Announcing the release of Fedora 16.

[Robyn Bergeron]

The Fedora Project is pleased to announce the release of Fedora 16 
("Verne").

Fedora is a leading-edge, free and open source operating system that 
continues to deliver innovative features to many users, with a new 
release about every six months. Fedora 16 brings exciting new features 
for desktop users, for system administrators, and for developers. 
Highlights of these features can be found below. If the mere mention of 
Fedora 16 is all you need, download options can be found at:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora

For detailed information, see the release notes:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Release_Notes/

== Dedication==

During the preparation of Fedora 16, the computing world lost one of its 
great contributors: Dennis Ritchie. Ritchie co-invented Unix and the C 
language. He also co-authored The C Programming Language, a book that 
taught many programmers just at the time personal computing was 
exploding. Without Ritchie computing would be nothing like it is today.

A humble man, not well-known outside his field, Dennis will always be 
remembered by those of us who practice the craft. Thank you, Dennis.

== What's New in Fedora 16? ==

For desktop users: a journey to the center of the desktop...

* GNOME 3.2, the latest update to the most popular desktop environment, 
brings new features, including:
     o System Settings gains an "Online Accounts" panel, which provides 
a central point for managing online accounts like Google, Facebook, etc.
     o A new contact management application is integrated with Empathy, 
Evolution and the new "Online Accounts" settings panel
     o A new document management application provides a simpler 
alternative to traditional file management for both local and "in-cloud" 
documents.
* KDE 4.7, the most recent version of this feature-rich desktop 
environment, brings substantial updates, including:
     o DigiKam 2.0 adds face detection and recognition, geotagging and more.
     o An updated Plasma Workspaces window manager (KWin) makes KDE 
better suited for mobile devices, and also adds improvements for desktop 
users.
     o A new shutdown dialog allows users with multiple operating 
systems to select the OS to boot next.

For developers: Twenty thousand lines in C...

* Perl 5.14, a new version of Perl, brings many enhancements, including 
Unicode 6.0 support.
* GCC Python Plugins extend GCC with Python 2 and 3, without dealing 
with the C internals of GCC.
* D2: Fedora 16 is the first Linux distribution to include the newest 
version of 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.

For system administrators: around the world in eighty columns...

* GRUB2: This leap forward allows better configuration options and 
better support for non-x86 architectures.
* New system account ID numbering: Fedora 16 starts user IDs at 1000, 
providing more room for system accounts and making it easier for 
administrators not have services run as root. This improves 
interoperability with other Linux distributions that start user IDs at 1000.
* Chrony: Chrony provides network time protocol (NTP) client and server 
pieces which are more tolerant of unstable clocks and Internet 
connections which are not always on.
* ext4 driver mounts ext2 and ext3: Fedora 16 uses the ext4 driver to 
mount ext2 and ext3 file systems, reducing the size of the kernel code.
* Improved virtualization tools:
     o Fedora 16 provides improvements to virtual networking, making 
large deployments easier.
     o Virt-manager guest inspection is a unique-to-Fedora tool allowing 
read-only access to guest file systems, applications, and Windows registry.
     o Fedora 16 provides locking of virtual disks to prevent a disk 
being used by multiple virtual machines simultaneously.
* Cloud goodies galore:
     o Aeolus, a cross-cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) 
platform, which consists of a web-based user interface and tools for 
managing cloud instances across heterogenous clouds.
     o OpenStack, another IaaS platform, which takes form as a 
collection of services for setting up and running a cloud compute and 
storage infrastructure.
     o Pacemaker-cloud, which provides application service high 
availability for cloud environments.
     o HekaFS, a cloud-ready version of GlusterFS, which extends the 
filesystem to be suitable for deployment by a cloud provider by adding 
in stronger authentication and authorization, encryption, and multi-tenancy.

This is only a taste of what is included in Fedora 16. A more detailed 
list can be found at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/16/FeatureList

== Download and Upgrade ==

Fedora 16 is not science fiction. It is here right now:
http://get.fedoraproject.org

To launch Fedora 16 instances in the cloud, refer to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Cloud_images

If you are upgrading from a previous release of Fedora, refer to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading

Fedora 16 full release notes and guides for several languages are 
available at:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/

Fedora 16 common bugs are documented at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F16_bugs

== 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

== Contributing ==

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 today!

== Contact information ==

Journalists and reporters can find additional information at:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Press