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, you can download it here. As always, we recommend against using pre-release software on a production machine.
Fedora fans, how do you feel about this splintering of Fedora into three flavors? Is it good or bad? Tell me in the comments.
Photo Credit: maimu / M. Unal Ozmen / Shutterstock