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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Fedora 8 (Werewolf) Released

Fedora 8 (Werewolf) Release Summary
The Fedora 8 release summary provides a quick overview of the major new features in this release. Why not download and enjoy this great combination of the latest and most robust free and open source software available.

Official Announcement

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2007-November/msg00006.html

Download

http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora

Upgrade From Pevious Releases

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DistributionUpgrades

Fedora 8 Tour

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tours/Fedora8

Release Notes in Full

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/

What's New in Fedora 8?

Fedora 8 (Werewolf) Release Summary

Fedora Release Notes

Fedora Documentation Project

Version 8.0.0 (2007-10-22)

Copyright © 2007 Red Hat, Inc. and others

This document is released under the terms of the Open Publication License. For more details, read the full legalnotice in Section 3, “Legal Notice”.

	Latest Release Notes on the Web
	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora Core.

Revision History
Revision 8.0.0	2007-10-22	PWF
Push new version for final
Revision 7.92	2007-10-02	PWF
Update content for F8 test3

1. Welcome to Fedora
2. Release Highlights
2.1. Fedora Tour
2.2. New in Fedora
2.2.1. Spins
2.2.2. Features
2.3. Road Map
3. Legal Notice
4. Feedback
4.1. Providing Feedback on Fedora Software
4.2. Providing Feedback on Release Notes
5. Installation Notes
5.1. Changes in Anaconda
5.2. Installation Related Issues
5.2.1. IDE RAID
5.2.2. Multiple NICs and PXE Installation
5.2.3. HP ProLiant DL360 with Smart Array
5.3. Upgrade Related Issues
5.3.1. SCSI driver partition limits
5.3.2. Disk partitions must be labeled
5.3.3. Upgrades versus fresh installations
6. Architecture Specific Notes
6.1. RPM multiarch support on 64-bit platforms (x86_64, ppc64)
6.2. PPC Specifics for Fedora
6.2.1. Hardware Requirements for PPC
6.2.2. 4 KiB Pages on 64-bit machines
6.2.3. The Apple keyboard
6.2.4. PPC installation notes
6.3. x86 Specifics for Fedora
6.3.1. Hardware requirements for x86
6.4. x86_64 Specifics for Fedora
6.4.1. Hardware requirements for x86_64
7. Fedora Live Images
7.1. Available Images
7.2. Usage Information
7.3. Text Mode Installation
7.4. USB Booting
7.5. Differences From a Regular Fedora Install
8. Package Notes
8.1. Yum Changes
8.2. Utility Packages
9. Linux Kernel
9.1. Version
9.2. Changelog
9.3. Kernel Flavors
9.4. Reporting Bugs
9.5. Preparing for Kernel Development
10. Fedora Desktop
10.1. GNOME
10.2. KDE
10.3. Web Browsers
10.3.1. Enabling Flash Plugin
10.4. Mail Clients
10.5. Liberation Fonts
11. File Systems
12. Mail Servers
12.1. Sendmail
13. Development
13.1. Tools
13.1.1. GCC Compiler Collection
13.1.2. Eclipse
13.2. KDE 4 Development Platform
14. Security
14.1. Security Enhancements
14.2. General Information
14.2.1. SELinux
15. IcedTea and java-gcj-compat
15.1. IcedTea
15.2. Handling Java Applets
15.3. java-gcj-compat
15.4. Handling Java and Java-like Packages
15.5. Fedora and the JPackage Java Packages
15.6. Maven (v2)
16. Multimedia
16.1. Multimedia Players
16.2. Ogg and Xiph.Org Foundation Formats
16.3. MP3, DVD, and Other Excluded Multimedia Formats
16.4. CD and DVD Authoring and Burning
16.5. Screencasts
16.6. Extended Support through Plugins
17. Games and Entertainment
17.1. Haxima
18. Virtualization
18.1. Changes to the Virtualization Packages
19. X Window System (Graphics)
19.1. X Configuration Changes
19.2. Intel Driver Notes
19.3. Third Party Video Drivers
20. Database Servers
20.1. MySQL
20.1.1. DBD Driver
20.2. PostgreSQL
21. Internationalization (i18n)
21.1. Language Coverage
21.1.1. Language support installation
21.1.2. Transifex
21.2. Fonts
21.2.1. Chinese fonts
21.2.2. Indic fonts
21.2.3. Japanese fonts
21.2.4. Korean fonts
21.3. Input Methods
21.3.1. Improved im-chooser
21.3.2. SCIM input method Defaults
21.3.3. Other input methods
22. Backwards Compatibility
22.1. Compiler Compatibility
23. Package Changes
24. Fedora Project
25. Colophon
25.1. Contributors
25.2. Production Methods

1. Welcome to Fedora

The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and community supported open source project. Its goal is the rapid progress of free and open source software and content. The Fedora Project makes use of public forums, open processes, rapid innovation, meritocracy, and transparency in pursuit of the best operating system and platform that free and open source software can provide.

	Latest Release Notes on the Web
	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

	Older Release Notes on the Web
	If you are migrating from a release of Fedora older than the immediately previous one, you should refer to older Release Notes for additional information. You can find older Release Notes at http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/.

You can help the Fedora Project community continue to improve Fedora if you file bug reports and enhancement requests. Refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugsAndFeatureRequests for more information about bugs. Thank you for your participation.

To find out more general information about Fedora, refer to the following Web pages:

Fedora Overview (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview)
Fedora FAQ (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ)
Help and Discussions (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate)
Participate in the Fedora Project (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join)

	Document Links
	Many links may not work properly from within the installation environment, due to resource constraints. The release notes are also available post-installation as part of the desktop Web browser's default home page. If you are connected to the internet, use these links to find other helpful information about Fedora and the community that creates and supports it.

2. Release Highlights

	Latest Release Notes on the Web
	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

2.1. Fedora Tour

You can find a tour filled with pictures and videos of this exciting new release at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Tours/Fedora8.

2.2. New in Fedora

This release includes significant new versions of many key components and technologies. The following sections provide a brief overview of major changes from the last release of Fedora.

2.2.1. Spins

Fedora includes several different spins, which are variations of Fedora built from a specific set of software packages. Each spin has a combination of software to meet the requirements of a specific kind of end user. In addition to a very small boot.iso image for network installation, users have the following spin choices:

A regular Fedora image for desktops, workstations, and server users. This spin provides a good upgrade path and similar environment for users of previous releases of Fedora.
One of four Live images that can be run from a disc or USB flash device, and can be installed to hard disk as desired. See the "Live" section for more information about the Live images.

More custom spins are available at http://spins.fedoraproject.org. Remember that these Live images can be used on USB media via the livecd-iso-to-disk utility available in the livecd-tools package.

2.2.2. Features

This test release features GNOME 2.20. GNOME now includes mail notification in the Evolution mail client, the ability to fill in PDF forms in the Evince document viewer, improved file management, a revamped Appearance control panel applet, a revised help system, and many other enhancements.
Online Desktop provides a desktop experience designed around online services. A preview of Online Desktop is provided via BigBoard, which is a optional sidebar in GNOME.
KDE 3.5.7 is available in the KDE Live image as well as the regular DVD. The KDE 4 (Beta) Development Environment is available in the repository.
Xfce 4.4.1 is available as part of this release.
NetworkManager 0.7 provides improved wireless network management support. It includes support for multiple devices and provides the capability of system-wide configuration, among many other enhancements. This transition may induce some regressions temporarily, and more testing and feedback is appreciated.
PulseAudio is now installed and enabled by default. PulseAudio is an advanced sound server compatible with nearly all existing Linux sound systems. PulseAudio allows for hot-switching audio outputs, individual volume controls for each audio stream, networked audio, and more.
CodecBuddy is now included, and promotes free, superior quality, open formats to end users trying to play multimedia content under patent encumbered or proprietary formats.
Compiz Fusion, the compositing window manager that re-merges Compiz and Beryl, is installed by default. To enable Compiz Fusion in GNOME, use the System → Preferences → Desktop Effects tool. Ongoing, long term Xorg work continues to enable Compiz by default.
A brand new graphical firewall configuration tool, system-config-firewall, replaces system-config-securitylevel.
The completely free and open source Java environment called IcedTea is installed by default. IcedTea is derived from OpenJDK, includes a browser plugin based on GCJ, and is available for both x86 and x86_64 architectures. GCJ is still the default on PPC architecture.
OpenOffice.org 2.3, with many new features, is available as part of Fedora 8.
Bluetooth devices and tools now have better graphical and system integration.
Laptop users benefit from the "quirks" feature in HAL, including better suspend/resume and multimedia keyboard support.
There is now improved power management thanks to both a tickless kernel in x86 and x86_64 architectures, and a reduction in unnecessary processor wakeups via powertop.
This release of Fedora has a new look and feel, called Infinity, from the Fedora Art team.
Nodoka, a fresh new GNOME theme created specially for Fedora, is available in this release.
A new online browser home page, http://start.fedoraproject.org, appears in this release.
Fedora continues to improve its many proactive security features, and FORTIFY_SOURCE has now been enhanced to cover C++ in addition to C, which prevents many security exploits.
A brand new graphical firewall configuration tool, system-config-firewall, replaces system-config-securitylevel.
This release offers Kiosk functionality via SELinux, among many new enhancements and security policy changes.
The glibc package in Fedora 8 now has support for passwords using SHA256 and SHA512 hashing. Before only DES and MD5 were available. The tools to create passwords have not been extended yet, but if such passwords are created in others ways, glibc will recognize and honor them.
Secure remote management capability is now provided for Xen, KVM, and QEMU in Fedora 8 virtualization.
Eclipse 3.3 (Europa), a new release of the acclaimed development platform, is available as part of this release.
In this release, the performance of yum, Pirut, and Pup have been significantly improved.
The Add/Remove Programs tool, pirut, introduces a new graphical interface for managing software repositories. Use Edit → Repositories to enable/disable any of the installed software repositories.
Live installations are faster and require a smaller root filesystem. The file system layout has also changed somewhat. System files for the Live images are now under LiveOS/, and a new README file has been provided as a short introduction to the live image.
Transifex provides a web-based translation interface to allow users to contribute translation work for Fedora hosted projects as well as being able to provide translations to upstream directly to any upstream project.
Integration of unique build IDs into Fedora's software building infrastructure now provides enhanced debugging capabilities and core dumps.
Fedora now offers easier rebranding of Fedora derivatives via a generic-logos software package. Changes in Fedora's mirror structure also make creation of derivatives easier.
The pam_console module usage has been removed in favor of access control via HAL, which modernizes the desktop.
Fedora 8 features a 2.6.23 based kernel.

2.3. Road Map

The proposed plans for the next release of Fedora are available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RoadMap.

3. Legal Notice

Copyright (c) 2007 by Red Hat, Inc. and others. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0, available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/.

The Fedora Art Project created the admonition graphics (note, tip, important, caution, and warning). Tommy Reynolds <Tommy.Reynolds@MegaCoder.com> created the callout graphics. They all may be freely redistributed with documentation produced for the Fedora Project.

FEDORA, FEDORA PROJECT, and the Fedora Logo are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., are registered or pending registration in the U.S. and other countries, and are used here under license to the Fedora Project.

Red Hat and the Red Hat "Shadow Man" logo are registered trademarks of Red Hat Inc. in the United States and other countries.

All other trademarks and copyrights referred to are the property of their respective owners.

Documentation, as with software itself, may be subject to export control. Read about Fedora Project export controls at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Export.

4. Feedback

Thank you for taking the time to provide your comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the Fedora community. By doing so, you help improve the state of Fedora, Linux, and free software worldwide.

4.1. Providing Feedback on Fedora Software

To provide feedback on Fedora software or other system elements, please refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugsAndFeatureRequests. A list of commonly reported bugs and known issues for this release is available from http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/F8Common.

4.2. Providing Feedback on Release Notes

	Feedback for Release Notes Only
	This section concerns feedback on the release notes themselves.

If you feel these release notes could be improved in any way, you can provide your feedback directly to the beat writers. Here are several ways to do so, in order of preference:

If you have a Fedora account, edit content directly at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats
Fill out a bug request using this template: http://tinyurl.com/nej3u - This link is ONLY for feedback on the release notes themselves. Refer to the admonition above for details.
Email relnotes@fedoraproject.org

5. Installation Notes

	Latest Release Notes on the Web
	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

	Fedora Installation Guide
	To learn how to install Fedora, refer to http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/.

	Installation issues not covered in these release notes
	If you encounter a problem or have a question during installation that is not covered in these relese notes, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ and http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/Common.

Anaconda is the name of the Fedora installer. This section outlines issues related to Anaconda and installing Fedora 8.

	Downloading Large Files
If you intend to download the Fedora DVD ISO image, keep in mind that not all file downloading tools can accommodate files larger than 2 GiB in size. Tools without this limitation include wget 1.9.1-16 and above, curl, and ncftpget. BitTorrent is another method for downloading large files. For information about obtaining and using the torrent file, refer to http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/.

Downloading Large Files

If you intend to download the Fedora DVD ISO image, keep in mind that not all file downloading tools can accommodate files larger than 2 GiB in size. Tools without this limitation include wget 1.9.1-16 and above, curl, and ncftpget. BitTorrent is another method for downloading large files. For information about obtaining and using the torrent file, refer to http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/.

Anaconda tests the integrity of installation media by default. This function works with the CD, DVD, hard drive ISO, and NFS ISO installation methods. The Fedora Project recommends that you test all installation media before starting the installation process and before reporting any installation-related bugs. Many of the bugs reported are actually due to improperly-burned CDs or DVDs.

The mediacheck function is highly sensitive, and may report some usable discs as faulty. This result is often caused by disc writing software that does not include padding when creating discs from ISO files. To use this test, at boot time hit any key to enter the menu. Then press the Tab key, add the option mediacheck to the parameter list, and press Enter.

After you complete the mediacheck function successfully, reboot to return DMA mode to its normal state. On many systems, this results in a faster installation process from the disc. You may skip the mediacheck option when rebooting.

	BitTorrent Automatically Verifies File Integrity
	If you use BitTorrent, any files you download are automatically validated. If your file completes downloading, you do not need to check it. Once you burn your CD or DVD, however, you should still use mediacheck to test the integrity of the media.

To perform memory testing before you install Fedora, press any key to enter the boot menu, then select Memory Test. This option runs the Memtest86 stand alone memory testing software in place of Anaconda. Memtest86 memory testing continues until you press the Esc key.

	Memtest86 Availability
	You must boot from Installation Disc 1, the DVD, or a rescue CD in order to use this feature.

Fedora 7 supports graphical FTP and HTTP installations. However, the installer image must either fit in RAM or appear on local storage, such as Installation Disc 1. Therefore, only systems with more than 192MiB of RAM, or which boot from Installation Disc 1, can use the graphical installer. Systems with 192MiB RAM or less fall back to using the text-based installer automatically. If you prefer to use the text-based installer, type linux text at the boot: prompt.

5.1. Changes in Anaconda

Improved Live images support
Ability to install from Live image running from RAM or USB stick
Improved IEEE-1394 (Firewire) support
Use of /dev/hdX is deprecated on i386 and x86_64 for IDE drives, and has changed to /dev/sdX except on PPC. See note about the importance of labeling devices for upgrades from FC6, and partition limitations.

5.2. Installation Related Issues

5.2.1. IDE RAID

Not all IDE RAID controllers are supported. If your RAID controller is not yet supported by dmraid, you may combine drives into RAID arrays by configuring Linux software RAID. For supported controllers, configure the RAID functions in the computer BIOS.

5.2.2. Multiple NICs and PXE Installation

Some servers with multiple network interfaces may not assign eth0 to the first network interface as BIOS knows it, which can cause the installer to try using a different network interface than was used by PXE. To change this behavior, use the following in pxelinux.cfg/* config files:

 IPAPPEND 2  APPEND ksdevice=bootif

The configuration options above causes the installer to use the same network interface as BIOS and PXE use. You can also use the following option:

 ksdevice=link

This option causes the installer to use the first network device it finds that is linked to a network switch.

5.2.3. HP ProLiant DL360 with Smart Array

If you have difficulties with this installation not detecting the Smart Array card, try entering linux isa on the installer prompt. This lets you manually select the card.

5.3. Upgrade Related Issues

Refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DistributionUpgrades for detailed recommended procedures for upgrading Fedora.

5.3.1. SCSI driver partition limits

Whereas older IDE drivers supported up to 63 partitions per device, SCSI devices are limited to 15 partitions per device. Anaconda uses the new libata driver in the same fashion as the rest of Fedora, so it is unable to detect more than 15 partitions on an IDE disk during the installation or upgrade process.

If you are upgrading a system with more than 15 partitions, you may need to migrate the disk to Logical Volume Management (LVM). This restriction may cause conflicts with other installed systems if they do not support LVM. Most modern Linux distributions support LVM, and drivers are available for other operating systems as well.

5.3.2. Disk partitions must be labeled

A change in the way that the linux kernel handles storage devices means that device names like /dev/hdX or /dev/sdX may differ from the values used in earlier releases. Anaconda solves this problem by relying on partition labels. If these labels are not present, then Anaconda presents a warning indicating that partitions need to be labelled and that the upgrade can not proceed. Systems that use Logical Volume Management (LVM) and the device mapper usually do not require relabeling.

5.3.2.1. To check disk partition labels

To view partition labels, boot the existing Fedora installation, and enter the following at a terminal prompt:

 /sbin/blkid

Confirm that each volume line in the list has a LABEL= value, as shown below:

 /dev/hdd1: LABEL="/boot" UUID="ec6a9d6c-6f05-487e-a8bd-a2594b854406" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

5.3.2.2. Update the file system mount entries

If any filesystem labels were added or modified, then the device entries in /etc/fstab must be adjusted to match:

 su -c 'cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig' su -c 'gedit /etc/fstab'

An example of a mount by label entry is:

 LABEL=f7-slash  /  ext3  defaults  1 1

5.3.2.3. Update the `grub.conf` kernel root entry

If the label for the / (root) filesystem was modified, the kernel boot parameter in the grub configuration file must also be modified:

 su -c 'gedit /boot/grub/grub.conf'

A matching example kernel grub line is:

 kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.20-1.2948.fc6 ro root=LABEL=f7-slash rhgb quiet

5.3.2.4. Test changes made to labels

If partition labels were adjusted, or the /etc/fstab file modified, then boot the existing Fedora installation to confirm that all partitions still mount normally and login is successful. When complete, reboot with the installation media to start the installer and begin the upgrade.

5.3.3. Upgrades versus fresh installations

In general, fresh installations are recommended over upgrades, particularly for systems that include software from third-party repositories. Third-party packages remaining from a previous installation may not work as expected on an upgraded Fedora system. If you decide to perform an upgrade anyway, the following information may be helpful:

Before you upgrade, back up the system completely. In particular, preserve /etc, /home, and possibly /opt and /usr/local if customized packages are installed there. You may wish to use a multi-boot approach with a "clone" of the old installation on alternate partition(s) as a fallback. In that case, create alternate boot media, such as a GRUB boot floppy.

	System Configuration Backups
	Backups of configurations in `/etc` are also useful in reconstructing system settings after a fresh installation.

After you complete the upgrade, run the following command:
```
 rpm -qa --last > RPMS_by_Install_Time.txt  
```
Inspect the end of the output for packages that pre-date the upgrade. Remove or upgrade those packages from third-party repositories, or otherwise deal with them as necessary. Some previously installed packages may no longer be available in any configured repository. To list all these packages, use the following command:
```
 su -c 'yum list extras' 
```

6. Architecture Specific Notes

	Latest Release Notes on the Web
	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section provides notes that are specific to the supported hardware architectures of Fedora.

6.1. RPM multiarch support on 64-bit platforms (x86_64, ppc64)

RPM supports parallel installation of multiple architectures of the same package. A default package listing such as rpm -qa might appear to include duplicate packages, since the architecture is not displayed. Instead, use the repoquery command, part of the yum-utils package, which displays architecture by default. To install yum-utils, run the following command:

 su -c 'yum install yum-utils'

To list all packages with their architecture using rpm, run the following command:

 rpm -qa --queryformat "%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}\n"

You can add this to /etc/rpm/macros (for a system wide setting) or ~/.rpmmacros (for a per-user setting). It changes the default query to list the architecture:

 %_query_all_fmt      %%{name}-%%{version}-%%{release}.%%{arch}

6.2. PPC Specifics for Fedora

This section covers specific information about Fedora and the PPC hardware platform.

6.2.1. Hardware Requirements for PPC

6.2.1.1. Processor and memory

Minimum CPU: PowerPC G3 / POWER3
Fedora 8 supports only the "New World" generation of Apple Power Macintosh, shipped from circa 1999 onward.
Fedora 8 also supports IBM pSeries, IBM iSeries, IBM RS/6000, Genesi Pegasos II, and IBM Cell Broadband Engine machines.
Fedora 8 includes new hardware support for Genesi Efika, and for the Sony PlayStation 3.
Recommended for text-mode: 233 MHz G3 or better, 128MiB RAM.
Recommended for graphical: 400 MHz G3 or better, 256MiB RAM.

6.2.1.2. Hard disk space

The disk space requirements listed below represent the disk space taken up by Fedora 8 after installation is complete. However, additional disk space is required during installation to support the installation environment. This additional disk space corresponds to the size of /Fedora/base/stage2.img (on Installation Disc 1) plus the size of the files in /var/lib/rpm on the installed system.

In practical terms, additional space requirements may range from as little as 90 MiB for a minimal installation to as much as an additional 175 MiB for an "everything" installation. The complete packages can occupy over 9 GB of disk space.

Additional space is also required for any user data, and at least 5% free space should be maintained for proper system operation.

6.2.2. 4 KiB Pages on 64-bit machines

After a brief experiment with 64KiB pages in Fedora Core 6, the PowerPC64 kernel has now been switched back to 4KiB pages. The installer should reformat any swap partitions automatically during an upgrade.

6.2.3. The Apple keyboard

The Option key on Apple systems is equivalent to the Alt key on the PC. Where documentation and the installer refer to the Alt key, use the Option key. For some key combinations you may need to use the Option key in conjunction with the Fn key, such as Option+Fn+F3 to switch to virtual terminal tty3.

6.2.4. PPC installation notes

Fedora Installation Disc 1 is bootable on supported hardware. In addition, a bootable CD image appears in the images/ directory of this disc. These images behave differently according to your system hardware:

On most machines, the bootloader automatically boots the appropriate 32-bit or 64-bit installer from the install disc. The default gnome-power-manager package includes power management support, including sleep and backlight level management. Users with more complex requirements can use the apmud package. To install apmud after installation, use the following command:
```
 su -c 'yum install apmud' 
```
64-bit IBM pSeries (POWER4/POWER5), current iSeries models. After using OpenFirmware to boot the CD, the bootloader, yaboot, automatically boots the 64-bit installer.
IBM "Legacy" iSeries (POWER4). So-called "Legacy" iSeries models, which do not use OpenFirmware, require use of the boot image located in the images/iSeries directory of the installation tree.
32-bit CHRP (IBM RS/6000 and others). After using OpenFirmware to boot the CD, select the linux32 boot image at the boot: prompt to start the 32-bit installer. Otherwise, the 64-bit installer starts and fails.
Genesi Pegasos II. At the time of writing, firmware with full support for ISO9660 file systems has not yet been released for the Pegasos. You can use the network boot image, however. At the OpenFirmware prompt, enter the following command:
```
 boot cd: /images/netboot/ppc32.img 
```
You must also configure OpenFirmware on the Pegasos manually to make the installed Fedora system bootable. To do this, set the boot-device and boot-file environment variables appropriately.
Genesi Efika. At the time of writing, the firmware of the Efika has bugs which prevent correct operation of the yaboot bootloader. An updated firmware should be available by April 2007, in advance of the release of Fedora 8. With a fixed firmware, installation on Efika should be the same as on Pegasos II.
Sony PlayStation 3. For installation on PlayStation 3, first update to firmware 1.60 or later. The "Other OS" boot loader must be installed into the flash, following the instructions at http://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/manual.html. A suitable boot loader image ia located on the Fedora 8 install media. Once the boot loader is installed, the PlayStation 3 should boot from the Fedora install media. Select the linux64 from the graphical boot menu. For more information on Fedora and the PlayStation3 or Fedora on PowerPC in general, join the Fedora-PPC mailing list or the #fedora-ppc channel on FreeNode.
Network booting. Combined images containing the installer kernel and ramdisk are located in the images/netboot/ directory of the installation tree. They are intended for network booting with TFTP, but can be used in many ways.

The yaboot loader supports TFTP booting for IBM pSeries and Apple Macintosh. The Fedora Project encourages the use of yaboot over the netboot images.

6.3. x86 Specifics for Fedora

This section covers specific information about Fedora and the x86 hardware platform.

6.3.1. Hardware requirements for x86

In order to use specific features of Fedora 8 during or after installation, you may need to know details of other hardware components such as video and network cards.

6.3.1.1. Processor and memory

The following CPU specifications are stated in terms of Intel processors. Other processors, such as those from AMD, Cyrix, and VIA that are compatible with and equivalent to the following Intel processors, may also be used with Fedora.

Fedora 8 requires an Intel Pentium or better processor, and is optimized for Pentium 4 and later processors.

Recommended for text-mode: 200 MHz Pentium-class or better
Recommended for graphical: 400 MHz Pentium II or better
Minimum RAM for text-mode: 128MiB
Minimum RAM for graphical: 192MiB
Recommended RAM for graphical: 256MiB

6.3.1.2. Hard disk space

The disk space requirements listed below represent the disk space taken up by Fedora 8 after the installation is complete. However, additional disk space is required during the installation to support the installation environment. This additional disk space corresponds to the size of /Fedora/base/stage2.img on Installation Disc 1 plus the size of the files in /var/lib/rpm on the installed system.

In practical terms, additional space requirements may range from as little as 90 MiB for a minimal installation to as much as an additional 175 MiB for an "everything" installation. The complete packages can occupy over 9 GB of disk space.

Additional space is also required for any user data, and at least 5% free space should be maintained for proper system operation.

6.4. x86_64 Specifics for Fedora

This section covers specific information about Fedora and the x86_64 hardware platform.

6.4.1. Hardware requirements for x86_64

In order to use specific features of Fedora 8 during or after installation, you may need to know details of other hardware components such as video and network cards.

6.4.1.1. Memory requirements for x86_64

Minimum RAM for text-mode: 256MiB
Minimum RAM for graphical: 384MiB
Recommended RAM for graphical: 512MiB

6.4.1.2. Hard disk space requirements for x86_64

7. Fedora Live Images

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

The Fedora release includes several live ISO images in addition to the traditional installation images. These ISO images are bootable, and you can burn them to media and use them to try out Fedora. They also include a feature that allows you to install the Live image content to your hard drive for persistence and higher performance.

7.1. Available Images

There are four Live images available for Fedora 8.

Fedora Live (i686, x86_64, ppc). This image includes the GNOME desktop environment, integrates all supported Fedora locales, and features a basic set of productivity applications. Only the i686 version fits on a CD. The x86_64 version has the same feature set and includes multilib packages.
Fedora KDE Live (i686, x86_64). This image includes the KDE desktop environment, with full support for English language only. Only the i686 version fits on a CD. The x86_64 version has the same feature set and includes multilib packages.
Fedora Developer Live (i686). This Live image is designed for software developers, and features the GNOME desktop environment. The toolkit includes the Eclipse integrated development environment, API documentation, and a variety of debugging and profiling utilities.
Fedora Electronic Lab (FEL) Live (i686). This Live image is designed for engineers working on electronics, and includes a toolkit for electronic component design and simulation. The image fits on a CD.

7.2. Usage Information

To boot from the Live image, insert it into your computer and restart. To log in and use the desktop environment, enter the username fedora. Hit Enter at the password prompt, since there is no password on this account. The Live images do not automatically login so users can select a preferred language. After logging in, if you wish to install the contents of the live image to your hard drive, click on the Install to Hard Drive icon on the desktop.

	No i586 Support
	The i686 Live images will not boot on an i586 machine.

7.3. Text Mode Installation

You can do a text mode installation of the Live images using the liveinst command in the console.

7.4. USB Booting

Another way to use these Live images is to put them on a USB stick. To do this, install the livecd-tools package from the development repository. Then, run the livecd-iso-to-disk script:

 /usr/bin/livecd-iso-to-disk /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1

Replace /dev/sdb1 with the partition where you want to put the image.

This is not a destructive process; any data you currently have on your USB stick is preserved.

7.5. Differences From a Regular Fedora Install

The following items are different from a normal Fedora install with the live images.

Live images provide a subset of packages available in the regular DVD image. Both connect to the same repository that has all the packages.
SSH is disabled by default and NetworkManager is enabled by default in the Live images. SSH is disabled because the default username in the Live images does not have any password. Installation to hard disk prompts for creating a new user name and password however. NetworkManager is enabled by default since Live images target desktop users.
Live image installations do not allow any package selection or upgrade capability since they copy entire the filesystem from media to hard disk or USB disks. After the installation is complete and rebooted, packages can be added and removed as desired with yum or the other software management tools.
Live images do not work on i586 architecture.

8. Package Notes

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

The following sections contain information regarding software packages that have undergone significant changes for Fedora 7. For easier access, they are generally organized using the same groups that are shown in the installation system.

8.1. Yum Changes

The installonlyn plugin functionality has been folded into the core yum package. The installonlypkgs and installonly_limit options are used by default to limit the system to retain only two kernel packages. You can adjust the package set or the number of packages, or disable the option entirely to match your preferences. More details is available in the man page for yum.conf.

The yum command now retries when it detects a lock. This function is useful if a daemon is checking for updates, or if you are running yum and one of its graphical frontends simultaneously.

The yum command now understands a cost parameter in its configuration file, which is the relative cost of accessing a software repository. It is useful for weighing one software repository's packages as greater or less than any other. The cost parameter defaults to 1000.

8.2. Utility Packages

The cryptsetup-luks package has been renamed to cryptsetup.

The i810switch package has been removed. This functionality is now available through the xrandr command in the xorg-x11-server-utils package.

The evolution-exchange package replaces evolution-connector, and provides a capability under the old name.

9. Linux Kernel

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section covers changes and important information regarding the 2.6.23 based kernel in Fedora 8. The 2.6.23 kernel includes:

Tickless support for x86 64-bit systems (32-bit was added previously), which greatly improves power management.
Some elements of the realtime kernel project.
The kernel spec file is now named kernel.spec rather than kernel-2.6.spec.
The kernel spec file has new macros that ease the kernel building process. Refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/CustomKernel for further information.
The kernel in Fedora 8 no longer loads modules by default for ISA sound cards. Load the module by hand using the command modprobe module-name, or put an entry in /etc/modprobe.conf. For example, for the Creative SoundBlaster AWE64, add the following entry:
```
 install snd-sbawe 
```

9.1. Version

Fedora may include additional patches to the kernel for improvements, bug fixes, or additional features. For this reason, the Fedora kernel may not be line-for-line equivalent to the so-called vanilla kernel from the kernel.org web site:

http://www.kernel.org/

To obtain a list of these patches, download the source RPM package and run the following command against it:

 rpm -qpl kernel-<version>.src.rpm

9.2. Changelog

To retrieve a log of changes to the package, run the following command:

 rpm -q --changelog kernel-<version>

If you need a user friendly version of the changelog, refer to http://wiki.kernelnewbies.org/LinuxChanges. A short and full diff of the kernel is available from http://kernel.org/git. The Fedora version kernel is based on the Linus tree.

Customizations made for the Fedora version are available from http://cvs.fedoraproject.org.

9.3. Kernel Flavors

Fedora 8 includes the following kernel builds:

Native kernel, for use in most systems. Configured sources are available in the kernel-devel package.
The kernel-PAE, for use in 32-bit x86 systems with more than 4GB of RAM, or with CPUs that have an NX (No eXecute) feature. This kernel support both uniprocessor and multi-processor systems. Configured sources are available in the kernel-PAE-devel package.
Virtualization kernel for use with the Xen emulator package. Configured sources are available in the kernel-xen-devel package.
The kdump kernel for use with kexec/kdump capabilities. Configured sources are available in the kernel-kdump-devel package.

You may install kernel headers for all kernel flavors at the same time. The files are installed in the /usr/src/kernels/version[-PAE|-xen|-kdump]-arch/ tree. Use the following command:

 su -c 'yum install kernel{,-PAE,-xen,-kdump}-devel'

Select one or more of these flavors, separated by commas and no spaces, as appropriate. Enter the root password when prompted.

	32bit Kernel Includes Kdump
	The 32bit kernel is now relocatable, so kdump functionality is included. 64bit still requires installation of the -kdump kernel.

	Default Kernel Provides SMP
	There is no separate SMP kernel available for Fedora on i386, x86_64, and ppc64. Multiprocessor support is provided by the native kernel.

	PowerPC Kernel Support
	There is no support for Xen or kdump for the PowerPC architecture in Fedora. 32-bit PowerPC does still have a separate SMP kernel.

9.4. Reporting Bugs

Refer to http://kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/lkml/reporting-bugs.html for information on reporting bugs in the Linux kernel. You may also use http://bugzilla.redhat.com for reporting bugs that are specific to Fedora.

9.5. Preparing for Kernel Development

Fedora 8 does not include the kernel-source package provided by older versions since only the kernel-devel package is required now to build external modules. Configured sources are available, as described Section 9.3, “Kernel Flavors”.

	Custom Kernel Building
	For information on kernel development and working with custom kernels, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/CustomKernel.

10. Fedora Desktop

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section details changes that affect Fedora graphical desktop users.

10.1. GNOME

This release features GNOME 2.20.

The GNOME splash screen has been disabled upstream intentionally. To enable it, use gconf-editor or the following command:

 gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-session/options/show_splash_screen --type bool true

The lock screen dialog theme is not connected to the selected screensaver in this release. To enable it, use gconf-editor or the following command:

 gconftool-2 --set  --type string /apps/gnome-screensaver/lock_dialog_theme  "system"

10.2. KDE

This release features KDE 3.5.6.

Fedora 8 does not include the KDE 4 Desktop because the currently available prerelease versions are not ready for daily use. It does include the KDE 4 Development Platform, which can be used to develop, build, and run KDE 4 applications within KDE 3 or any other desktop environment. See the Development section for more details about what is included.

10.3. Web Browsers

This release of Fedora includes version 2.0 of the popular Firefox web browser. Refer to http://firefox.com/ for more information about Firefox.

10.3.1. Enabling Flash Plugin

Fedora includes an experimental free and open source implementation of Flash called gnash. We encourage you to experiment with gnash before seeking out Adobe's proprietary Flash plugin software.

To install Adobe Flash plugin follow this procedure:

Visit Adobe's download site.
Choose option 3, Yum repository.
Follow onscreen prompts to install the package.
Launch Applications → Add/Remove Software.
Choose the Search tab and enter flash-plugin.
Select the checkbox to install the package.
Close all Firefox windows, and then launch Firefox again.
Type about:plugins in the URL bar to ensure the plugin is loaded.

Users of Fedora x86_64 must install the nspluginwrapper.i386 package to enable the 32-bit Adobe Flash plugin in x86_64 Firefox and the pulseaudio-libs.i386 package to enable sound from the plugin..

Create the 32bit mozilla plugin directory using this command:
```
 su -c 'mkdir -p /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins' 
```
Install the nspluginwrapper.i386, nspluginwrapper.x86_64, and pulseaudio-libs.i386 packages:
```
 su -c "yum -y install nspluginwrapper.{i386,x86_64} pulseaudio-libs.i386" 
```
Install flash-plugin as shown above.
Run mozilla-plugin-config to register the flash plugin:
```
 su -c 'mozilla-plugin-config -i -g -v' 
```
Close all Firefox windows, and then relaunch Firefox.
Type about:plugins in the URL bar to ensure the plugin is loaded.

10.4. Mail Clients

The mail-notification package has been split. The Evolution plugin is now in a separate package called mail-notification-evolution-plugin. When you update the mail-notification package, the plugin is added automatically.

This release contains Thunderbird version 2.0, which has numerous performance improvements, folder viewing enhancements, and enhanced mail notification support.

10.5. Liberation Fonts

This release of Fedora includes a set of fonts called "Liberation." These fonts are metric equivalents for well-known proprietary fonts prevalent on the Internet. With these fonts, users will find better cross-platform viewing and printing support for a variety of documents. Future versions of these fonts will be fully hinted.

11. File Systems

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

Fedora 8 provides basic support for encrypted swap partitions and non-root file systems. To use it, add entries to /etc/crypttab and reference the created devices in /etc/fstab.

	Encrypted FS Support Unavailable During Install
	Enable file system encryption after installation. Anaconda does not have support for creating encrypted block devices.

The following example shows an /etc/crypttab entry for a swap partition:

 my_swap /dev/sdb1 /dev/urandom swap,cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256

This command creates an encrypted block device /dev/mapper/my_swap, which can be referenced in /etc/fstab. The next example shows an entry for a filesystem volume:

 my_volume /dev/sda5 /etc/volume_key cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256

The /etc/volume_key file contains a plaintext encryption key. You can also specify none as the key file name, and the system instead asks for the encryption key during boot.

The recommended method is to use LUKS for file system volumes. If you are using LUKS you can drop the cipher= declaration in /etc/crypttab).

Create the encrypted volume using cryptsetup luksFormat.
Add the necessary entry to /etc/crypttab.
Set up the volume manually using cryptsetup luksOpen or reboot.
Create a filesystem on the encrypted volume.
Set up an entry in /etc/fstab.

12. Mail Servers

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section concerns electronic mail servers or mail transfer agents (MTAs).

12.1. Sendmail

By default, the Sendmail mail transport agent (MTA) does not accept network connections from any host other than the local computer. To configure Sendmail as a server for other clients, edit /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and change the DAEMON_OPTIONS line to also listen on network devices, or comment out this option entirely using the dnl comment delimiter. Then install the sendmail-cf package and regenerate /etc/mail/sendmail.cf by running the following commands:

 su -c 'yum install sendmail-cf'  su -c 'make -C /etc/mail'

13. Development

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section covers various development tools and features.

13.1. Tools

13.1.1. GCC Compiler Collection

This release of Fedora has been built with GCC 4.1.2, which is included with the distribution.

13.1.1.1. Code Generation

Starting with gcc-4.1.2-25 and glibc-2.6.90-14, the -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 option protects not only C code, but also C++. There have been several security issues already which would have been unexploitable if this checking was in place earlier. Refer to this announcement for more details.

13.1.2. Eclipse

This release of Fedora includes Fedora Eclipse, based on the Eclipse SDK version 3.3.0. You can read the "New and Noteworthy" page for the 3.3.x series of releases can be accessed at http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.3-2007-06251500/whatsnew/eclipse-news.html. Release notes specific to 3.3.0 are available at http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/development/readme_eclipse_3.3.html.

The Eclipse SDK is known variously as "the Eclipse Platform," "the Eclipse IDE," and "Eclipse." The Eclipse SDK is the foundation for the combined release of twenty-one Eclipse projects under the Callisto combined release umbrella (http://www.eclipse.org/europa). A few of these Europa projects are included in Fedora:

CDT (http://www.eclipse.org/cdt, for C/C++ development;
GEF (http://www.eclipse.org/gef), the Graphical Editing Framework; and
Mylyn (http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn), a task-focused UI for Eclipse, along with task connectors for Bugzilla and Trac.

Other Eclipse projects available in Fedora include:

Subclipse (http://subclipse.tigris.org/), for integrating Subversion version control;
PyDev (http://pydev.sf.net), for developing in Python; and
PHPeclipse (http://www.phpeclipse.de/), for developing in PHP.

Assistance in getting more projects packaged and tested with GCJ is always welcome. Contact the interested parties through fedora-devel-java-list (http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-java-list/) and/or #fedora-java on freenode.

Fedora also includes plugins and features that are particularly useful to FLOSS hackers, ChangeLog editing with eclipse-changelog, and Bugzilla interaction with eclipse-mylyn-bugzilla. Our CDT package, eclipse-cdt, includes a snapshot release of work to integrate with the GNU Autotools.

The latest information regarding these projects can be found at the Fedora Eclipse Project page: http://sourceware.org/eclipse/.

13.1.2.1. Non-packaged Plugins/Features

Fedora Eclipse allows non-root users to make use of the Update Manager functionality for installing non-packaged plugins and features. Such plugins are installed in the user's home directory under the .eclipse directory. Please note, however, that these plugins do not have associated GCJ-compiled bits and may therefore run slower than expected.

13.1.2.2. Alternative Java Runtime Environments

The Fedora free JREs do not satisfy every user, so Fedora does allow the installation of alternative JREs. A caveat exists, however, for installing proprietary JREs on 64-bit machines.

The 64-bit JNI libraries shipped by default on x86_64 systems in Fedora do not run on 32-bit JREs. In other words, do not try to run Fedora's x86_64 Eclipse packages on Sun's 32-bit JRE. They fail in confusing ways. Either switch to a 64-bit proprietary JRE, or install the 32-bit version of the packages, if available. To install a 32-bit version, use the following command:

 yum install <package_name>.i386

Likewise, the 32-bit JNI libraries shipped by default on ppc64 systems do not run with a 64-bit JRE. To install the 64-bit version, use the following command:

 yum install <package_name>.ppc64

13.2. KDE 4 Development Platform

Fedora 8 includes KDE 4.0 (beta) development libraries. The following new packages are provided:

kdelibs4: KDE 4 libraries
kdepimlibs: KDE 4 PIM libraries
kdebase4: KDE 4 core runtime files

Use these packages to develop, build and run KDE 4 applications within KDE 3 or any other desktop environment.

The kdebase4 package also includes a beta version of the Dolphin file manager as a technology preview. Note that although Dolphin currently fails to start up when run from the KDE 3 menu, it works when run from Konsole. Other issues may exist as well. If you need a stable version of Dolphin, please install the d3lphin package, which is based on KDE 3 and can be safely installed alongside kdebase4.

These packages are designed to:

comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), and
be completely safe to install in parallel with KDE 3, including the -devel packages.

In order to achieve this, Fedora KDE SIG members made 2 changes to the -devel packages:

The library symlinks are installed to /usr/lib/kde4/devel or /usr/lib64/kde4/devel, depending on system architecture.
The kconfig_compiler and makekdewidgets tools have been renamed kconfig_compiler4 and makekdewidgets4, respectively.

These changes should be completely transparent to the vast majority of KDE 4 applications that use cmake to build, since FindKDE4Internal.cmake has been patched to match these changes.

Note that kdebase4 does not include the KDE 4 Desktop package kdebase-workspace and its components such as Plasma and KWin version 4. The kdebase-workspace package is still too incomplete and unstable for daily use and would conflict with KDE 3.

14. Security

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section highlights various security items from Fedora.

14.1. Security Enhancements

Fedora continues to improve its many proactive security features, and FORTIFY_SOURCE has now been enhanced to cover C++ in addition to C, which prevents many security exploits.
A brand new graphical firewall configuration tool, system-config-firewall, replaces system-config-securitylevel.
This release offers Kiosk functionality via SELinux, among many new enhancements and security policy changes.
The glibc package in Fedora 8 now has support for passwords using SHA256 and SHA512 hashing. Before only DES and MD5 were available. The tools to create passwords have not been extended yet, but if such passwords are created in others ways, glibc will recognize and honor them.
Secure remote management capability is now provided for Xen, KVM, and QEMU in Fedora 8 virtualization.

14.2. General Information

A general introduction to the many proactive security features in Fedora, current status, and policies is available at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Security.

14.2.1. SELinux

The SELinux project pages have troubleshooting tips, explanations, and pointers to documentation and references. Some useful links include the following:

New SELinux project pages: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SELinux
Troubleshooting tips: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SELinux/Troubleshooting
Frequently Asked Questions: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/selinux-faq/
Listing of SELinux commands: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SELinux/Commands
Details of confined domains: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SELinux/Domains

15. IcedTea and java-gcj-compat

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15.1. IcedTea

This release of Fedora includes the IcedTea environment. IcedTea is a build harness for Sun's OpenJDK code that replaces encumbered parts of OpenJDK with Free Software replacements. IcedTea provides a more complete, compatible environment than GCJ, including support for building and running bytecode up to the 1.6 level. Users of IcedTea should be aware of a few caveats:

There is no ppc or ppc64 support. Users of ppc and ppc64 systems should continue to use GCJ.
There is no support for the Java sound APIs.
There are a few missing cryptographic algorithms.

15.2. Handling Java Applets

The Fedora IcedTea packages also include an adaptation of gcjwebplugin that runs untrusted applets safely in a web browser. The plugin is packaged as java-1.7.0-icedtea-plugin.

The gcjwebplugin adaptation has no support for the bytecode-to-Javascript bridge, so applets that rely on this bridge will not work.
The gcjwebplugin adaptation has no support for signed applets. Signed applets will run in untrusted mode.
The gcjwebplugin security policy may be overly restrictive. To enable restricted applets, run firefox -g in a terminal window to see what is being restricted, then grant the restricted permission in /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-icedtea-1.7.0.0/jre/lib/security/java.policy.

15.3. java-gcj-compat

This release of Fedora includes java-gcj-compat. The java-gcj-compat collection includes a tool suite and execution environment that is capable of building and running many useful programs that are written in the Java programming language.

The java-gcj infrastructure has three key components: a GNU Java runtime (libgcj), the Eclipse Java compiler (ecj), and a set of wrappers and links (java-gcj-compat) that present the runtime and compiler to the user in a manner similar to other Java environments.

The Java software packages in this Fedora release use the java-gcj-compat environment. These packages include OpenOffice.org Base, Eclipse, and Apache Tomcat. Refer to the Java FAQ at http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/JavaFAQ for more information on the java-gcj-compat free Java environment in Fedora.

	Include Location and Version Information in Bug Reports
	When making a bug report, be sure to include the output from these commands: which java && java -version && which javac && javac -version

15.4. Handling Java and Java-like Packages

In addition to the java-gcj-compat free software stack, Fedora lets you install multiple Java implementations and switch between them using the alternatives command line tool. However, every Java system you install must be packaged using the JPackage Project packaging guidelines to take advantage of alternatives. Once these packages are installed properly, the root user may switch between java and javac implementations using the alternatives command:

 alternatives --config java alternatives --config javac

A simpler way to switch Java alternatives is using the sytsem-switch-java tool included in Fedora.

15.5. Fedora and the JPackage Java Packages

Fedora includes many packages derived from the JPackage Project, which provides a Java software repository. These packages are modified in Fedora to remove proprietary software dependencies and to make use of GCJ's ahead-of-time compilation feature. Use the Fedora repositories to update these packages, or use the JPackage repository for packages not provided by Fedora. Refer to the JPackage website at http://jpackage.org for more information on the project and the software it provides.

	Mixing Packages from Fedora and JPackage
	Research package compatibility before you install software from both the Fedora and JPackage repositories on the same system. Incompatible packages may cause complex issues.

Refer to the latest release notes pertaining to Eclipse at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats/Devel/Tools/Eclipse.

15.6. Maven (v2)

This release of Fedora includes maven2, a Java project management and project comprehension tool. Maven can be invoked by the mvn and mvn-jpp commands. The former makes Maven behave just like upstream Maven, while the latter calls mvn with additional properties that make off-line building easier.

The maven2 package in Fedora is modified to work in a fully off-line mode. With no additional properties defined (the mvn command), maven2 works exactly like upstream Maven. Users may define additional properties to facilitate off-line builds, or call mvn-jpp, a wrapper that defines the most commonly used properties for off-line building. The properties and their usage details are described in the /usr/share/doc/maven2-2.0.4/maven2-jpp-readme.html file, which comes from the maven2-manual package.

16. Multimedia

	Latest Release Notes on the Web
	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

Fedora includes applications for assorted multimedia functions, including playback, recording, and editing. Additional packages are available through the Fedora Package Collection software repository. For additional information about multimedia in Fedora, refer to the Multimedia section of the Fedora Project website at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia.

16.1. Multimedia Players

The default installation of Fedora includes Rhythmbox and Totem for media playback. The Fedora repositories include many other popular programs such as the XMMS player and KDE's amaroK. Both GNOME and KDE have a selection of players that can be used with a variety of formats. Third parties may offer additional programs to handle other formats.

Fedora also takes full advantage of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) sound system. Many programs can play sound simultaneously, which was once difficult on Linux systems. When all multimedia software is configured to use ALSA for sound support, this limitation disappears. For more information about ALSA, visit the project website at http://www.alsa-project.org/. Users may still experience issues when multiple users log into the system. Depending upon hardware and software configurations, multiple users may not be able to use the sound hardware simultaneously.

16.2. Ogg and Xiph.Org Foundation Formats

Fedora includes complete support for the Ogg media container format and the Vorbis audio, Theora video, Speex audio, and FLAC lossless audio formats. These freely-distributable formats are not encumbered by patent or license restrictions. They provide powerful and flexible alternatives to more popular, restricted formats. The Fedora Project encourages the use of open formats in place of restricted ones. For more information on these formats and how to use them, refer to the Xiph.Org Foundation's web site at http://www.xiph.org/.

16.3. MP3, DVD, and Other Excluded Multimedia Formats

Fedora software repositories cannot include support for MP3 or DVD video playback or recording. The MP3 formats are patented, and the patent holders have not provided the necessary patent licenses. DVD video formats are patented and equipped with an encryption scheme. The patent holders have not provided the necessary patent licenses, and the code needed to decrypt CSS-encrypted discs may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright law of the United States. Fedora also excludes other multimedia software due to patent, copyright, or license restrictions, including Adobe's Flash Player and Real Media's Real Player. For more on this subject, please refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems.

While other MP3 options may be available for Fedora, Fluendo now offers a free MP3 plugin for GStreamer that has the necessary patent license for end users. This plugin enables MP3 support in applications that use the GStreamer framework as a backend. Fedora does not include this plugin since we prefer to support and encourage the use of patent unrestricted open formats instead. For more information about the MP3 plugin, visit Fluendo's website at http://www.fluendo.com/.

16.4. CD and DVD Authoring and Burning

Fedora software repositories includes a variety of tools for easily mastering and burning CDs and DVDs. GNOME users can burn directly from the Nautilus file manager, choose the gnomebaker or graveman packages, or utilize the older xcdroast package from Fedora. KDE users can use the robust k3b package for these tasks. Console tools include cdrecord, readcd, mkisofs, and other popular applications.

16.5. Screencasts

You can use Fedora to create and play back screencasts, which are recorded desktop sessions, using open technologies. Fedora Package Collection software repository includes istanbul, which creates screencasts using the Theora video format. These videos can be played back using one of several players included in Fedora. This is the preferred way to submit screencasts to the Fedora Project for either developer or end-user use. For a more comprehensive how-to, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ScreenCasting.

16.6. Extended Support through Plugins

Most of the media players in Fedora software repositories can use plugins to add support for additional media formats and sound output systems. Some use powerful multimedia frameworks, like the gstreamer package, to handle media format support and sound output. Fedora software repositories offer plugin packages for these backends and for individual applications. Third parties may provide additional plugins to add even greater capabilities.

17. Games and Entertainment

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

Fedora provides a selection of games that cover a variety of genres. Users can install a small package of games for GNOME (called gnome-games) and KDE (kdegames). There are also many additional games that span every major genre available in the repositories.

The Fedora Project website features a section dedicated to games that details many of the available games, including overviews and installation instructions. For more information, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Games.

For a list of other games that are available for installation, use the Pirut graphical utility (ApplicationsAdd/Remove Software), or via the command line:

 yum groupinfo "Games and Entertainment"

For help using yum to install the assorted game packages, refer to the guide available at:x

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/yum/

17.1. Haxima

Fedora 7 includes version 0.5.6 of the Nazghul old-school role playing game engine and its companion game Haxima. This version is not compatible with saved games from previous Nazghul versions, so those with Haxima games in progress need to restart their games after updating to Fedora 7.

18. Virtualization

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

Virtualization in Fedora 8 supports both Xen and KVM virtualization platforms. The libvirt API and its corresponding tools, virt-manager and virsh, have been updated to support both KVM and Xen. Users can choose which virtualization platform to install, and use the same tools without regard to that choice.

Xen in Fedora 8 is based on version 3.1.0.

KVM in Fedora 8 is based on version 36-2.

For more information on the differences between Xen and KVM, refer to http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/TechComparison. For more information on installing and using virtualization in Fedora 8, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Fedora8VirtQuickStart.

18.1. Changes to the Virtualization Packages

The following improvements have been made in the virtualization packages in Fedora 8:

Secure remote management of guest domains. Features include:

Secure remote management of guest VM lifecycle
Secure remote access to the guest virtual consoles
For more information on secure remote management, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureVirtSecurity.

Introduction of Virt Viewer, a lightweight, minimal UI for interacting with the graphical console of virtual machines. Virt Viewer serves as a replacement for vncviewer.
The LibVNCServer implementation has been removed from Xen and replaced with QEMU.
Introduction of GTK-VNC, a GTK widget which provides a VNC client. For more information on GTK-VNC refer to http://gtk-vnc.sourceforge.net/.

19. X Window System (Graphics)

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section contains information related to the X Window System implementation, X.org, provided with Fedora.

19.1. X Configuration Changes

The X.org 7.2 X server has been modified to automatically detect and configure most hardware, eliminating the need for users or administrators to modify the /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file. The only hardware configured by default in the xorg.conf file written by anaconda is:

The graphics driver
The keyboard map

All other hardware, such as monitors (both LCD and CRT), USB mice, and touchpads should be detected and configured automatically.

The X server queries the attached monitor for supported resolution ranges, and attempts to pick the highest resolution available with the correct aspect ratio for the display. Users can set their preferred resolution in System → Preferences → Screen Resolution, and the default resolution for the system can be changed with System → Administration → Display.

If the /etc/X11/xorg.conf configuration file is not present, X also automatically detects the appropriate driver, and assumes a 105-key US keyboard layout.

19.2. Intel Driver Notes

Fedora 7 contains two drivers for Intel integrated graphics controllers:

The default i810 driver, which contains support for Intel graphics chipsets up to and including i945 and i965
The experimental intel driver, which contains support for Intel graphics chipsets up to and including i945

The i810 driver is limited to resolutions available in the BIOS. If you need support for non-standard resolutions, such as those used in some widescreen displays, you may want to switch to the intel driver. You may switch drivers by using system-config-display, available in the menus under System → Administration → Display.

We welcome feedback on the experimental intel driver. Please report success in Bugzilla, attaching the full output of lspci -vn for your machine. Given success reports, various chipsets may be switched to use the intel driver by default.

19.3. Third Party Video Drivers

If you intend to use third party video drivers, refer to the Xorg third party drivers page for detailed guidelines:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Xorg/3rdPartyVideoDrivers

20. Database Servers

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

20.1. MySQL

Fedora now provides MySQL 5.0.45. For a list of the enhancements provided by this version, refer to http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysql-5-0-nutshell.html.

For more information on upgrading databases from previous releases of MySQL, refer to the MySQL website at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/upgrade.html.

20.1.1. DBD Driver

The MySQL DBD driver has been dual-licensed and the related licensing issues have been resolved (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=222237). The resulting apr-util-mysql package is now included in the Fedora software repositories.

20.2. PostgreSQL

This release of Fedora includes PostgreSQL 8.2.4. For more information on this new version, refer to http://www.postgresql.org/docs/whatsnew.

	Upgrading Databases
	Before upgrading an existing Fedora system with a PostgreSQL database, it could be necessary to follow the procedure described at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/install-upgrading.html. Otherwise the data may be not accessible by the new version of PostgreSQL.

21. Internationalization (i18n)

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

This section includes information on language support under Fedora.

Localization (translation) of Fedora is coordinated by the Fedora Localization Project.
Internationalization of Fedora is maintained by the Fedora I18n Project.

21.1. Language Coverage

21.1.1. Language support installation

To install additional language support from the Languages group, use Pirut via Applications → Add/Remove Software, or run this command:

 su -c 'yum groupinstall 	<language>-support'

In the command above, <language> is one of assamese, bengali, chinese, gujarati, hindi, japanese, kannada, korean, malayalam, marathi, oriya, punjabi, sinhala, tamil, thai, or telegu.

Users upgrading from earlier releases of Fedora are strongly recommended to install scim-bridge-gtk, which works well with 3rd party C++ applications linked against older versions of libstdc++.

To add SCIM support to input a particular language, install scim-lang-LANG, where LANG is one of assamese, bengali, chinese, dhivehi, farsi, gujarati, hindi, japanese, kannada, korean, latin, malayalam, marathi, oriya, punjabi, sinhalese, tamil, telugu, thai, or tibetan.

21.1.2. Transifex

This release features Transifex, a new tool designed to facilitate contributing translations to projects hosted on remote and disparate version control systems. Core packages in this release use Transifex to receive translations from numerous contributors.

Through a combination of new Web tools, community growth, and better processes, translators can now contribute directly to any upstream project through one translator-oriented Web interface. Developers of projects with no existing translation community can easily reach out to Fedora's established community for translations. In turn, translators can reach out to numerous projects related to Fedora to easily contribute translations.

21.2. Fonts

In Fedora 8 fonts for all available languages are now installed by default on the desktop to give good default language coverage. Most of the fonts in generically named font packages have been moved to their own packages to reflect the upstream name and make font choices easier.

21.2.1. Chinese fonts

the cjkunifonts-fonts package has been split out of fonts-chinese into two subpackages for the Uming and Ukai faces.
The taipeifonts package has been split out of fonts-chinese.
The wqy-bitmap-fonts package is now installed by default with Chinese support.
The wqy-unibit-fonts package has been added.

21.2.2. Indic fonts

The lohit-fonts package has been split out of fonts-indic.

21.2.3. Japanese fonts

The sazanami-fonts package has been split out of fonts-japanese into two subpackages for the Gothic and Mincho faces.
The jisksp16-1990-fonts package has been split out of fonts-japanese.
The knm_new-fonts package has been split out of fonts-japanese.

VLGothic-fonts will become the new default Japanese font starting in Fedora 9.

21.2.4. Korean fonts

The baekmuk-ttf-fonts and baekmuk-bdf-fonts packages have been split out of fonts-korean. The baekmuk-ttf-fonts package provides four subpackages for Batang, Dotum, Gulim and Headline typefaces.

21.3. Input Methods

21.3.1. Improved im-chooser

The user interface of im-chooser has been improved to be simpler and easier to understand.

21.3.2. SCIM input method Defaults

The core SCIM packages are now installed by default, but the input method only starts by default on desktops running in an Asian locale. The current list is: as, bn, gu, hi, ja, kn, ko, ml, mr, ne, or, pa, si, ta, te, th, ur, vi, zh). You can use im-chooser via System → Preferences → Personal → Input Method to enable or disable SCIM on your desktop, or to select other installed input methods. To activate SCIM on your desktop by default In a non-Asian locale, set Use custom input method → scim in im-chooser and restart your desktop session.

The following table lists the default trigger hotkeys for different languages:

Language	Trigger hotkeys
all	Ctrl+Space
Japanese	Zenkaku_Hankaku or Alt+`
Korean	Shift+Space or Hangul

21.3.3. Other input methods

This release adds support for the nabi input method for Korean Hangul.

22. Backwards Compatibility

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	These release notes may be updated. Visit http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/ to view the latest release notes for Fedora.

Fedora provides legacy system libraries for compatibility with older software. This software is part of the Legacy Software Development group, which is not installed by default. Users who require this functionality may select this group either during installation or after the installation process is complete. To install the package group on a Fedora system, use Applications → Add/Remove Software (Pirut) or enter the following command in a terminal window:

 su -c 'yum groupinstall "Legacy Software Development"'

Enter the password for the root account when prompted.

22.1. Compiler Compatibility

The compat-gcc-34 package has been included for compatibility reasons:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2006-August/msg00409.html

23. Package Changes

For a list of which packages were updated since the previous release, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats/PackageChanges/UpdatedPackages. You can also find a comparison of major packages between all Fedora versions at http://distrowatch.com/fedora.

24. Fedora Project

The goal of the Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general-purpose operating system exclusively from open source software. The Fedora Project is driven by the individuals that contribute to it. As a tester, developer, documenter, or translator, you can make a difference. Refer to http://fedoraproject.org/join-fedora.html for details. For information on the channels of communication for Fedora users and contributors, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate.

The Fedora Project is driven by the individuals that contribute to it. As a tester, developer, documenter, or translator, you can make a difference. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join for details. For information on the channels of communication for Fedora users and contributors, refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate.

In addition to the website, the following mailing lists are available:

fedora-list@redhat.com, for users of Fedora releases
fedora-test-list@redhat.com, for testers of Fedora test releases
fedora-devel-list@redhat.com, for developers, developers, developers
fedora-docs-list@redhat.com, for participants of the Documentation Project

To subscribe to any of these lists, send an email with the word "subscribe" in the subject to <listname>-request, where <listname> is one of the above list names. Alternately, you can subscribe to Fedora mailing lists through the Web interface at http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/.

The Fedora Project also uses several IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels. IRC is a real-time, text-based form of communication, similar to Instant Messaging. With it, you may have conversations with multiple people in an open channel, or chat with someone privately one-on-one. To talk with other Fedora Project participants via IRC, access the Freenode IRC network. Refer to the Freenode website at http://www.freenode.net/ for more information.

Fedora Project participants frequent the #fedora channel on the Freenode network, while Fedora Project developers may often be found on the #fedora-devel channel. Some of the larger projects may have their own channels as well. This information may be found on the webpage for the project, and at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate.

In order to talk on the #fedora channel, you need to register your nickname, or nick. Instructions are given when you /join the channel.

	IRC Channels
	The Fedora Project and Red Hat have no control over the Fedora Project IRC channels or their content.

25. Colophon

As we use the term, a colophon:

recognizes contributors and provides accountability, and
explains tools and production methods.

25.1. Contributors

Alain Portal (translator - French)
Amanpreet Singh Alam (translator - Punjabi)
Andrew Martynov (translator - Russian)
Andrew Overholt (beat contributor)
Anthony Green (beat writer)
Brandon Holbrook (beat contributor)
Bob Jensen (beat writer)
Chris Lennert (beat writer)
Dave Malcolm (beat writer)
David Eisenstein (beat writer)
David Woodhouse (beat writer)
Deepak Bhole (beat contributor)
Diego Burigo Zacarao (translator - Brazilian Portuguese)
Dimitris Glezos (translator - Greek, tools)
Domingo Becker (translator - Spanish)
Francesco Tombolini (translator - Italian)
Gavin Henry (beat writer)
Hugo Cisneiros (translator - Brazilian Portuguese)
Igor Miletic (translator - Serbian)
Jeff Johnston (beat contributor)
Jens Petersen (beat writer)
Jesse Keating (beat contributor)
Joe Orton (beat writer)
Jose Nuno Coelho Pires (translator - Portuguese)
Josh Bressers (beat writer)
Karsten Wade (beat writer, editor, co-publisher)
Kyu Lee (beat contributor)
Licio Fonseca (translator - Brazilian Portuguese)
Luya Tshimbalanga (beat writer)
Magnus Larsson (translator - Swedish)
Martin Ball (beat writer)
Maxim Dziumanenko (translator - Ukrainian)
Nikos Charonitakis (translator - Greek)
Orion Poplawski (beat contributor)
Patrick Barnes (beat writer, editor)
Paul W. Frields (tools, editor)
Pawel Sadowski (translator - Polish)
Patrick Ernzer (beat contributor)
Rahul Sundaram (beat writer, editor)
Sam Folk-Williams (beat writer)
Sekine Tatsuo (translator - Japanese)
Simos Xenitellis (translator - Greek)
Steve Dickson (beat writer)
Teta Bilianou (translator - Greek)
ThomasCanniot (translator - French)
Thomas Gier (translator - German)
Thomas Graf (beat writer)
Tommy Reynolds (tools)
Valnir Ferreira Jr. (translator - Brazilian Portuguese)
Will Woods (beat contributor)
Yoshinari Takaoka (translator, tools)
Yuan Yijun (translator - Simplified Chinese)
Zhang Yang (translator - simplified Chinese)

... and many more translators. Refer to the Web-updated version of these release notes as we add translators after release:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/

25.2. Production Methods

Beat writers produce the release notes directly on the Fedora Project Wiki. They collaborate with other subject matter experts during the test release phase of Fedora to explain important changes and enhancements. The editorial team ensures consistency and quality of the finished beats, and ports the Wiki material to DocBook XML in a revision control repository. At this point, the team of translators produces other language versions of the release notes, and then they become available to the general public as part of Fedora. The publication team also makes them, and subsequent errata, available via the Web.

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Labels: fedora, linux

Written at 7:45 AM by Frank.

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