F18 release announcement

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No bull, Spherical Cow, is of course, Fedora's best release yet.

What's New in Fedora 18?

For desktop users

Moooove over, stale desktops. We've got a small herd of choices udderly suited to your preferences.

• MATE Desktop The MATE desktop provides users with a classic GNOME 2.x style user interface. This desktop is perfect for users that have been running Gnome Classic, or other window managers like XFCE.

• Cinnamon Fedora users now have the option of using Cinnamon, an advanced desktop environment based on GNOME3. Cinnamon takes advantage of advanced features provided by the GNOME backend while providing users with a more traditional desktop experience.

• Gnome 3.6 The newest version of the Gnome desktop provides an enhanced Messaging Tray, support for Microsoft Exchange and Skydrive, and many more new features. For more information visit the Gnome release notes.

For developers

For developers there are all sorts of mootivating goodies:

• DragonEgg optimizes GCC DragonEgg is a plugin for the GCC compilers to allow use of the LLVM optimization and code generation framework. DragonEgg provides software developers with more optimization and code generation options for use with the GCC compilers. DragonEgg also allows GCC to be used for cross-compilation to target architectures supported by LLVM without requiring any special cross-compilation compiler packages.

For system administrators

And don't think we forgot fake services for the system administrators:

• Upgrade with fedUP Fedup is a new tool for upgrading Fedora installations that is replacing pre-upgrade and the DVD methods of upgrading that have been used in previous Fedora releases. It utilizes systemd for much of the upgrade functionality and will eventually be able to source packages from a DVD and use the regular install repos instead of needing a specially created side repo.

And that's only the beginning. A more complete list with details of all the new features on board Fedora 18 is available at:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList

OK, go get it. You know you can't wait.

http://get.fedoraproject.org/

If you are upgrading from a previous release of Fedora, refer to:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading

Fedora has made pre-upgrade a more robust solution and pushed several bug fixes to older releases of Fedora to enable an easy upgrade to Fedora 18.

For a quick tour of features in Fedora 18 and pictures of many friends of Fedora, check out our short-form release notes:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fnumber_one_page_release_notes

Fedora 18 full release notes and guides for several languages are available at:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/

Fedora 18 common bugs are documented at:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_Fnumber_bugs

Fedora Spins

Fedora spins are alternate versions of Fedora tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application set or customizations, from desktop options to spins for those interested in gaming, robotics, or design software. More information on these spins (and others) is available at:

http://spins.fedoraproject.org

Feature Deprecation

Fedora has always been full of great features, but sometimes we need to cull the herd. Saying good-bye is always hard, but here are the ones we had to let go of this time around. {[Offer work-arounds or alternatives wherever possible. If a spin still covers this need, say so. Encourage the die-hard community to participate in the unofficial support of this feature.]}

Contributing

For more information including 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, design and do artwork, 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!

Fedora 19

Even as we continue to provide updates with enhancements and bug fixes to improve the Fedora number experience, our next release, Fedora number+1, is already being developed in parallel, and has been open for active development for several months already. We have an early schedule for an end of May/October year release:

• https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/19/Schedule

Contact information

If you are a journalist or reporter, you can find additional information at:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Press