Fedora Does Real World Work. Debian is for Hobbyists

It's interesting to watch the pace of change with Linux on the Desktop.

Want technology on the leading edge?  Fedora is here today with best of breed solutions, all of which merge to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the largest commercial Linux Distribution in the World.

Fedora was first to implement systemd.

Fedora is first with a robust implementation of state of the art technologies including rpm-ostree and Docker on their Project Atomic platform.  And, Cockpit eases the process of managing servers and containers in the cloud via a unified web management interface.

You see, at release 21, Fedora split into server, workstation, and cloud divisions.

The transition was amazingly uneventful, due to Red Hat's senior guidance and the incredibly hard work done by the Fedora Team coordinated with upstream GNOME Project.

Fedora takes what they do very seriously and when it comes to meeting target milestones, they galvanize into action and meet them in a timely business-like fashion. 

Every time Debian runs into delays, that pushes back Canonical's Ubuntu milestones who hitched their wagon to Debian and delays get passed in turn down the line to the rest of the Ubuntu derivatives who hitched their wagons to Ubuntu.  It's a serious problem, particularly for Canonical Ltd. who are trying to run a business.

No, the real work is done by Red Hat/Fedora in the business world.  No messing around.  No divisiveness, stalling, stonewalling.  Tasks move along with rhythm and cadence, all oarsmen stroking to a beat, following directions and executing them as ordered in synchronous precision.


Debian is the proverbial speed-bump on the road to innovation and with an 18 month release cycle nothing gets done in a hurry.

Debian devotees won't like to read this but, Debian isn't behaving like a professional Distro should.  They allow themselves the luxury of procrastination and all the while 'make pretend' some highly technical issue must be considered before embarking on any kind of work.  I call it 'work avoidance'.  Because, that is really what it is under a veil of techno-speak designed to obfuscate what is or isn't really happening in their hallowed organization.  If they are to survive, a radical change must be made to their release management policy.

The real world can't afford to behave like 'hobbyists'.  The real world won't wait.  Debian is falling farther behind, but that's okay as far as they are concerned.

The work will get done.  Eventually.  

Fedora does the real-world work.  Debian is for hobbyists.  -- Dietrich

Related articles

• Development Release: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 Beta

Read More

December 9, 2014: The Day Desktop Computing Got Fun Again

Remember when Desktop Computing was fun?

The early days of Ubuntu were a time when GNOME really had things going for it.  Then, one Mark Shuttleworth took the product in another direction.  Unity.

Unity was initially interesting but didn't fit usability and that began the period of when I didn't like what I saw happening to Ubuntu.

During that period, The GNOME Foundation was undergoing its own change.  GNOME 2.x was determined at end of life and GNOME Shell, a concept GUI was established.

As with any GUI paradigm change comes a period of 'growing pains'.  I was really resistant to what GNOME was doing.  And so, I spent a long period in search of a good alternative GUI.  Ultimately, I found myself liking LXDE, and dwelled in Lubuntu.

Then, I tried Fedora 18 LXDE spin.  I concluded it was from a technical standpoint as good as Lubuntu.

Philosophically, I didn't like what Debian and Ubuntu were doing.

When it became apparent that Mark Shuttleworth was running his own railroad and broke ties with The GNOME Project, I thought he was trying to control delays in upstream decision making.  That made good business sense.

But in the process, he flip-flopped on putting full support behind Wayland turning to creating his 'own' Display driver, Mir.

To make it short and to the point, there is no other Distro which uses Unity.  NONE.

Today, Unity is on an island all by itself.

During the period of 'transition' The GNOME Project came out with initial revisions with GNOME Classic 'fall-back' to keep the malcontents happy.  In each iteration, GNOME made feature enhancements in an effort to continually refine the 3.x shell.

Each major revision, I gave it a try and turned away giving it a 'thumbs down' on usability.

Until 3.12, I didn't like Shell.  It was at that level it became truly usable and ready for prime time.  That was a year ago.

Today, GNOME Shell has reached 3.14 and I have been using it for several months on Fedora 21 Alpha/Beta/RC Workstation.

Even with Alpha, I found myself smiling and laughing at just how well the interface meshed.  It is polished, professional and just fun to use.

Yes, it is fun to use.  I really haven't felt that way in a very long time and I look forward to turning on my PC every day because Fedora 21 Workstation with GNOME Shell 3.14 is just that good.  I would add, Red Hat is the largest supporter of The GNOME Foundation and has worked closely in the design of GNOME Shell.  Red Hat also provides web infrastructure for The GNOME Project.  The relationship is close knit.  The end result is what you see and use.

December 9, 2014, has been promised by the Fedora Team as a 'Go' for Fedora 21 Workstation.  The day will be remembered as when Desktop Computing got fun again.  -- Dietrich

Related articles

• There is no Substitute for #1. Fedora 21 Workstation. Linux Done Right.

Read More

Debian Forks as Stormy Seas Lie Ahead.

Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek - Sailing the Stormy Seas (Image credit: imagehere.com)

Seriously, I think some people just have self-destructive personalities.

Such is the case for Debian, where a few souls have foolishly convinced themselves that a Fork is necessary.

For what, exactly?

I submit the big unspoken reason is 'work avoidance'.

It would seem, the majority of major Distros have had no difficulty merging systemd and there are no reports I am aware of that would indicate problems of any kind aside from planned and routine systemd maintenance upgrades.

So, I am thinking, What kind of effect will such a fork have?

Most likely, it will create fear, uncertainty, doubt about whether either Distro is viable and if either should be taken seriously at this point.

Thus, a cloud now has formed over the Debian camp and all indications are that Devuan will be the name of a newly announced Fork.

Will Devuan be taken seriously?  Will there be a fractious split and move en masse from Debian to Devuan?

I am going to say No to both questions.

This marks the end of the systemd controversy at Debian.  Those who wish to leave for greener pastures are welcome to do so.  Debian will continue their slow, pragmatic, sloth-like progress and those who have hitched their wagons to it, will submit to whatever happens.

The cheering for Devuan will eventually reach a crescendo, then fade.  Reality will set in.  A very large volume of work must be done if Devuan will ever come to fruition.  Work avoidance won't suffice this time.

It should come as no surprise, and for good technical reasons, I wouldn't touch Debian with a barge pole, much less a fork of it.

As far as I am concerned, neither has anything to offer that would be considered superior to Red Hat (Fedora ) technology.  For one, Red Hat is fully Linux Standard Base and systemd compliant. Two, it is a commercial Distro that actually makes a 'profit', unlike Canonical Ltd.Ubuntu where Mr. Shuttleworth plucks down an occasional IOU to cover operating expenses so he can keep his insolvent business going.

You see, unfortunately and in retrospect Mr. Shuttleworth made a bad strategic decision early on.

Namely, Ubuntu hitched its wagon to Debian, which, as we all know, now has forked. Canonical Ltd. regardless of their gantt charts, project management milestones, and other various metrics will have to 'cow-tow' to whatever Debian chooses to do.  That, alone, breeds much confusion and has taken its toll.  It even pushes out the planned roll-out of Mir display technology for at least another year (16.04 tentatively).  Unity, the Ubuntu desktop GUI, has become effectively an island unto itself.  None of the other Distros will support it.  Not one.  Mr. Shuttleworth succeeded in only driving a wedge into the upstream development community.  Unlike Unity, GNOME with Wayland is on time, stable, and well supported, particularly by Red Hat.

There is no confusion in the Fedora camp.  It's full steam ahead for the anticipated release of Fedora 21 Workstation, along side the newly created divisions for Server and Cloud, this all being done under the governance and financial assistance of Red Hat.

Fedora is the largest Community Distro and the R&D factory for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  No confusion exists due to their thoughtful planning and execution.

Stay the course Red Hat, Fedora, stormy seas lie ahead.  -- Dietrich

Related articles

• There is no Substitute for #1. Fedora 21 Workstation. Linux Done Right.

Read More

Fedora 21 Workstation Prerelease. Pure Awesomeness. Zero Exploitation.

Fedora 21 Workstation Prerelease - Pure Awesomeness.  Zero Exploitation.

What do I mean by Zero Exploitation?

Why pay for recycled software bits when you can get it for free, every version release?  That's Zero Exploitation.  Fedora continually refines its software technology as part of Red Hat's R&D process and becomes part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux when mature.

Unlike Gnu Public Licensed Linux free Open Source Fedora, Microsoft charges a license fee for every software release, both on their Windows operating system and software applications.  The end-user, you, gets a bill for the same software bits they paid for on their first purchase, only with a new skin on top.  Looks different on the outside.  Mostly recycled bits on the inside.  That's exploitation, plain and simple.

So, step off of the Microsoft Licensing treadmill and put an end to the exploitation today.

Enjoy pure awesomeness and complete security of Fedora 21 starting here.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Fedora Engineering

Read More

Fedora 21 Alpha Workstation Impressions

Fedora 21 Workstation (GNOME 3.14 Desktop GUI)

Draining the Swamp, is the title of a 2001 GUADEC presentation done in Seville Spain back in 2001 by +Jim Gettys, author of the X Window system.  Citing his remarks in an April 2014 story, Christian Schaller (Senior Software Engineering Manager at Red Hat, Developer at GNOME) writes about Gettys' vision:

(...) "We are trying to bring that ‘draining the swamp’ mindset with us into creating the Fedora Workstation product.

With that in mind what is the driving ideas behind the Fedora Workstation? The Fedora Workstation effort is meant to provide a first class desktop for your laptop or workstation computer, combining a polished user interface with access to new technologies. We are putting a special emphasis on developers with our first releases, both looking at how we improve the desktop experience for developers, and looking at what tools we can offer to developers to let them be productive as quickly as possible. And to be clear when we say developers we are not only thinking about developers who wants to develop for the desktop or the desktop itself, but any kind of software developer or DevOPs out there." (...)

That sums up what Fedora 21 Workstation is all about.

Fedora has embarked on an ambitious plan called Fedora.next which breaks out three distinct product lines: Server, Workstation and Cloud.  I only give my initial impressions for Workstation.  Here goes.

Shiny and New

It's a good sign when I find myself smiling, which is what happened after installing Fedora 21 Alpha Workstation.


As I write, and after a week of poking around Fedora Workstation Alpha, I am thinking:

"This is Alpha?  It's more production-ready than other general releases I have seen".  Seriously Folks, it's that stable.

The most obvious change?  Visual.

Fedora Workstation gets the proverbial face lift with GNOME 3.14.   And that is what keeps me smiling.

Adwaita Gets Some Love

In its default form GNOME is fitted to Adwaita Theme.  There are no rough edges.  Just smooth contours, gradients, delicious fonts, all composited to make the eyes feel good.   GNOME has worked diligently in shaping their Human Interface Guidelines to assist GTK Application Developers.

In other work done outside of Fedora, the Adwaita team did a major redesign which improves portability, provides maximum GTK compatibility for Developers and is now the default theme for the GTK toolset.

Bells and Whistles

Alan Day has labored and brings swarming animation.  A nice professional touch of glitz never hurts and lends to the overal professional feel.

Venturing into GNOME Software, you'll discover the newest version now offers Live Search.

Pressing the nine dots icon (or tap the Super key) to type any city name will return the current time in GNOME Clock.

As well, typing a quick calculation into the search field will return from GNOME Calculator an instant result.

Other New Features

• Touchscreen Gesture support
• Interactive GTK Inspector (for Developers)
• Mozilla Location Service
• New Animations for Activities
• New Minimize Maximize Transition Effects

Updated Apps

• Weather App Geolocation Support
• Maps Route Planning
• Boxes Multi-Window, VM Snapshot Support
• Music Online Provider Support
• Photos Google/PicasaWeb Integration
• Evince PDF Reader Redesigned
• dnf (Yum replacement) Speed Improvements

Kernel Update

During this week, Fedora 21 yum update-testing downloaded Linux Kernel 3.17, which the Linux Foundation reports includes several feature enhancements.

New Default Terminal Theme

GNOME Terminal now defaults to using the Solarized theme (below).

GNOME 3.14 Solarized Theme

New System Log Utility

For those who feign going near system logs, a new utility called Logs will come in very handy (below) and makes viewing logs simple.

New System Logs Utility

Wayland Remains Non-Default

To those who have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Wayland production support, I say: "Good things come to those who wait." ;)

Seriously, Christian Schaller gives an update on the status of Wayland and I will say from my own vantage point while Wayland may be stable, the process of migrating GTK Apps to use Wayland is ongoing.  Schaller writes:

(...) "So we want to keep being a place where you do get access to new and exciting technologies first, but as you see with the Wayland effort we are now going to go the extra mile to make sure we offer this new technologies in a way that allows you to still use Fedora as your day to day working machine without worrying that these new features will hinder your work. So we will keep Wayland available as a separate non-default session until we feel very confident that our users are not going to be negatively impacted by the switch. Which means we want to fix and polish up the last remaining bits and pieces, make sure that performance is top notch, make sure all input hardware works flawlessly, work with NVidia and AMD to help them make their binary drivers available for Wayland before we make this the new default." (...)

Conclusions

As for 'Draining the Swamp', I am giving a thumbs up to the Fedora and GNOME Teams for their hard work.  Fedora Workstation really shines and despite being Alpha, I have not had any major problems aside from what gets sent in the automated crash reports.

Fedora succeeds and while the use case Target Audience includes, Students and Developers I would feel comfortable recommending it to Grandma.

Fedora Workstation product documentation can be found here.
Alpha/Beta Testers are encouraged to participate.  Get the Prerelease here.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Releases/21/FeatureList
• Fedora 21 Alpha released

Read More

Linux Desktop Application Development Flounders

You know, I have been trying to remain objective on this topic and have debated whether or not it would be constructive to write a post for going on several months now. (Image credit: illustrationsource.com)

Each day I survey the news pan-handling for those 'nuggets' that would indicate someone out there is 'thinking' and actually innovating on the Linux Desktop.  When I sort through the chaff of daily trumpeting of the newest Distro cookie cutter 'me too!' clone, I come up with scant information on new software development for specifically the Linux Desktop market.

Okay, you are grumbling.  You see, being an Advocate doesn't mean I will feed you platitudes and say 'nice things' all the time.  Quite the opposite.  I take a critical eye to what is, or in case of this story, isn't going on with Linux.

I don't get as excited about Linux on the Desktop (LoD).  Where are the killer apps?

Close your eyes and what do you see?  Heh.  Yep.  Nothing.  This is saying something but I am not sure what it means.

Are Developers too busy doing other things in their lives?

Are the global economic conditions putting pressure on LoD software development in general?

Companies with a bankroll and capability to pay Developers to do their work allow them a decent livelihood.  So, consequently companies like Microsoft and Apple have traditionally done well.

Yet, even now, Microsoft just announced a major lay-off of 18,000 employees.

Along with the effects of a recession, which I prefer to call a depression, come the attendant 'side-effects':

Business contraction, job loss, increased unemployment are all symptoms of what is not just regional, but encompassing the global economy as it were.

Thus, if you are one of those committers who volunteers their service in writing Open Source code in your spare time, and you find yourself out of a day job, that will most undoubtedly put a crimp on your ability, willingness to volunteer services when you cannot put dinner on the table.

We see ongoing development continues with Apple, Microsoft, Red Hat Linux and their orbiting software vendors in the commercial arena, but on the community side of Linux, I see few interesting new software applications in the offing.

Does this fit with what you see?  What are your thoughts?  -- Dietrich

Related articles

• Cookie Cutter Distros Don't Cut It
• Emmabuntus: Yet More Recycled Bits?
• Where Will Your Linux Distro Be in Five Years?

Read More

Linux Consolidation Continues: CentOS Joins Red Hat

by Dietrich Schmitz

The news that CentOS has joined the Red Hat family is positive.

"With today's announcement, Red Hat extends its commitment to rapid open source technology and solution development to deliver:

Commercial development and deployment:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the world's leading enterprise Linux platform, offering an extensive ecosystem of partners, a comprehensive portfolio of certified hardware and software offerings, and Red Hat's award winning support, consulting, and training services. Red Hat subscriptions deliver this value combined with access to the industry's most extensive ecosystem of partners, customers, and Linux experts to support and accelerate success.  

• Community integration beyond the operating system: CentOS, a community-supported and produced Linux distribution that draws on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other open source technologies to provide a platform that's open to variation. CentOS provides a base for community adoption and integration of open source cloud, storage, network, and infrastructure technologies on a Red Hat-based platform.  

• Operating system innovation across the stack: Fedora, a community-supported and produced Linux distribution that makes it easy for users to consume and contribute to leading-edge open source technologies from the kernel to the cloud. As a cutting edge development platform where every level of the stack is open to revision and improvement, Fedora will continue to serve as the upstream project on which future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases are based."

The news is most positive in the sense that money doesn't grow on trees and funding to continue ongoing development has to come from somewhere.  I've maintained that this year, 2014, and going forward there will be an overall major consolidation of Linux Distributions as many will drop out by attrition and lack of financial ability to continue.

Last year, we saw evidence of that underway with first Fuduntu's demise, then Cloverleaf and SolusOS.  

However willing developers may be to work on Linux, the harsh reality is that one must have an income to sustain oneself, without which doing any sort of extracurricular project and particularly on a voluntary basis becomes exceedingly difficult if not impossible.

With that said, CentOS Project Leader +Karanbir Singh (left) shared some of his insights with +The Linux Foundation's esteemed +Libby Clark.

In Q&A fashion, here's some of what Karanbir had to say:

 "...Ten years ago when some of us were getting together to start the project, the aim was to get 300 people to use it, that was fantastic. From our perspective it's been fairly successful. How we define success is to build something we would use and that comes back to the user-driven approach. We cared about how things worked, where they worked, and overall it worked out well having that user perspective. 

I've never worked for a big open source company before but I hope to bring that user perspective to Red Hat and what I'll take a way is a large approach to user communities and hopefully manage that better. 

Otherwise, not much has changed. They sent me a phone and a laptop and that's how it's going to go. I feel quite privileged to have this opportunity to focus on the CentOS larger ecosystem side of things." 

... 

"...There's been no money involved in the project. We have a bank account that's never had more than a couple hundred dollars for printing t-shirts for events. This is the first time there's a group of people 'professionally' working on CentOS as a platform (emphasis mine). 

How CentOS used to happen was some of us would go to work and then work another 40 hours a week on CentOS. You can't sustain 80 hours a week. The reason I did it wasn't for compensation, it was because I wanted to."

Clearly, having a big organization the likes of Red Hat certainly will help fuel development efforts at CentOS.  And, as has been seen with Fedora, Red Hat understand well how to cultivate and nuture community-led research and development.  Assuming CentOS will find its way into the Fedora community of spins will round out and close a big gap on server side offerings.

Here's wishing the CentOS Distro Team the best of luck in their new relationship.

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• CentOS and Red Hat Are Now One Big Project
• Red Hat and CentOS become Voltron, build free operating system together
• Red Hat embraces adjacent ecosystem CentOS

Read More

Fedora 20 Linux for the Masses

by Dietrich Schmitz

Hey, you never know.  It could happen.  That is, Fedora will become the 'de facto' long-term Linux Community Distribution standard after 5 years.  I give to you below embedded my Google Plus stream of consciousness uncensored, unabridged for your consumption. :)

-- Dietrich

Related articles

• Sandbox? What Sandbox? -- Fedora Has You Covered
• Money in the Bank: Fedora Btrfs Filesystem With Yum-plugin-fs-snapshot
• The Fedora Project is the Best FOSS Community-Driven Linux Distribution

Read More

Fedora Desktop 20 (Gnome): A Class Act

by Dietrich Schmitz

If there is one thing I have learned, it's that life is dynamic.  And so it is in life that many things change  -- not just the material objects -- but our social mores and mindsets evolve to such an extent that completely different views and perspectives are gained.

This is a story about Fedora Desktop 20 and how it has changed my view of several things.

I am using the pre-release version of Fedora Desktop 20, which is scheduled for release on December 10, 2013.  As pre-releases go (beta 5 at the time of this writing), one can expect a 'bumpy' ride.  That has not been my experience.  In fact, it has been quite stable compared to other betas I have tested in the past.

Community

You see, unlike Ubuntu, Red Hat-owned Fedora Desktop 20, is a 'true' community-based Distro that gets most of the feature enhancements added and chosen by 'community' participants.   The 'derivative' Ubuntu Distros?  Well, they are playing 'second fiddle' and rest atop the Canonical-supplied Ubuntu Linux Kernel and repository system coupling their own non-Unity chosen GUIs.

Despite Canonical Ltd.'s best efforts to lend the appearance of having a true community-driven Distribution (Distro), I have reached the conclusion that most of their decision making comes from corporate, not community, participants.  In fact, Canonical Ltd. does not differentiate between their 'commercial' Ubuntu and a Ubuntu community version.  There simply isn't one.

Fedora's Default Desktop GUI - Gnome

This is where I found myself pleasantly surprised.  Historically, I liked neither Unity nor the Gnome 3.x GUIs for many reasons stemming from my 20 years in IT software and user interface design development experience.

As was the case with the initial 4.x release of KDE Plasma Desktop, there was a period of 'instability', during which users responded with feedback for a year or more until the KDE Development Team replicated rearward features from the 3.5.x generation.  Ultimately, KDE prevailed and matured to the point where I would call it the 'best' Desktop GUI for Linux.

Gnome Shell 3.10 shown in 'Window Selection' mode

Today, I find myself chuckling because, despite 'major' past usability issues acknowledged by the Gnome Team, they've managed to surmount them and have reached what I call a stable usability plateau.  Fedora Desktop 20 uses The Gnome Project's Gnome 3.10.1 and I can honestly say that this is a far sight better than the previous versions of Gnome and it is well beyond Ubuntu in overall usability, fit and finish.

Hats off to both The Gnome Project and the Fedora Developer Team in doing a superb job of integration.  The name 'Fedora Desktop' now really takes on special meaning for me. It's drop-dead easy to use like Windows and quite professional in all respects.  

In surveying the Distrowatch.com Top 5 Distributions, I'd place Fedora Desktop as the best Gnome implementation, Canonical's Ubuntu as the Unity GUI, Mint as the best KDE, Xfce, Cinnamon and MATE implementations (which includes their Debian spin), and Lubuntu as the best LXDE Distro.  (That's the top 5 Distros, so, don't take it personally if I didn't mention your favorite Distribution.)

Security

Many of you already know I am an ardent security advocate so I view those Distros which promote advanced security features with great favor.

Fedora has a long-standing reputation for excellent security and implements by default Linux Security Module SELinux which places user activities in a 'Mandatory Access Control' 'sandbox'.  This ensures that if some unsuspecting exploit tries to escalate and gain administrative access to your system, the SELinux policy will simply kill the process.

In addition to the standard Linux security features that all Distros inherit from the Linux Kernel, the Fedora Desktop 20 now incorporates stronger gcc compilation controls to mitigate risk of buffer overflow using a new compiler switch, -fstack-protector-strong.

New Features

From a Red Hat press release, here's a brief summary of Fedora 20's new features taken verbatim:

What’s New in Fedora 20First and foremost, we are pleased to announce that, in keeping with Fedora’s commitment to leading edge open innovation, ARM is now a primary architecture. While Fedora has supported a number of hardware architectures over the years (with x86/x86_64 being the default for the majority of Fedora users), the ARM team has made massive strides over the past year. The technology already dominates the mobile market and shows great promise for the server world as well, hence Fedora’s adoption of the architecture to satisfy end users and developers targeting the ARM platform.
Cloud and Virtualization EnhancementsOS Installer Support for LVM Thin Provisioning – With the introduction of thin provisioning via Logical Volume Manager (LVM) in the Linux kernel, Fedora 20 can now support the configuration of thin clients during OS installation.
VM Snapshot UI with virt-manager – While QEMU and libvirt are fully capable of performing safe virtual machine (VM) snapshots/checkpoints, a simple, discoverable UI did not exist previously. This feature adds a UI to virt-manager, simplifying the VM process.
Developer GoodiesFedora features a host of new features and updated packages to interest developers using a wide variety of languages, including Ruby on Rails 4.0 and Perl 5.18.
Maturity/Advanced FeaturesNetworkManager Improvements – Users can now add, edit, delete, activate and de-activate network connections via the nmcli command line tool, and support for bonding and bridging interfaces is now included, improving usability for enterprise and virtualization users.
No Default Sendmail, Syslog – As systemd continues to mature, the systemd journal now takes its place as the default logging solution in place of syslog, while Sendmail is no longer installed by default.

Conclusion

I've really been trying hard to come up with some justification which would sway me to prefer Ubuntu over Fedora Desktop 20.  I can't.  The security is better.  The package manager, YUM, I have reviewed and it is simply superior to APT.  

Fedora is Linux Standard Base (LSB) compliant and the staging area for any new LSB enhancements which merge to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  Fedora also takes the technology lead by being the first community Distro to have implemented systemd.  Many other Distros have followed suit, yet, Ubuntu chose some time ago to develop and still employs Upstart.  

Laggard Debian only recently made a feature freeze decision for Debian 8 and chose Upstart, despite the long-term benefits of systemd.  Gnome 3.10.1 as I mentioned has reached a new plateau of stability and usability and is a cut above Canonical Ltd.'s competing Unity overall.  

Yes, Gnome's time has come.  It integrates exceedingly well with Fedora to provide a  professional Linux Desktop experience.   

Fedora Desktop 20 -- It's a 'class act'.  -- Dietrich

Related articles

• Gnome 3 experience
• Fedora 20 Supplemental Wallpapers
• Look! GNOME 3.10 (with Fedora 20). Did we mention GNOME 3.10?

Read More

Sandbox? What Sandbox? -- Fedora Has You Covered

by Dietrich Schmitz

It's not something the average user thinks about -- security.  But as with most Linux Distributions (Distro) Fedora, a Red Hat community-based Distro, has some things going for it that are not apparent.

The single biggest asset going for Fedora is security.  You see, just about everything you do while on Fedora is under what's called 'Mandatory Access Control'.  That's security-speak for basically having everything you do 'watched' by a third-party 'Linux Security Module', (LSM) including even actions taken by the system kernel.  That may not mean much to you but to system administrators and security experts alike, it is 'peace of mind'.

Simply put, bad things won't happen on Fedora's watch.

No, unlike Microsoft Windows, this 'third-party' is always cross-checking what your PC is doing and if anything isn't in your SELinux 'policy' say trying to gain administrative privilege to control your system without your expressed permission, SELinux steps in and kills the process.

That's the way security should be.  And you can rest assured your PC won't be hit by silent 'drive-by' javascript DLL injection attack as is still prevelant with Microsoft Windows legacy x86; even Windows 8.1 uses the legacy WinNT 2000 kernel.  That's ancient by today's standards and it is fraught with security issues like the one described above.

I've written about how Google's Engineers have posted a general 'disclaimer' on their chromium.org website for Chrome that effectively says:  

 

"W'eve tried our best to sandbox Chrome on Windows, but we can't guarantee you won't get infected.  Sorry."  (shrugs)

So, if you've been bitten one too many times by a virus from out of nowhere on Windows, maybe now is a good time for you to make a switch for the better.

Get smart.  Get Fedora Linux with LSM SELinux found here:
http://fedoraproject.org/

 

Fedora has you covered.  Be safe. -- Dietrich

Related articles

• Fedora 20 "Heisenbug" Now Available in Beta Release
• 10 years of Fedora, a T-shirt for the main contributors
• Happy 10th birthday, Fedora Linux!
• Features/VirtSandbox

Read More

Does it really matter?

by Daniel Sandman

I have lately contemplated over Linux and it's market share on desktop. We have seen a little upswing the last year and depending who you ask it is somewhere between 1.6-3 percent of all desktop computers. It's a small percentage but what people tend to forget is that it is a HUGE number. There are around 2 billion desktop computers running in the world today. The estimation is hard to do but it's the general number I tend to see on this. So that means it would be roughly 30-60 million desktop computers running with Linux in today's world. Not a small number. Even if you only took a third of that number it would still be 10 million computers which are actively being used. That is a lot of people.

I mean how many people do we need to have an active ecosystem? I have no clue, but would guess a couple of thousand is enough. That means a couple of thousands technical users. Those who can develop and maintain. It's a non-issue for desktop Linux currently. It's always nice to have a couple of more developers but a general feel is that we are good. So I have no fear to be honest. As long as we grow I am good. It doesn't need to jump several percentages to make me happy. Just a steady slow grow is enough and that is how it looks today. For me it's more important the openness is preserved than a market majority.

Sure I am happy to see Valve and gang joining the club. I mean it is good to have the choice. It also improves the support for drivers and hardware which could be better on Linux. I am not complaining though. My hardware on my machines has worked more or less flawlessly since 2008 or so.

So does it really matter?

Yes, I think so. The state of Linux today are big changes. We are watching Linux being commercialized at a rate never seen before. Android and ChromeOS have been good for Linux but Google are no RedHat. Sure RedHat do have some proprietary solutions but mainly aimed at enterprise. With Google we get core functionality like the distribution of software closed off. That is an essential difference from what we are used to. We are seeing Canonical taking steps toward a similar business model and others are surely thinking of it too. Heck even Apple have a similar solution with some parts open but others not. Is this the future of open source? Is the future a mix of open and close?

Maybe. I hope it is not but money talk and Linux is dependant on businesses donating developers to make code. In a perfect world this would not be needed but the world today is anything but perfect. Just because we need some commercialization does not mean I am happy about Google and Canonical. I wish they could have taken a more similar approach to RedHat and SUSE which base their revenue on support. If so it would have meant they might have not felt the need to use CLA and closed source on core functionality. So my main concern today lay in the commercialization of Linux and what that might bring us tomorrow. Not so much in the actual percentage of market share.

It could be fine but it could also mean that openness proves to be a failure. I hope on the former. We have to stay vigilant and especially on software with core functionality that is not open and demand opening them up. The danger lay in dependence on commercial software with core functionality. We as a community can not allow such things to happen. If we do it would mean the end of openness and the end of Linux as we know it.

So to me supporting Systemd, Wayland and Bodega are important for the future of Linux.

Related articles

• Has Ubuntu lost it?
• Red Hat CEO: Go Ahead, Copy Our Software
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop: Better Than Red Hat?

Read More