Fedora Overview
I don't know if this is what people had in mind for the re-worked
version of this, but I wanted something easy to write to distract me
from essay woes!! Oh, and links are missing from this...
Thoughts and feedback always welcome :)
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== What is Fedora? ==
Firstly, Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that aims to provide
users with access to the latest free and open source software in a
stable and easy to manage form. We strongly believe in the principles
of the free and open source software that provides all the components
of our operating system, and because of this we guarantee that Fedora
will always be free for anybody to use, modify and distribute.
Fedora, however, is more than just the software that makes up the
operating system. It is a community of contributors based all across
the world who work with each other to advance the interests of the
free culture movement. Everyone is invited to join and no matter what
your skills are, we have a place for you in our community! Currently,
we have software engineers, artists, system administrators, web
designers, writers, speakers and translators, all of whom will be
happy to help you get started.
== What makes Fedora different? ==
We aim to always do the right thing. This means that we provide only
free and open source software, and we will fight to protect and
promote solutions that enable anybody to make use of them. With this
in mind, all of our developers are focused on working closely with
upstream, to ensure that everyone can benefit from our work and get
access to our changes as soon as possible - and because of the huge
amount of innovation that Fedora drives, this has had significant and
long lasting effects. Some of the recent developments in free and open
source software that Fedora has driven include:
* NetworkManager
* D-Bus
* OpenJDK
* FreeIPA
* SELinux
* PulseAudio
The reverse is also true: by sticking close to upstream development
teams, Fedora gets the latest software before anybody else. Not only
does this benefit our community, but it also benefits the upstream
teams by providing a much larger audience and more feedback for them.
Another striking difference of Fedora is our aim to empower others to
persue their vision of what a free operating system should be like. We
have opened up our build system and repositories to anybody who needs
them, and as a result Fedora now forms the basis for derivative
distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the One Laptop Per
Child XO and Creative Commons Live Content DVDs.
And that's not all, it is even easy for individuals to create their
own distribution thanks to Fedora's easy re-spinning tools. They allow
you to quickly select the packages you want, and create a live CD or
installation disc. Some official versions of Fedora have grown up this
way, including:
* Fedora XFCE Spin
* Fedora Electronics Lab
* Fedora Developers Spin
* Fedora Games Spin
* Fedora Hindi Spin
== How do I get Fedora? ==
Easy, just visit this page and download it. You can try it without
installing anything on your computer thanks to our live CDs or live
USBs - in fact, you can even create a live USB stick from within
Windows!
If you have a slow internet connection, or no internet connection at
all, then you can still get Fedora thanks to our Free Media programme.
== How do I join Fedora? ==
Like what you see and want to help out? That's easy too! This page has
all the information you need, and don't forget that all our
contributors get access to some awesome tools to help them get their
work done:
* Fedora People provides free webspace for hosting Fedora related content
* Fedora Planet is an aggregation of contributor blogs so you can see
what everyone is up to
* Fedora Hosted is the perfect location for hosting your project
* Fedora's own Gobby server, so we can collaboratively work on
documents in real time
* Hundreads of other people's skills and experience!