Fedora 21 Beta Arrives Tomorrow, Could Be the Best Release So Far

[Exterminator]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Fedo...Could-Be-the-Best-Release-So-Far-463865.shtml

Fedora 21 Beta is set to arrive tomorrow, and this is the first piece of good news that has arrived from the Red Hat developers in quite some time. Everyone was expecting a delay, but it looks like we'll get to test the new release very soon.

We reported on six delays in this development cycle for Fedora 21 and we might have missed a couple. The fact that Fedora is always delayed is something that has become widely accepted by the community and no one is really upset. In the end, the developers are just trying to make a better release for everyone, so why should people get mad in the first place?

The previous delay was registered just a week ago and it didn't look good. The list of potential blockers was still pretty long, but everyone was hoping that things would improve. Apparently they did, because we are now preparing to receive the first Beta release for Fedora 21.
No more delays for Fedora 21?
The operating system is usually postponed by only a week each time, so it doesn't seem like much, but if you put all the weeks together, you get at least a month and a half. And that is a conservative estimate. The good thing is that people still care about Fedora and there are lots of users out there who just can't wait to try all the new features.

"At the Fedora 21 Beta Go/No-Go Meeting #3 that just occurred, it was agreed to Go with the Fedora 21 Beta by Fedora QA, Release Engineering and Development. Fedora 21 Beta will be publicly available on Tuesday, November 04, 2014," notes Red Hat's Jaroslav Reznik. It might not seem like much, but the Beta version is actually pretty close to the final iteration.

Fedora 21 promises to be the best version released so far and will be packed with all the latest applications and various packages, including GNOME 3.14, KDE Frameworks 5, Pyhon 3.x, Java 8, the latest MATE version, and even Wayland as the default display server. It remains to be seen what the OS will actually bring in the end, but from the looks of it, regular users will definitely have a lot of new features to absorb.

The release schedule put forth is pretty clear now. There will be a single step to be taken before the final version is released and that is the Final Freeze, which is on November 25. The stable Fedora 21 version is expected to arrive on December 9.

 

[Petrovic]

Linux fans, Fedora 21 Beta 1 is here! Now featuring three flavors
Fedora is my favorite Linux distro, but more importantly, it is the operating system of choice for someone far more important than I. Who is this person? Linus Torvalds of course! Yes, the foul-mouthed father of Linux does his computing on Fedora, legitimizing the operating system as one of the best.

Unfortunately, Fedora has fallen a bit behind lately with a slow release schedule, frustrating some users. How bad is it? Well, Fedora 20 was released back in December of 2013. Today, finally, the first beta of Fedora 21 is released, and there is something unique about it; for the first time, there are three distinct versions (flavors) of the operating system. Is that a good or bad thing?


"The Fedora Project is excited to announce the beta release of Fedora 21, the first Fedora release to embrace the Fedora.next initiative, which in part seeks to better meet user needs by delivering three distinct products. Fedora 21 is a Linux based operating system developed and maintained by the Fedora Project's diverse global community as part of the project's mission of advancing free software. It deviates from other Fedora releases, however, by delivering not one, but three flavors of Fedora 21 Beta: Fedora 21 Cloud Beta, Fedora 21 Server Beta, Fedora 21 Workstation Beta" says the Fedora Project Team.

This three-flavor concept will likely draw the ire of many in the Fedora Community; however it will likely stem from a fear of change. Yes, this is something new and Fedora fans love their distro, so any threat to it is understandably an emotional thing. With that said, I think the community should give the concept a chance.

For most home users, the Workstation flavor will be the target. The Fedora Project Team explains, "offering a reliable, user friendly and powerful operating system for laptops and PCs, Fedora 21 Workstation Beta delivers a stable and flexible development platform for application developers from students to hobbyists to corporate coders".

The team lists some major updates to Fedora 21 Workstation Beta 1:

• GNOME 3.14 -- The latest GNOME desktop, which includes integration of Picasaweb and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) media server support for increased interoperability with other media devices and much, much more.
• Wayland Technology Preview -- A nextgeneration display server positioned as a possible X.org replacement in the future, Wayland offers a more modern windowing system for Fedora 21 Beta and will likely serve as the default in the next iteration of FedoraWorkstation.
• DevAssistant -- A tool to help developers set up project environments so that they can focus on code and code alone.

If you are interested in trying Beta 1, the download links should be here shortly. As always, we recommend against using pre-release software on a production machine.
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