Call for Test Days for Fedora 18
by Adam Williamson
Hey, folks. It's that time again - time to start thinking about Test
Days for Fedora 18.
For anyone who isn't aware, a Test Day is an event usually focused
around IRC for interaction and a Wiki page for instructions and results,
with the aim being to get a bunch of interested users and developers
together to test a specific feature or area of the distribution. You can
run a Test Day on just about anything for which it would be useful to do
some fairly focused testing in 'real time' with a group of testers; it
doesn't have to be code, for instance we often run Test Days for
l10n/i18n topics. For more information on Test Days, see
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days .
Anyone who wants to can host their own Test Day, or you can request that
the QA group helps you out with organization, or any combination of the
two. To propose a Test Day, just file a ticket in QA trac - full details
are at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/Create . For
instructions on hosting a Test Day, see
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/SOP_Test_Day_management .
You can see the schedule at
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Fedora_18_test_days . There are many
slots open right now, with the earliest on 2012-08-09 and the latest
2012-11-01. Consider the development schedule, though, in deciding when
you want to run your Test Day - for some topics you may want to avoid
the time before the Alpha release or the time after the feature freeze
or the Final freeze.
We normally aim to schedule Test Days on Thursdays; however, if you want
to run a series of related Test Days, it's often a good idea to do
something like Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday of the same week (this is
how we usually run the X Test Week, for instance). If all the Thursday
slots fill up but more people want to run Test Days, we will open up
Tuesday slots as overflows. And finally, if you really want to run a
Test Day in a specific timeframe due to the development schedule, but
the Thursday slot for that week is full, we can add a slot on another
day. We're flexible! Just put in your ticket the date or timeframe you'd
like, and we'll figure it out from there.
If you have any questions about the Test Day process, please don't
hesitate to contact me or any other member of the QA team on test@ or in
#fedora-qa on IRC. Thanks!
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net
10 years, 9 months
Announcing the release of Fedora 18.
by Robyn Bergeron
The Fedora Project is incredibly delighted to announce the release of Fedora 18 ("Spherical Cow"). Heck, we'd even say that getting this release to you has been a mooving experience.
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...or so. :-D But no bull: Spherical Cow, is of course, Fedora's best release yet. You'll go through the hoof when you hear about the Grade A Prime F18 features. You can always cownt on us to bring you the best features first.
Can't wait for a taste? You can get started downloading now:
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora
Detailed information about this release can be seen in the release notes:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/18/html/Release_Notes/
== What's New in Fedora 18? ==
The Fedora Project takes great pride in being able to show off features for all types of use cases, including traditional desktop users, systems administration, development, the cloud, and many more. But a few new features are guaranteed to be seen by nearly anyone installing Fedora and are improvements that deserve to be called out on their own.
The user interface for Fedora's installation software, Anaconda, has been completely re-written from the ground up. Making its debut in Fedora 18, the new UI introduces major improvements to the installation experience. It uses a hub-and-spoke model that makes installation easier for new users, offering them concise explanations about their choices. Advanced users and system administrators are of course still able to take advantage of more complex options. The general look and feel of the installation experience has been vastly upgraded, providing modern, clean, and comprehensible visuals during the process. While the new installer should work well for most users in most configurations, there are inevitably a few teething problems in the first release of such a major revision.
Known design limitations of the new installer in F18 are listed here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/NewInstaller
Known significant bugs can be seen here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs#Installation_issues
We welcome your constructive and specific feedback as we continue to work on refining the installer for future releases.
The upgrade process for Fedora now uses a new tool called FedUp (Fedora Upgrader). FedUp replaces pre-upgrade as well as the DVD methods for upgrading that have been used in previous Fedora releases. FedUp integrates with systemd to enable the upgrade functionality, doing the work in a pristine boot environment.
Of course, it wouldn't be a release announcement without a spotted -- er, dotted -- list of all the other fantastic features you'll see in Fedora 18:
=== For desktop users ===
Moooove over, stale desktops. We've got a small herd of choices udderly suited to your preferences.
* GNOME 3.6: The newest version of the GNOME desktop provides an enhanced Messaging Tray, support for Microsoft Exchange and Skydrive, and many more new features.
* Cinnamon: Fedora users now have the option of using Cinnamon, an advanced desktop environment based on GNOME 3. Cinnamon takes advantage of advanced features provided by the GNOME backend while providing users with a more traditional desktop experience.
* MATE Desktop: The MATE desktop provides users with a classic GNOME 2.x style user interface. This desktop is perfect for users who have been running GNOME Classic or other window managers like XFCE as an alternative to GNOME 3.
* KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9: KDE Plasma Workspaces has been updated with many new features and improved stability and performance, including updates to the Dolphin File Manager, Konsole, and KWin Window manager.
* Xfce 4.10: The lightweight and easy-to-use Xfce desktop has been updated to the 4.10 version with many bug fixes and enhancements, including a new MIME type editor, a reworked xfce4-run dialog, improved mouse settings, tabs in the Thunar file manager, and options to tile windows in xfwm4. Through all of these and more, Xfce continues to improve without getting in your way.
Regardless of your desktop choice, Fedora 18 offers...
* Improved storage management: SSM (System Storage Manager) is an easy-to-use command-line interface tool that presents a unified view of storage management tools. Devices, storage pools, volumes, and snapshots can now be managed with one tool, with the same syntax for managing all of your storage. (It's great for systems administrators, too!)
=== For developers ===
For developers there are all sorts of moo-tivating goodies:
* Fresh versions of programming languages: Using Perl, Rails, or Python? All three of these languages are updated in Fedora 18. We've got Rails 3.2, Python 3.3, and Perl 5.16 fresh off the farm.
* Clojure gets more love with the addition of tooling packages, including the Leinengen build tool, as well as Clojure libraries and frameworks, including Korma and Noir.
* DragonEgg connects GCC and LLVM: DragonEgg is a plugin for the GCC compilers to allow use of the LLVM optimization and code-generation framework. DragonEgg provides software developers with more optimization and code-generation options for use with the GCC compilers. DragonEgg also allows GCC to be used for cross-compilation to target architectures supported by LLVM without requiring any special cross-compilation compiler packages. Fedora continues to develop and use GCC as the standard default compiler.
=== For systems administrators ===
Keep track of your infrastructure herds with these new features:
* Offline system updates: Systems can now be updated offline, allowing for a more stable update of critical system components. This functionality is only integrated with GNOME Desktop Environment in this release but uses the distribution neutral PackageKit and systemd API's and hence can be made available for other desktop environments as well based on the interest from upstream developers.
* Storage enhancements: StorageManagement is a collection of tools and libraries for managing storage area networks (SAN) and network attached storage (NAS).
* Samba 4: This popular suite of tools has long provided file- and print-sharing services in heterogeneous operating system environments. The long-awaited Samba 4 introduces the first free and open source implementation of Active Directory protocols and includes a new scripting interface, allowing Python programs to interface to Samba's internals.
* Riak: A fault-tolerant key-value store, Riak provides easy operations and predictable scaling as a NoSQL database.
=== For clouds and virtualization ===
Do you spend your days <strike>grazing</strike> gazing into the clouds? Here's just a taste of some of the cloud and virt features you'll see in Fedora 18:
* Eucalyptus makes its first appearance in Fedora, with their 3.2 release included in F18. This platform for on-premise (private) Infrastructure-as-a-Service clouds uses existing infrastructure to create scalable and secure AWS-compatible cloud resources for compute, network, and storage.
* OpenStack: With the Folsom release in Fedora 18, OpenStack continues to have the newest releases in Fedora. This open source cloud computing platform enables users to deploy their own cloud infrastructures for private or public cloud deployments. Heat, an incubated OpenStack project, is also available in F18, providing an API that enables the orchestration of cloud applications using file or web based templates.
* oVirt Engine: The management application for the oVirt virtualization platform, oVirt Engine, is updated to the newest version, 3.1. This release includes extensive new features, including support for live snapshots, cloning virtual machines from snapshots, quotas, and more.
* Suspend and resume support for virt guests: Virtual machines get love with this feature, enabling the ability to suspend and resume guests, with the close of a laptop lid or menu option or via the command line.
And that's only the beginning. For a more complete list with details of all the new features in Fedora 18, steer over to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList
== Downloads, upgrades, documentation, and common bugs ==
The steaks are high--don't miss out on installing the best version of Fedora yet! Get it now:
http://get.fedoraproject.org/
If you are upgrading from a previous release of Fedora, refer to: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading
Fedora has replaced pre-upgrade with FedUp (excuse the pun.. or don't), a more robust solution, and pushed several bug fixes to older releases of Fedora to enable an easy upgrade to Fedora 18.
Graze...er, gaze...upon the full release notes for Fedora 18, guides for several languages, and learn about known bugs and how to report new ones, here:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/
With all the changes to the installer, we particularly recommend reading the Installation Guide:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/18/html/Installation_Guide/ind...
Everyone makes missteaks. Fedora 18 common bugs are documented at:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs
This page includes information on several known bugs in the installer, so we recommend reading it before installing Fedora 18.
== Fedora Spins ==
Fedora spins are alternate versions of Fedora tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application set or customizations, from desktop options to spins for those interested in gaming, robotics, or design software. More information on our various spins is available 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!
== Fedora 19 ==
Even as we continue to provide updates with enhancements and bug fixes to improve the Fedora number experience, our next release, Fedora 19, is already being developed in parallel and has been open for active development for several months already. We have an early plan for release at the end of May 2013, and the final schedule for F19 is going to be based on the results of the planning process:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/19/Schedule
== Feature Deprecation ==
Fedora has always been full of great features, but sometimes we need to cull the herd. Saying good-bye is always hard, but here are the ones we had to put out to pasture this time around.
* /etc/sysconfig Deprecations: Several system configurations have moved out of /etc/sysconfig. The goal of these changes is to reduce - as described in http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-new-configuration-files.html - the unnecessary differences between Linux distributions and share a standard location for common settings.
For a full list of changes read the release notes.
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/18/html/Release_Notes/index.html
== Contact information ==
If you are a journalist or reporter, you can find additional information here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Press
Enjoy!
-Robyn Bergeron
10 years, 10 months
The final Fedora 18 is RC4!
by Jaroslav Reznik
Hi,
at today's supplementary Go/No-Go meeting it was decided to
ship RC4 (release candidate) as the final release [1].
#agreed to ship RC4 as final release (with no votes against)
The release date is Tuesday, January 15, 2013!
Big thanks goes to everyone who helped with this RC3/RC4
testing effort and again to everyone who participated on
the whole release. Time for Fedora 18 release parties!
Jaroslav
[1] http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2013-01-10/f18-go-no-go...
10 years, 11 months
Fedora 18 testing: final night!
by Adam Williamson
Sorry for the earlier incomplete version of this mail, sent in error.
Damn ctrl-combinations.
Hey folks! So we are definitely on the final night of Fedora 18 testing
now (everyone, take a drink).
As it's Fedora, we came up with a fudge at the go/no-go meeting today:
we agreed we're definitely shipping either RC3 or RC4. RC3 is RC2 with
the final release notes, and RC4 is RC3 with the fprintd fix for
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=810040 . Those are the only
differences between those builds (Xfce live came out correctly sized in
RC4 and oversize in RC3, but that's just known weirdness in the compose
process).
A final go/no-go meeting will happen today/tomorrow (Thursday, Jan 10)
to decide which one we ship. I'm not gonna hazard a guess as to what the
call will be - there are arguments on both sides - but the last thing QA
can do to provide useful data for the decision is to get as much
validation testing done on RC3 and RC4 as reasonably possible.
The matrices:
RC3
---
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_18_Final_RC3_Install
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_18_Final_RC3_Base
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_18_Final_RC3_Desktop
RC4
---
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_18_Final_RC4_Install
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_18_Final_RC4_Base
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_18_Final_RC4_Desktop
They look pretty full, but anywhere a test is marked as 'previous RC2
run' or 'previous RC3 run', it would be better to replace it with an
actual test of the build in question.
The current level of testing is enough for us to ship RC3 with
confidence at least, we decided that at today's meeting. So no-one needs
to kill themselves working too hard on this. But if you were planning to
do some QA today, that's the best QA to be doing :) Probably the more
RC4 testing we have, the more likely we are to ship it; if the RC4
testing looks a bit thin, we may wind up going with RC3 for safety. RC4
really shouldn't break, but tflink calls 'should' 'the s word'...
Thanks folks! Whichever way the decision goes, a huge thanks to everyone
who spent so much time working on the validation tests and bug
verification, this release would still be in delay hell without you all.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net
10 years, 11 months
Last Minute Testing for Fedora 18 RC4
by Tim Flink
We find ourselves in a bit of an odd position for Fedora 18 - RC3 is
go, but we need to finalize some testing in order to decide whether or
not RC4 will supersede RC3 as the released version of Fedora 18.
To that end, we have some testing to do. Since the change between RC2
and RC4 is so small, I've gone through and pulled results from RC2 and
RC3 where appropriate into the test matrices (mostly the installation
test matrices [1]). If you end up re-running any test cases, please
overwrite any results marked 'previous RCX run'. Pulling results
through isn't an indication that more testing isn't welcome, just that
we don't think it's strictly _required_ for RC4.
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Installation_Test
The testing that we're most interested in is the various desktop
environments with an emphasis on the display managers (gdm, kdm,
lightdm etc.) because any show-stopping problems are most likely to
exist there. The second most likely place is inside any of the livecd
desktop environments (kde, gnome, xfce etc.).
To that end, if you have the time to download RC4 [2] and run through
some or all of the desktop test cases [3], please do. The more testing
we get on RC4, the easier tomorrow's decision to choose RC3 or RC4 will
be.
[2] http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/stage/18-RC4/
[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Desktop_Test
Happy testing,
Tim
10 years, 11 months
Fedora 18 status is Go, release planned for January 15, 2013
by Jaroslav Reznik
At the Fedora 18 Go/No-Go Meeting that just occurred, it was
agreed to Go for the Fedora 18. The release is planned for
Tuesday, January 15, 2013 [1]. See meeting minutes [2].
It was agreed that RC3 is GOLD for now, with possibility to
raise the status of RC4 to be the final release based on
outcome of supplemental testing due to the late acceptance of
bug #810040 [3].
The final call will happen tomorrow, Thursday, January 10 at
16:00 UTC (11 AM EST, 8 AM PST, 17:00 CET), #fedora-meeting-2.
Please help Fedora QA with supplemental testing - the RC2/RC3
test results will be pulled into the RC4 test matrices except
the test cases required for RC4 re-verification. An email with
more details will follow on Test list.
Our lovely Spherical Cow would like to thank you everyone for
that hard and sometimes dirty work that lead to it's release.
Moooooooo!
Jaroslav
[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/Schedule
[2] http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-2/2013-01-09/f18_final_go...
[3] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=810040
10 years, 11 months
Fedora 18 Final Release Candidate 4 (RC4) Available Now!
by Andre Robatino
As per the Fedora 18 schedule [1], Fedora 18 Final Release Candidate 4
(RC4) is now available for testing. Content information, including
changes, can be found at
https://fedorahosted.org/rel-eng/ticket/5406#comment:25 . Please see the
following pages for download links (including delta ISOs) and testing
instructions. Normally dl.fedoraproject.org should provide the fastest
download, but download-ib01.fedoraproject.org is available as a mirror
(with an approximately 1 hour lag) in case of trouble. To use it, just
replace "dl" with "download-ib01" in the download URL.
Installation:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Installation_Test
Base:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Base_Test
Desktop:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Desktop_Test
Security Lab:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Security_Lab_Test
Ideally, all Alpha, Beta, and Final priority test cases for Installation
[2], Base [3], Desktop [4], and Security Lab [5] should pass in order to
meet the Final Release Criteria [6]. Help is available on #fedora-qa on
irc.freenode.net [7], or on the test list [8].
Create Fedora 18 test compose (TC) and release candidate (RC)
https://fedorahosted.org/rel-eng/ticket/5406
Current Blocker and NTH bugs:
http://qa.fedoraproject.org/blockerbugs/current
[1] http://jreznik.fedorapeople.org/schedules/f-18/f-18-quality-tasks.html
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Installation_validation_testing
[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Base_validation_testing
[4] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Desktop_validation_testing
[5] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Security_Lab_validation_testing
[6] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_18_Final_Release_Criteria
[7] irc://irc.freenode.net/fedora-qa
[8] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
10 years, 11 months
Fedora 18 Final Release Candidate 3 (RC3) Available Now!
by Andre Robatino
As per the Fedora 18 schedule [1], Fedora 18 Final Release Candidate 3
(RC3) is now available for testing. Content information, including
changes, can be found at
https://fedorahosted.org/rel-eng/ticket/5406#comment:21 . Please see the
following pages for download links (including delta ISOs) and testing
instructions. Normally dl.fedoraproject.org should provide the fastest
download, but download-ib01.fedoraproject.org is available as a mirror
(with an approximately 1 hour lag) in case of trouble. To use it, just
replace "dl" with "download-ib01" in the download URL.
Installation:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Installation_Test
Base:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Base_Test
Desktop:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Desktop_Test
Security Lab:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Current_Security_Lab_Test
Ideally, all Alpha, Beta, and Final priority test cases for Installation
[2], Base [3], Desktop [4], and Security Lab [5] should pass in order to
meet the Final Release Criteria [6]. Help is available on #fedora-qa on
irc.freenode.net [7], or on the test list [8].
Create Fedora 18 test compose (TC) and release candidate (RC)
https://fedorahosted.org/rel-eng/ticket/5406
Current Blocker and NTH bugs:
http://qa.fedoraproject.org/blockerbugs/current
[1] http://jreznik.fedorapeople.org/schedules/f-18/f-18-quality-tasks.html
[2] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Installation_validation_testing
[3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Base_validation_testing
[4] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Desktop_validation_testing
[5] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Security_Lab_validation_testing
[6] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_18_Final_Release_Criteria
[7] irc://irc.freenode.net/fedora-qa
[8] https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
10 years, 11 months