New Fedora Linux desktop promises user friendly feel

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 22 March 2006 18:32

IT Industry - Development

The Fedora Project, a Red-Hat-sponsored open source collaboration, has announced availability of the latest version of the Fedora Core Linux distribution, Fedora Core 5. The latest version features a range of new desktop applications, advances in security and Xen virtualisation, which is designed to makes it easy for users to set up virtual machines.

According to the Fedora Community, improvements to popular applications and a wide variety of new applications and desktop tools make Fedora Core 5 exceptionally flexible and user-friendly. Enhancements include:

- Tomboy, an easy-to-use and efficient note-taking tool;
 
- F-Spot an easy to use digital photograph manager;
 
- Improved power management with GNOME Power Manager;
 
- Support for the Broadcom 43xx wireless chipsets, current;y used in Apple computers;

- The latest Firefox 1.5 web browser;
 
- The most recent version of OpenOffice.org 2.0.2, which introduces OpenDocument support, a new enhanced database frontend, a mail merge wizard, and better PDF export capability; and
 
- New releases of both the GNOME 2.14 and KDE 3.5 GUIs.

"Fedora Core 5 is the first distribution I feel truly involved and excited by," said Thomas Chung, Fedora Community ambassador.  "I'm sure I share this feeling with many Fedora contributors who have witnessed the birth from the very beginning. I can almost feel what a expecting father will experience with his first child. Fedora Core 5 is truly a great accomplishment in technology."

A number of desktops running Fedora Core 5 will be on display at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Sydney which commences 28 March.