Fedora 9 Sulphur makes its way into the world

The OS updates are coming fast and furious these days, and the latest off the block is Fedora 9 Sulphur. Improvements include better KDE Desktop 4.0.3, better Bluetooth support, a revised Anaconda system installer, support for persistent Live USB key installations, and lots more. Should be all over the torrents now -- get downloading and let us know how it goes!

[Via Digg]

[bob e @ May 13th 2008 9:06PM]

Welcome to 1998

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:32PM]

Let me be the first to say that you do not know what the fricking heck you speak of.

You're probably using an OS that gets viruses or some crap like that.

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:34PM]

As for the resolution of the screenshot, it's being run in a VM.

[MeatyPi @ May 13th 2008 9:37PM]

"You're probably using an OS that gets viruses or some crap like that."

Oh damn, you just got pwned!

jk, that was like an 8 yr old insult.

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:37PM]

Actually, that was a statistical fact.

[MeatyPi @ May 13th 2008 9:38PM]

statistics involve numbers but nice try, pal.

[Alex @ May 13th 2008 9:40PM]

Given that he explicitly used the word probably, I would guess its actually probability theory and not statistics.

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:41PM]

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=106&qpmr=14&qpdt=1&qpct=0&sample=4

All the numbers a person could want.
Not that I like them any more than the next guy..

[wzcx @ May 13th 2008 10:09PM]

Linux doesn't even need viruses to not work properly.

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 10:12PM]

...just unsupported hardware.
Oh wait, that'll mess with any OS won't it?

It works beautifully, and if you don't want to have to worry about hardware support, you can just get an Ubuntu Dell. I'm getting their Inspiron, about $800 for a really decent machine.

[T-Bone @ May 13th 2008 10:21PM]

Congratulations, ethana2, you're the first Linux fanboi I've ever met. I didn't think it was possible for you to exist!

[Drew @ May 13th 2008 10:22PM]

@T-Bone:

Are you kidding? You must have never visited Slashdot then, huh?

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 10:24PM]

Cue Wesley:
I won't be the last.

[Mark @ May 13th 2008 10:51PM]

@Ethana2
I hope you realize that the link you provided gives *usage share* for operating systems based on how much people browse the internet using that operating system, not the percentage of exploits, right?

[T-Bone @ May 13th 2008 11:43PM]

@Drew: I go to /. all the time. I'd say they are Linux fans but not fanbois. ethana2 here is trying to make every excuse he can about every little flaw someone points out. I don't see that at /.

[Tehseen @ May 14th 2008 3:48AM]

@wzcx

Yeah all Linux needs is an idiot sitting at the computer.

Thats why there is Ubuntu, even an idiot can use it

-Gentoo User

[Kaminix @ May 14th 2008 5:09AM]

@Tehseen:
Yes, you are so cool who can afford wasting your time playing with emerge all day long. Not all of us wish to compile our applications all day long...

On top of you being an elitist asshole, you're also slapping Ubuntu in the face with the fact that it's easy to use?

Grow up.
- Kubuntu user who've used, among others, a number of Ubuntu-variants (since Hoary), Fedora, Redhat, Debian and Gentoo.

[Septimus @ May 14th 2008 7:04AM]

This argument reminds me of the Eunux site in GTA IV. Great mock site where they rip on linux and their sad zealot users.

[doug @ May 13th 2008 9:07PM]

well, its nice that they tried...


8.04 ftw!

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:55PM]

Fierce competition is why we're where we are today. You think gnome would be owning window's sorry butt if KDE didn't exist? I don't know if it would..

[jason @ May 13th 2008 9:59PM]

yeah, fedora is just good enough to be a threat, but doesnt even match up to ubuntu.


community support on ubuntu>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>all

[JohnTitor @ May 13th 2008 11:30PM]

speaking of KDE they should have taking a screenshot of Fedora 9 on KDE, Gnome hasn't changed much
http://video.linux-noob.com/screenshots/fedora/9/post-67-1210462821.png

[jorvay @ May 14th 2008 3:21PM]

I love Ubuntu. It works damn well and is great for most everyone. But honestly, after using both distros for years, there isn't really much advantage to one or the other. My best friend favours one, I favour the other, and through hours upon hours of discussion, we've found that each has minor advantages over the other. Both are refined, stable, and robust and Fedora slightly favours the power user while Ubuntu slightly favours the standard user. The only significant disadvantage to Fedora is that, in order to steer clear of potential legal issues that Ubuntu could hypothetically face (though hopefully never will), you have to take 30 seconds to add Livna as a repo in the package manager.

[Sudo @ May 13th 2008 9:08PM]

Good for a free OS.

[andres @ May 13th 2008 9:45PM]

why not just good?

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:49PM]

The idea that just because someone wants money for something, it's worth it.
..that somehow costing money makes something better. You get what you pay for and crap like that.

This is the information age dude, leave that cruft behind.

[t3_slider @ May 14th 2008 1:22AM]

Good for a free OS...OK. I don't use Fedora (I use Slackware -- I know, nerd alert), but nowadays Linux is just "good", not "good for a free OS". For gaming, it sucks. Don't game on Linux. Period. However, for everything else (and I realize that I'm on Engadget, so "everything else" probably doesn't involve much with this crowd) it works flawlessly. I've never experienced a crash using Linux (though again I use Slackware, which is pretty nerdy), and I have experienced many crashes using Windows. Never used a Mac -- but that's just because I'm not rich and I don't support the incredibly high hardware markup. I've heard it's a great OS -- I'm just far too cheap to buy a Mac.

KDE 3.5 is a solid desktop environment (not a fan of Gnome because of its lack of configurability, but that's just me. Also, KDE4.0 is a little immature in my opinion, so Fedora is really bleeding-edge here -- I've tried 4.0 and I would definitely not consider it ready) and Amarok kicks iTunes' ass (some people consider Amarok bloated -- but compared to iTunes its footprint is tiny). A lot of the most-used software is cross-platform nowadays (Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice...though I run MS Office under WINE), so Linux is perfect for a lot of people (a dual-boot setup allows you to play games when you want while still having access to a more secure, non-crashing OS with no threat [CURRENTLY] of viruses). Again, I should mention that I use Slackware and the command-line, so I'm your atypical computer user, but if I had to return to Windows as my daily OS (I don't mind it every once in a while...) I would be very upset. Automation in Linux rocks. If you want to do something complicated, it's easier in Linux than in Windows because of scripting (I understand OS X has some nifty graphical automation tool, but again, I've never tried it).

You can either get "OK OS for a lot of money", "Good OS for free", or "Good [or excellent depending on who you talk to] OS for a TON of money". It's your choice -- and I choose the free one.

[meatwad64 @ May 13th 2008 9:13PM]

I actually switched from ubuntu 8.04 to this and first time i've used fedora since fedora 3.

[Greg @ May 13th 2008 9:59PM]

And? Is it better? Worse? Give us the goss!

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 10:01PM]

It released later, so it has no excuse not to be at least a little bit better. A lot of 8.04's issues are from huge transitions that fedora had a bit longer to handle well.

[meatwad64 @ May 13th 2008 10:12PM]

Fedora 9 is not ready for primetime at least not for a few weeks. They shipped it with xserver 1.5 which is beta so there are no nvidia drivers that currently work. Everything else seems to work pretty good and it does have a new init system called UpStart. I do think it definitely isn't as ugly as ubuntu is but in the next version of ubuntu is supposed to look a lot nicer.

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 10:14PM]

Human-murrine lets you change all your colors around; that's what I did.
I hate orange...

[Sam @ May 14th 2008 12:32AM]

Wow meatwad, I'm exactly the same! (Sort of). I switched to ubuntu after using FC3, then I went back and tried to use FC5 but for some reason I felt Ubuntu was better. Now Sulphur is out I can't wait to give it a spin!

[Joe_Templeman @ May 13th 2008 9:14PM]

"...betterBluetooth support.."


another case of the whitespace thieves me thinks....

[Alex @ May 13th 2008 9:40PM]

Why white?

[kr @ May 13th 2008 9:50PM]

A betterBrand of Bluetooth makes a...

[kr @ May 13th 2008 9:56PM]

I would also like to point out that a search for "betterBluetooth" brings up this post.

[Joe_Templeman @ May 13th 2008 10:12PM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_%28computer_science%29

[swmarc @ May 13th 2008 9:17PM]

Why sulpher? Sulpher is one of the stinkiest elements around.

[Keith MacDonald @ May 13th 2008 9:35PM]

Exactly and, just like Fedora, not THE stinkiest, but certainly right up there among the greatest...

[Fubar @ May 13th 2008 9:37PM]

Well, c'mon. They figured people wouldn't get it if they called the release "Fedora 9 Beta-mercaptoethanol."

And I've heard there are thallium compounds out there which are way worse than the sulfur compounds....

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:37PM]

Be nice- Novell may have made a deal with the devil, but SuSE isn't /that/ bad.

[lordmorgul @ May 14th 2008 2:03AM]

The selection process (voted by the community) picked Sulphur:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-January/msg00012.html

The naming of Fedora (and before that Red Hat Linux) releases is interesting. All release names must be 'related' from one release to the next, and must not be directly related to the release prior to that (i.e. only connected via the last release). Figuring out what that connection is shouldn't be too hard really.

(spoiler!!!) http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Names
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/HistoricalSchedules

Search google for 'redhat behind_the_names' to learn about RHL names (its how the trend started for Fedora).

[Kaminix @ May 14th 2008 8:24AM]

I read somewhere that it was related to Sulphur being right underneath Oxygen (the default KDE 4 theme) in the periodic chart of the atoms.

[Andrew @ May 14th 2008 1:25PM]

SUSE is anything but bad, I like it better than Ubuntu. The 10.2 and 10.3 were in my experience smoother in hardware support and multimedia than the Ubuntu and looked much nicer to boot. The only problem was the terribly slow installer, something they have supposedly addressed since. Why the hell are you modding him down?

[ZeroCorpse @ May 13th 2008 9:33PM]

Eh. Bring on OS X 10.5.3

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:35PM]

Does it run on my hardware yet? Does it?

FAIL. Screw OSX.

[duffman @ May 13th 2008 9:40PM]

Yes, actually it does. YOU FAIL.

[ethana2 @ May 13th 2008 9:43PM]

I'm not going to screw with it, it Just Works or it doesn't.

As long as Microsoft owns a fraction of Apple, it's simply not going to happen.

[Blaktornado @ May 13th 2008 10:35PM]

"Does it run on my hardware yet? Does it?

FAIL. Screw OSX."

Now, now. Just because it doesn't run on YOUR hardware doesn't mean it doesn't run on ours.

That's hardly a valid reason to call an OS a failure and "screw" it.

Ever heard of the phrase "each to their own"?