Fedora 17 Now Available for Download

On Tuesday Red Hat announced that Fedora 17, the latest version of its free open source operating system distribution, is available to download and use. The new release includes free and open source software for users to share including GIMP 2.8, Inkscape, Scribus and more. It also uses GNOME 3.4 which adds new search capabilities, improved themes, and enhancements to the Documents and Contacts application.

"I am extremely proud of the Fedora 17 release. The addition of projects such as oVirt and JBoss Application Server 7, enhancements in OpenStack, and continued support for fresh releases of desktop environments demonstrate the Fedora Project’s commitment to deliver rich features and capabilities," said Robyn Bergeron, Fedora Project Leader. "This, combined with our leading-edge innovations at the operating-system level, truly makes Fedora 17 a comprehensive and robust operating system for all types of users."

Fedora 17 updates OpenStack to 2012.1 (Essex) -- this is an included collection of services that can be used to set up and run cloud compute and storage infrastructure. There's also oVirt, an open virtualization platform which provides a "feature-rich virtualization management system with robust capabilities for both hosts and guests." Fedora 17's Cluster stack includes numerous and significant updates for both high availability and load balancing applications.

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On the developer front, Fedora 17 provides JBoss Application Server 7 which is a fast, lightweight Java EE-based application server optimized for developing and launching Java EE applications. Java 7 (and OpenJDK7) is the default Java runtime and Java build toolset, and a pre-release of Juno -- a release of the Eclipse SDK with is expected later this year -- has been tossed into the new Fedora as well.

"The Fedora Project aims to release a new version of its free operating system approximately every six months," Red Hat said on Tuesday. "This rapid development cycle encourages collaboration and the inclusion of the latest, most cutting-edge open source features available. Fedora is built by community members from across the globe, and the Fedora Project’s transparent and open collaboration process has attracted thousands of registered contributors. The total of unique IPs across Fedora releases since tracking was initiated at Fedora 7 is now approaching 38 million connections."

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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.

8 Comments Comment from the forums

stingray71

I'm running Ubuntu on my primary system now and boot into windows only to play BF3. Really like the world of Linux. Except for the occasional PC game, there's nothing I miss from Windows. Might give Fedora a try.
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Linux Mint is awesome and what I would switch in a heartbeat if I could play all my PC games. Ive tried some wine using playonlinux and was able to play torchlight and use steam. Desura and I think its called DJL is like steam for linux.
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K2N hater

Wonder how good it is on batteries and with touch screens. It would be fun for tablet makers to pick a full-featured Linux distribution instead of Win8.
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hugodaniel

Except for the occasional PC game, there's nothing I miss from Windows. Might give Fedora a try.

stingray71, try playonlinux and im sure you will be amazed by the ammount of windows games you can play in linux (some of them run even better in linux, like starcraft 2)
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stingray71

Thanks for the tip Hugo, gonna check it out. Still new to linux/ubuntu, learn something new everyday!
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hugodanielstingray71, try playonlinux and im sure you will be amazed by the ammount of windows games you can play in linux (some of them run even better in linux, like starcraft 2)but will it play crysis?!
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madjimms

Make it completely unnecessary to use the terminal for anything & I'll install it. Last time I tried MANY disto's & many of them required annoying (I HATE terminals) command line actions for simple things.
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bryonhowley

K2N haterWonder how good it is on batteries and with touch screens. It would be fun for tablet makers to pick a full-featured Linux distribution instead of Win8.Only problem with that would be the fact that tablet makers will want to actually sell there tablets and the only way to do that short of geeks is with Windows. Like it don't like it that is the way it is. And no Starcraft 2 does not run better on Linux than it does on Windows just the opposite infact.
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