Official Announcement
- FIXME
Filing Bug Reports
File bug reports on this Alpha release for directed feedback.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_file_a_bug_report
General Information
To download Fedora 12 Alpha, visit http://fedoraproject.org/get-prerelease. Download options are available for BitTorrent, direct download, and Jigdo. Fedora 12 Alpha is available for all 32-bit and 64-bit Intel-compatible platforms, and PowerPC. For more information, refer to #How_to_Try_Alpha on this page.
Known Issues
FIXME
Release Overview
As always, Fedora continues to develop and integrate the latest free and open source software. The following sections provide a brief overview of major changes from the last release of Fedora. For more details about other features that are making their way into Rawhide and set for inclusion in Fedora 12, refer to their individual wiki pages that detail feature goals and progress. Also, throughout the release cycle, there are interviews with the developers behind key features giving out the inside story. Features for this release are tracked on the feature list page.
The Purpose of the Alpha Release
A Fedora Alpha release is an installable, testable version of the code and features being developed for Fedora 12 (codename). The software is going to have bugs, problems, and incomplete features. It is not likely to eat your data or parts of your computer, but you should be aware that it could.
You have an important part to play in this Alpha release. Either install or run a Fedora Live instance of the Fedora 12 Alpha release, then try using a few applications or activities that are important to you. If it doesn't work, file a bug. This Alpha release gives the wider community a set of code to test against as a very important step in the process of making a solid Fedora 12 release. You can make the Fedora 12 release better by testing the Alpha release and reporting your findings.
What's New in Fedora 12 (codename) Alpha
The following sections document major new features and changes in the Fedora 12 Alpha release.
GNOME 2.28
The GNOME 2.28 development snapshot is part of this release, and is the default environment used in the Fedora Desktop Live image. The Desktop Live image is a downloadable CD you can use to test the new GNOME environment with or without installing it. The image can be written to CD, or to a USB flash disk using these instructions.
Epiphany in this release is now using the WebKit engine instead of the Gecko engine from Firefox. If you have issues, do report them via bugzilla.
Gnote is installed by default in GNOME for this release replacing Tomboy. Gnote is a port of Tomboy from Mono to C++ and consumes less resources. Gnote is both an applet that can sit in your GNOME panel as well as a individual application you can run within other desktop environments. Fedora Desktop Live CD excluded Mono in the last releases due to lack of space. Gnote will be installed by default in the Live CD as well in this release. Tomboy is still available as a optional alternative. If you are upgrading from the previous release you will not be migrated to Gnote and will continue to have Tomboy. It is easy to migrate to Gnote however as it shares the file format. This migration is not automatic. You can copy the notes from Tomboy to Gnote using the following command in your home directory
cp .tomboy .gnote
KDE 4.3.x
KDE 4.3.x is part of this release and is the default environment in the Fedora KDE Desktop Live image. The KDE Desktop Live image is a downloadable CD you can use to test the new KDE environment with or without installing it. The image can be written to a CD, or to a USB flash disk using these instructions.
Additional Information
How to Try Alpha
Alpha is accompanied by installable live CDs of both the GNOME and KDE desktops. With a Live CD users can perform testing and demonstration without installing any software to the hard disk. As the Alpha release is largely targeted at developers and contains many bleeding edge packages, this is the best method for less experienced users who want to get involved with testing. The Live CDs also have an option to install Fedora to the hard disk for the more intrepid users.
The best way to download Fedora 12 Alpha is through BitTorrent -- visit the Fedora torrent server for a listing of available images. Alpha images can also be downloaded from any of our mirrors. Remember that live images can be used on USB media via the livecd-iso-to-disk utility available in the livecd-tools package on existing Fedora systems. Refer to the USB How-to for more instructions. You can also use Jigdo to download the i386, x86_64, or ppc versions.
Fedora 40 Release Schedule And Feature Details
Development continues on Rawhide during and after the Alpha release, leading up to the Beta and Release Candidate before the final release. The links below provide the release schedule for both the pre-releases and the final release, as well as the wiki pages for tracking the various features planned for inclusion in Fedora 12.