Fedora users who cannot wait for the next fedora release rejoice. The Fedora Project has oficially announced the release of Fedora 11 (Leonidas) Alpha.
Be aware though that the alpha release, like all the alpha releases, is mainly targeted at developers and testers. The Fedora Project, however, has been kind enough to include a installable live CDs of both the GNOME and KDE desktops with the release. This means that less experienced users too can try it out without the risk of loosing their files.
The following lists some of the new features in Fedora 11 (Leonidas) Alpha:
- Windows Cross Compiler (mingw32-*): Fedora 11 (Leonidas) Alpha comes with MinGW, using which users can cross-compile their programs to run in Windows without using Windows during development.
- Ext4 File System: Ext4 file system has been available experementally since Fedora 9. But it is the default filesystem in Fedora 11 (Alpha). It is supposed to have better performance and reliability, support for larger storage, and very fast file system checks and file deletions compared to ext3 file system. Keep in mind though that GRUB boot loader does not yet support ext4.
- Btrfs File System: The Btrfs file system is an experimentally available in Fedora 11 (Alpha).
- New Volume Control: Fedora 11 (Alpha) has unified volume controls in one interface that makes setting up sound easier.
- PackageKit Firmware Support: PackageKit in Fedora 10 already has support for installing additional media codecs on demand. PackageKit in the Fedora 11 Alpha release has extended this capability to install firmware on demand as well based on system requirements.
- GNOME 2.26 and KDE 4.2.0: The GNOME 2.26 and KDE 4.2.0t are included in the Fedora 11 (Alpha) release.
- Xfce 4.6 Beta: Xfce 4.6 Beta, is available in the repository and is the default environment in the Fedora Xfce Live Spin.
- NetBeans 6.5: The NetBeans has been updated to version 6.5.
- Python 2.6: Python 2.6 has been integrated into the release and all the software in the distribution are compatible with it.
If you want to try out Fedora 11 (Leonidas) Alpha, it can be downloaded here.
For the official announcement of the release, click here.