fedora-logoJared Smith: It’s here! It’s here! It’s really here! Fedora 14 has been officially released! Fedora is a leading edge, free and open source operating system that continues to deliver innovative features to many users, with a new release approximately every six months.

Fedora 14, codename Laughlin, is now available for download. Join us and share the joy of free software and the community with friends and family.

We know you can’t wait to get started with Fedora 14, so simply follow this link to download it today:

http://get.fedoraproject.org?anF14

If you want a quick tour of highlights in this release, check out:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_14_Talking_Points?anF14

For more information including common and known bugs, and tips on how to report bugs, please refer to the release notes:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/?anF14

You can also find this announcement text at:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_14_announcement?anF14

What’s New in Fedora 14?

For desktop users

A universe of new features for end users:

  • libjpeg-turbo: Users can load and save images faster in Fedora 14 than in previous releases.
  • Spice: Spice (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments) provides users with an enhanced remote desktop experience. Currently, it provides the rudimentary foundation to take advantage of things like Accelerated 2D graphics, encryption, and hardware cursor support.

 

For developers

For developers there are all sorts of additional goodies:

  • D: Fedora 14 introduces support for D, a systems programming language combining the power and high performance of C and C++ with the programmer productivity of modern languages such as Ruby and Python.
  • Python 2 upgrade: The system python 2 stack has been upgraded to 2.7.
  • GNUStep: A GUI framework based of the Objective-C programming language which is part of the gcc.
  • Memory Debugging Tools: The new “gdb-heap” package adds a new “heap” command to /usr/bin/gdb which allows you to get a breakdown of how a process is using dynamic memory.
  • Rakudo Star: An implementation of Perl version 6, based on the Parrot VM.
  • Support for Milkymist: Developers can enjoy developing for Milkymist, an open hardware embedded board, on Fedora 14. Thanks to the Fedora Electronic Lab for their work in this regard.

For system administrators

And don’t think we forgot about the system administrators:

  • Fedora is now available for users of the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud service, released concurrently with the traditional release.
  • virt-v2v assists in the easy migration of Xen virtual machines to KVM virtual machines.
  • A Virtualization Technology Preview Repo allows users to test the very latest developments in virtualization related packages.
  • Varnish has been updated and includes improved scalability and a new log function.
  • Apache has been updated and includes a number of module and security fixes.

And that’s only the beginning. Updated versions of many packages, as usual, will be available in Fedora 14. A more complete list with more details of the new features on board Fedora 14 is available at:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/14/FeatureList?anF14

OK, so what are you waiting for? Go download it! You know you can’t wait.

http://get.fedoraproject.org/?anF14

If you are upgrading from a previous release of Fedora, refer to

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading?anF14

In particular, Fedora has made pre-upgrade a more robust solution and pushed several bug fixes to older releases of Fedora to enable an easy upgrade to Fedora 14.

Fedora 14 full release notes and guides for several languages are available at:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/?anF14

Fedora 14 common bugs are documented at:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F14_bugs?anF14

Fedora Spins

Fedora spins are alternate version of Fedora, tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application set or customizations. They can be found at:

http://spins.fedoraproject.org/?anF14

Contributing Back to Fedora

There are many ways to contribute beyond bug reporting. You can help translate software and content, test and give feedback on software updates, write and edit documentation, design and do artwork, help
with all sorts of promotional activities, and package free software for use by millions of Fedora users worldwide. To get started, visit http://join.fedoraproject.org/?anF14 today!

Fedora 15

Even as we continue to provide updates with enhancements and bug fixes to improve the Fedora 14 experience, our next release, Fedora 15, is already being developed in parallel, and has been open for active development for several months already. We have an early schedule for an end of April 2011 release:

Contact information

If you are a journalist or reporter, you can find additional information at:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Press?anF14

—
Jared Smith
Fedora Project Leader