With the release of fedora 12, we decided to give it a try with a 64 bit live cd on a Toshiba machine. There is no good difference in appearance with the older editions of fedora, just some changes in Nautilus icons. What to say, they offer a clear and clean appearance.
Firefox is preloaded with some addons like java and media works. But flash is not present. If needed you can install them.
The overall performance of the system has increased with the new launch. Moreover on the instant messaging companion Pidgin has been replaced with Empathy. The wireless device support is simply amazing and it detects all hardware easily. Bluetooth options have been increased and it even supports file sharing with via bluetooth.
Fedora has introduced a third party product for Fedora called Easy Life which helps you to configure anything you need.
It does the following:
- Sets “sudo” command up for your regular user.
- Configures RPMFusion repository for extra and non-free software for use.
- Installs Flash Player plugin for .swf, .flv file formats.
- Installs all kinds of multimedia Codecs for playing video and audio.
- Installs additional fonts.
- Installs Skype.
- Integrates Sun Java with system-switch-java for easy use.
- Installs Google applications like Picasa, Desktop etc.
- And many others…
Fedora has done a great job considering security and performance in this release. As usual it is easy to use.