F18 Beta for ppc64 now available

[David Aquilina]

Greetings all, 

The Fedora 18 "Spherical Cow" Beta for Power release is rolling! This
release offers a preview of some of the best free and open source
technology currently under development.

We are delighted to announce the availability of the beta release of
Fedora 18 for Power. Want to get a taste of the future?  Download it
now:

https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/18-Beta/ppc64/

== What is the Beta Release? ==

The Beta release is the last important milestone of Fedora 18. Only
critical bug fixes will be pushed as updates leading to the general
release of Fedora 18 in the beginning of the next year. We invite you to
join us in making Fedora 18 a solid release by downloading, testing, and
providing your valuable feedback. 

Of course, this is a beta release, meaning that some problems may still
be lurking. A list of the problems we already know about is found at the
Common F18 bugs page, seen here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F18_bugs

There is a new upgrade system for Fedora 18 making its first appearance
in Fedora 18 Beta. Upgrading via the system installer or the preupgrade
tool is no longer possible. To upgrade to Fedora 18 from Fedora 17, you
should use the new "Fedup" tool. Instructions and information on the new
tool are here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp. The tool is still
under active development, please take a look at the FedUp FAQ (in the
wiki page) in case of any issues with the upgrade process, and back up
your system before trying the upgrade.


== Known Issues ==

* fedup has received extremely little testing on ppc. Please exercise
 caution when testing it and file bugs

* Due to bug #880277, an anaconda updates.img is required to use custom
 partitioning. This updates.img is bundled in the DVD ISO and will be
 automatically used, however if you are using the netinst ISO,
 specify the following on the boot line: 

updates=http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora-secondary/releases/test/18-Beta/Fedora/ppc64/os/images/updates.img

For more information about Anaconda updates, please see
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Updates 

* Multipath installations are not working correctly yet, especially when
 LVM partitions are used or have been on the storage being used for
 installation.

The online version of these release notes is available at: 

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_18_Beta_PPC_release_notes

We will be updating this wiki with more information during the course of
the Beta.

== Supported Hardware ==

Fedora for Power is developed and tested on IBM POWER hardware. Legacy
Apple PPC hardware is no longer supported due to a lack of substantive
contributions and interest from the community.

== General Features ==

For the general features please refer to the Beta announcement for the
primary architecture:

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel-announce/2012-November/001001.html

== Power Specific Features ==

* Eclipse is now available for Power again! Give it a whirl if you're a
 developer 

== Contributing ==

More information on Fedora for Power can be found at
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Arch:PPC. To get involved in testing and
development of Fedora for Power, join us on freenode in #fedora-ppc.

You'll also be able to find us at FUDon 2013 in Lawrence, KS.



on behalf of the Fedora for Power team, 
David

-- 
David Aquilina, RHCE
Release Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.