Review: Fedora Core 3

The Fedora Project has recently released Fedora Core 3 (FC3). Having used Fedora Core 2 for a while now, I was more than looking forward to this new release. FC3 brings together the 2.6.9 kernel, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, X.org X11 windowing system 6.8, and SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux) to provide a completely open source platform with stability and performance for desktop and server environments alike.

Installation

A full installation (via NFS Image) went smoothly and took approximately 35 minutes. The Python-based graphical installation environment, Anaconda, hasn’t undergone any major changes. However, there are some minor additions to a couple of configuration screens. Firewall configuration now lets you turn on/off four common service ports (e.g., ssh/http(s)/ftp/smtp). On the same screen, there is an option to set the warning level for SELinux to one of three presets (e.g., Disabled/Warn/Active). FC3’s additional language support now includes Indic languages (e.g., Hindi/Bengali/Tamil/Kannada).

GNOME Desktop Features

While the last release of GNOME (2.6) was mostly a bug-fix release, GNOME 2.8 includes a host of new features and improvements that make it more user friendly. A noticeable change to the default desktop is the new “Add to Panel” dialog. Now, the user is given a single dialog to add new applets and launchers to the panel, which is much friendlier than the maze of menus displayed in the last release.

Another nice addition to GNOME 2.8 is Vino, a remote desktop application (VNC client) which lets users remotely log into your GNOME desktop. Vino provides password protected remote desktop access and remote login confirmation. Note that, manually confirming each remote login may be safer than using a password, since VNC’s authentication scheme could be better (perhaps using PAM).

A new network tool (gnome-nettool) gives you a graphical interface for everything from network device statistics to running DNS lookups, port scans, traceroutes, pings, and more. This is especially useful when you run into those somewhat “invisible” network problems.

If email is one of your most important communications tools, you will appreciate the great features in Evolution 2.0, GNOME’s integrated email/groupware client. You can send signed or encrypted email messages using S/MIME (Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension). Evolution Connector provides enhanced support for Microsoft Exchange servers. Finally, avoiding junk mail (spam) gets easier with integrated support for SpamAssassin and improved filtering.

Perhaps the most significant change in GNOME 2.8 is the new mime system. Instead of associating actions with MIME-types, they are associated with files, since most users think about files, not MIME-types. You can associate an application with a particular file by simply choosing the desired application from a list in the “Properties” dialog for that file. When I tried to register a new application (which was not listed in the “Open With” list), a simple file selector dialog listing all the files in /usr/bin was displayed. This can be quite confusing to new users, so hopefully it will get cleaned up before the next release.

Finally, one of the best new features of GNOME 2.8 is its tighter integration with hardware using D-BUS and the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). Now, when you plug in a removable storage device (e.g., USB pen drives), an icon will appear automatically in the “Computer” window on your desktop.

Desktop Applications

Users will notice faster load times during startup and improved performance when opening or saving large files in the version of OpenOffice (1.1.2) shipped with FC3. Better integration with both GNOME and KDE provides a more consistent user experience across the entire suite.

The Firefox Web browser and Thunderbird email client have finally arrived in Fedora. Both packages offer excellent standards compliance and performance, not to mention great features. Note that Fedora shipped with Firefox 1.0 pre-release, but expect an updated 1.0 RPM soon.

Multimedia applications XMMS and RhythmBox don’t support MP3 files out-of-the-box due to licensing issues. So if you have an MP3 collection, you’ll most likely have to install a fully functional version available from freshrpms.net. Real Networks’ open source Helix Player is a great addition to this category, although I had trouble playing SMIL files from a news website. I was able to resolve this problem by just installing Real Player 10.

Fedora’s package management tool (system-config-packages) still lacks the ability for users to install new packages from online resources. Currently it simply lets users add/remove packages from the installation media. It would be great to see this tool as a front-end for command-line utilities like Yum. For now, you’ll want to use a package like Synaptic.

SELinux

When SELinux was first included in Fedora Core 2, the default “NSA strict” was just that, too strict. A single policy proved impractical across different user environments. SELinux in Fedora Core 3 takes a different approach. Instead of a one-size-fits-all policy, specific daemons (e.g., dhcpd, httpd, and others) considered to be most vulnerable to attacks are targeted. All other system processes run under standard Linux security, termed the “unconfined_t” policy. A configuration tool (system-config-securitylevel) is provided to enable or disable the targeted policy of each specific daemon. For more information about Fedora’s SELinux implementation, check out this FAQ.

Wrapping Up

Having used Fedora Core since its inception in 2003, I have been impressed with its ever improving stability and performance. I feel that significant enhancements across various subsystems (e.g., 2.6 kernel, ALSA, GNOME-VFS) in the latest release have contributed to a much better “it just works” experience for the user. And I hope that with every new release of Fedora, Linux achieves wider acceptance on the desktop.