Fedora 9 “Sulphur” Out May 20, 2008
Posted by Burhan in : Linux, Software , add a commentThis is probably old news for those that are keeping up with Linux distribution releases but Fedora 9 “Sulphur” was recently released. I am actually a big fan of Ubuntu but Fedora always seems to be a step ahead when integrating the latest versions of popular opensource programs; and so last night I downloaded the 3.3 GB DVD installer image and replace Ubuntu on my dual boot system with Fedora.
It used to be that installation was the biggest hurdle with Linux — not so anymore. Installation couldn’t be simpler; you answer a few questions, click next, choose the disk partitions and anaconda (the Fedora installer) takes care of the rest; including setting up the bootloader to correctly boot into Vista. There is even a screen by screen presentation that shows you the exact steps you need to take to get it installed.
Fedora 9 Includes:
- Firefox 3Β5
- KDE 4
- GNOME 2.22
- Openoffice 2.4 (although recently Openoffice 3.0 beta was released with support for Office 2007 formats)
- The ext4 file system
To be fair, most of the above is also part of Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” but the reason I switched to Fedora is because their new NetworkManager application has added experimental support for GSM modems. Previously you had to use third party workarounds that were vendor specific (ie, only works with Huwaei devices) or provides little or no support. I can also confirm that it works with the USB modems that are being distributed by both Zain and Wataniya.