F18 Beta release announcement

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

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

There is a new upgrade system for Fedora 18 making its first appearance in Fedora 18 Beta. Upgrading via the system installer or the preupgrade tool is no longer possible. To upgrade to Fedora 18 from Fedora 17, you should use the new "Fedup" tool. Instructions and information on the new tool are here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp. The tool is still under active development, please take a look at the FedUp FAQ (in the wiki page) in case of any issues with the upgrade process, and back up your system before trying the upgrade.

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

• This release includes several language updates, including the move to Perl 5.16, updating the Python 3 stack from 3.2 to 3.3, Rails 3.2 and updated D and Haskell programming environments.

For system administrators

• Fedora 18 includes the final release of Samba 4, and can be used to integrate with an Active Directory domain out of the box. In addition, FreeIPA, an integrated identity management solution, now provides cross-realm trusts with Active Directory domains.
• 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

Contributing

Great releases like Fedora 18 don't get made in a vacuum. We can't do it without you! Bug reports are especially helpful as we move from the theory to the applied physics. If you encounter any issues, please report them!

Fedora is a fantastic, friendly community, and we have many ways in which you can contribute, including Documentation, Marketing, Design, QA, Development, and more.

To learn how to help us, visit: http://join.fedoraproject.org/

Thank you, and we hope to see you in the Fedora Project!

You may notice this announcement is a day late! We'd like to apologize to the community for the delayed announcement and any consequences resulting from the delay.