Jesse Keating, release engineer for Fedora Core, Red Hat, released free community OS Fedora 10, codenamed Cambridge, a little later than the scheduled date as malicious hackers had infiltrated Fedora Servers at Red Hat.
Fedora 10 uses entirely new Linux kernel version 2.6.27 released in October. The Fedora offers installation option between GNOME 2.24 and KDE 4.1 Linux desktop environments, along with other significant features. GNOME 2.24, which was released in September, brought tabbed browsing and other enhancements to GNOME s Nautilus File Manager.
Fedora 10, built over 2.6.27 Linux kernel, offers compatibility with new webcams and includes new Artheros ath9k wireless driver for better Wi-Fi support. Faster bootup is boasted with new graphical boot system, dubbed as Plymouth. Check out the Plymouth video published by Fedora developers here.
This release also includes a new version of Network Manager - no longer known as the NetMangler - and has built-in support for wireless connection sharing. The wireless connection share feature helps in creating an ad hoc Wi-Fi network and share the connection with other machines wirelessly. The interface also offers advanced features like adding hidden networks.
The RPM package management has gone through a major overhaul such as the maximum file size in packages has been increased to 4GB. However, casual users will have to take the pains of all the patented codecs and plug-ins since Fedora includes only freely distributable software package. PackageKit, package management frontend, is integrated with Gstreamer and will automatically download codecs for media that isn't supported natively.
Yet another significant feature is the new glitch-free PulseAudio tool which was originally included in Fedora 8 as Pulse sound server. The new PulseAudio offers timer-based audio scheduling and will reduce audio drops. This could also cut down the number of interrupts and thus save up battery life for mobile platforms.
On the software front, OpenOffice 3.0 is packed along with optional Empathy IM client installable from repository while Pidgin remains the default IM client. Latest Firefox 3.0.4 with latest bug fixes is also included in this release.
Check the full details of Fedora 10 release in their official release notes.
Fedora 10 is available for download from the Fedora Project page.
