From Fedora Project Wiki

Revision as of 20:15, 28 November 2012 by Jreznik (talk | contribs) (Apology)

The Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow" Beta release is rolling! This release offers a preview of some of the best free and open source technology currently under development.

We are delighted to announce the availability of the beta release of Fedora 18. Want to get a taste of the future? Download it now:

http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease

We'd like to apologize the community for delayed official Fedora Project announcement and the consequences of the lack of it.

What is the Beta Release?

The Beta release is the last important milestone of Fedora 18. Only critical bug fixes will be pushed as updates leading to the general release of Fedora 18 in the beginning of the next year. We invite you to join us in making Fedora 18 a solid release by downloading, testing, and providing your valuable feedback.

Of course, this is a beta release, meaning that some problems may still be lurking. A list of the problems we already know about is found at the Common F18 bugs page, seen here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs

To upgrade to Fedora 18 Beta from previous supported releases, a new tool called Fedup is available, as a replacement for deprecated preugprade and Anaconda installer upgrade method. Check the instructions how to proceed with upgrade: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp. The tool is still under active development, please take a look on FedUp FAQ in case of any issues with upgrade process.

Features

This release of Fedora includes a variety of features both over and under the hood that show off the power and flexibility of the advancing state of free software. Here are just a few of the new features:

For users everywhere

  • Fedora 18 offers a brand-new version of the Gnome desktop, version 3.6, straight from the upstream development process. Updates have also been made to the KDE Plasma Workspaces, XFCE and Sugar desktop environments; additionally, the MATE desktop is available for the first time in Fedora.
  • Fedora's new installer user interface enhances the anaconda installer with improvements in ease of use and installation.

For developers

For system administrators

  • Fedora 18 includes the final release of Samba 4, and can be used on an Active Directory domain out of the box. An integrated, new native management software allows you to access data and server information easily.
  • OpenStack in Fedora 18 has been updated to Folsom, the most recent release by the OpenStack community. This Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform enables the creation and management of cloud infrastructure.
  • Eucalyptus 3.1, another IaaS platform, is available in Fedora for the first time, and includes the major components of Eucalyptus.
  • System Storage Management CLI tools simplify the user interface by providing unified abstraction and interface for multiple storage technologies, including lvm, btrfs and md raid.

For more Features, please take a look on the complete list: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList

We have nightly composes of alternate spins available here:

http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/

Contributing to Fedora

For more information on common and known bugs, tips on how to report bugs, and the official release schedule, please refer to the release notes:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org

There are many ways to contribute beyond bug reporting. You can help translate software and content, test and give feedback on software updates, write and edit documentation, help with all sorts of promotional activities, and package free software for use by millions of Fedora users worldwide. To get started, visit http://join.fedoraproject.org today!