The Fedora project team on Tuesday posted a , its final stage of development during which users and contributors can provide feedback about bugs missed during beta testing. The latest Fedora distro is based on kernel 2.6.25; more on that later. General release is set for mid-May.
Fedora 9 went to beta (and feature freeze) last month, with stable integration of GNOME 2.22. This update to GNU’s desktop replaces GNOME VFS with the faster and more feature-rich GFVS and GIO. According to the , GFVS vastly improves performance and can queue multiple file transfers. Security is improved via enhancements to Fedora-developed PolicyKit introduced with Fedora 8.
The new desktop also includes a new GNOME Display Manager, which can dynamically configure displays, control power management at login and works better with PolicyKit. GNOME now connects with Bluetooth-enabled Palm devices and can share files via Bluetooth right through the desktop, rather than through multiple discrete apps.
Developers will take note of a new multimedia API, called Phonon, a hardware integration framework named Solid and a rewritten Plasma desktop and panel. These updates are part of KDE Desktop 4.0.2, the default desktop, some of which has been ported to TrollTech’s Qt 4 cross-platform GUI libraries.
Also notable is the inclusion of compatibility packages “to ensure that applications not yet ported to KDE 4 will continue to work,” according to the release notes.
Improvements to NetworkManager include compatibility with PolicyKit for network configuration and support for ad-hoc wireless networks and PPP over mobile broadband cards (GSM and CDMA).
With its tweaked address bar and new Places bookmark replacement, the Firefox 3 beta 5 browser finally has Fedora-like look and integrates with the desktop. Fedora now ships with a browser plug-in for playing Flash animations, videos and games.
Version 2.6.25 of the Linux kernel reportedly features CPU group scheduling, avoidance of memory fragmentation, tickless support for x86-64/PowerPC and other architectures and SPI/SDIO support.