Fedora 9 Review

I have listened to a lot of podcasts and they frequently review new distributions of Linux operating systems. These podcasters do a great job of doing this, but when Fedora releases their updated distributions I feel like they always get the short end of the stick when it gets reviewed. Fedora is one of those distributions that believe in using only open source software. You can always install proprietary software and codec after then installation has been completed, but from the core installation you have a pure open source based operating system.

An example is out of the box you will not have MP3 support, this is because MP3 codec is not an open source codec and there are licenses regarding using the MP3 codec. You can install this codec simply using a few mouse clicks but the core believe of using open source software instead of proprietary software was what was in mind when the developers did not include MP3 support. Again, you can always install this after you have installed your Fedora operating system.

One feature that always seems to get overlooked is during the anaconda installation, when you are partitioning your hard drive it asks you if you would like to encrypt your Linux partition. I was intrigued to say the least, I have never seen a desktop OS ask me if I would like encrypt my hard drive before. So I went ahead and checked the box to encrypt the Linux partition, it asked me to supply a password and I did, clicked OK and proceeded to finish the installation. When the computer rebooted as it was going through the startup sequence it stopped as it was loading the Linux partition and asked for the password I had supplied during installation. I entered the password and the boot up process continued. I thought this was a great feature to have, because not only does it stop someone from booting up my computer and hacking away at my user account but it stops them from ever even getting to the login screen. It is just one more level of security that you have available as well as now your data is also encrypted.

When I saw that Fedora 9 was coming in like 29 days I couldn't wait for the release. I was really excited to see what was new to it over Fedora 8. I had problems with Fedora 8 but I was able to conclude it was mostly my hardware configuration that was causing the problems. Once I was able to download and install Fedora 9 I was completely blown away from the login screen to the Fedora theme! It was smooth and very customizable. It came loaded with software that I used, from OpenOffice to Eclipse IDE, and many other distributions come with this same exact software but Fedora for example has the full suite of OpenOffice already installed instead of just the four basic applications.

All in all Fedora 9 is very stable platform, and very easy to use. I am not a hardcore programmer so I am not able to contribute in a way that can improve the software bugs, but I can submit bug reports to help developers fix what needs to be fixed. By doing this I think we can build a distribution that can compete even in the corporate environment. I find that distributions like Red Hat and Novell Suse have been able to tap into this market because they offer premium support, and since Fedora is a project of Red Hat I think with a little more refinement it can become a major competitor in a market that has only a few choices.