can configure a new virtual machine in minutes. Plus we have the gnome-applet-vm for monitoring the domains of Xen.

The distro also comes with different types for precompiled versions of Xen Kernel such as standard Xen kernels, Xen kernels with GFS support and so on.

We are still playing with the new Xen scripts in FC to know it better, and share it with you.

Bottom Line: If you are an FC user and want to upgrade, go for it right now. And if you are using something else in Linux, you can still give it a try because it is faster, secure and has lots of applications.

Anindya Roy

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