OS family Unix-like Source model Open source | Working state Current | |
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Developer Fedora Project (sponsored by Red Hat) Initial release 6 November 2003; 13 years ago (2003-11-06) Latest release 25 / 22 November 2016; 3 months ago (2016-11-22) | ||
Fedora /fᵻˈdɒr.ə/ (formerly Fedora Core) is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora contains software distributed under a free and open-source license and aims to be on the leading edge of such technologies.
Contents
As of February 2016, Fedora has an estimated 1.2 million users, including Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel.
Features
Fedora has a reputation for focusing on innovation, integrating new technologies early on and working closely with upstream Linux communities. Making changes upstream instead of specifically in Fedora ensures that the changes are available to all Linux distributions.
Fedora has a relatively short life cycle: version X is supported only until 1 month after version X+2 is released and with approximately 6 months between most versions, meaning a version of Fedora is usually supported for at least 13 months, possibly longer. Fedora users can upgrade from version to version without reinstalling.
The default desktop in Fedora is the GNOME desktop environment and the default interface is the GNOME Shell. Other desktop environments, including KDE Plasma, Xfce, LXDE, MATE and Cinnamon, are available and can be installed.
Fedora uses the RPM package management system.
Security is also important in Fedora with one specific security feature being Security-Enhanced Linux, which implements a variety of security policies, including mandatory access controls, and which Fedora adopted early on.
Software
Fedora comes installed with a wide range of software such as LibreOffice and Firefox. Additional software is available from the software repositories and can be installed using the DNF package manager or GNOME Software.
Additionally, extra repositories can be added to the system, so that software not available in Fedora can be installed. Software that is not available via official Fedora repositories, either because they don't meet Fedora's definition of free software or because their distribution may violate US law, can be installed using third party repositories. Popular third-party repositories include RPM Fusion free and non-free repositories. Fedora also provides users with an easy-to-use build system for creating their own repositories called Copr.
Editions
Beginning with Fedora 21, Fedora Linux is available as three distinct primary editions: Fedora Cloud, Fedora Server and Fedora Workstation.
A Live USB drive can be created using Fedora Live USB creator or the dd command. It allows the users to try Fedora without making changes to the hard disk.
Spins
Similar to Debian blends, the Fedora Project also distributes custom variations of Fedora called Fedora spins or editions. These are built with specific sets of software packages, offering alternative desktop environments or targeting specific interests such as gaming, security, design, education, robotics, and scientific computing (that includes SciPy, Octave, Kile, Xfig and Inkscape). Fedora spins are developed by several Fedora special interest groups. Fedora also provides a Fedora Atomic Host image for Project Atomic, which is Red Hat's solution for deploying Docker-based containerized applications.
Architectures
Intel i686, AMD x86-64 and ARM-hfp are the primary architectures supported by Fedora. Pidora is a specialized Fedora distribution for the Raspberry Pi. As of release 25, Fedora also supports ARM AArch64, IBM Power64, IBM Power64le, IBM Z, MIPS-64el, MIPS-el and RISC-V as secondary architectures.
History
The Fedora Project was created in late 2003, when Red Hat Linux was discontinued. Red Hat Enterprise Linux was to be Red Hat's only officially supported Linux distribution, while Fedora was to be a community distribution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux branches its releases from versions of Fedora.
The name of Fedora derives from Fedora Linux, a volunteer project that provided extra software for the Red Hat Linux distribution, and from the characteristic fedora hat used in Red Hat's "Shadowman" logo. Warren Togami began Fedora Linux in 2002 as an undergraduate project at the University of Hawaii, intended to provide a single repository for well-tested third-party software packages so that non-Red Hat software would be easier to find, develop, and use. The key of Fedora Linux and Red Hat Linux was that Fedora's repository development would be collaborative with the global volunteer community. Fedora Linux was eventually absorbed into the Fedora Project, carrying with it this collaborative approach.
Before Fedora 7, Fedora was called Fedora Core after the name of one of the two main software repositories - Core and Extras (EPEL stands for Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux). Fedora Core contained all the base packages that were required by the operating system, as well as other packages that were distributed along with the installation CD/DVDs, and was maintained only by Red Hat developers. Fedora Extras, the secondary repository that had been included since Fedora Core 3, was community-maintained and not distributed along with the installation CD/DVDs. Upon the release of Fedora 7, the distinction between Fedora Core and Fedora Extras was eliminated.
Fedora is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat's application for trademark status for the name "Fedora" was disputed by Cornell University and the University of Virginia Library, creators of the unrelated Fedora Commons digital repository management software. The issue was resolved and the parties settled on a co-existence agreement that stated that the Cornell-UVA project could use the name when clearly associated with open source software for digital object repository systems and that Red Hat could use the name when it was clearly associated with open source computer operating systems.
Releases
The current release is Fedora 25, which was released on 22 November 2016.
Rawhide
Rawhide is the development tree for Fedora. This is a copy of a complete Fedora distribution where new software is added and tested, before inclusion in a later stable release. As such, Rawhide is often more feature rich than the current stable release. In many cases, the software is made of CVS, Subversion or Git source code snapshots which are often actively developed by programmers. Although Rawhide is targeted at advanced users, testers, and package maintainers, it is capable of being a primary operating system. Users interested in the Rawhide branch often update on a daily basis and help troubleshoot problems. Rawhide users don't have to upgrade between different versions as it follows a rolling release update model.
Derivatives
Some notable Fedora derivative Linux distributions are: