Fedora LiveCD 7 Test 1 Preview

Earlier this week Microsoft finally shipped its Vista "Longhorn" operating system, which has been receiving a fair amount of attention from traditional media sources. However, if Windows is not your thing Fedora 7 Test 1 is now out. Originally Fedora 7 Test 1 was scheduled for release on January 30, but a delay had pushed it back to today. Fortunately this two-day delay should not push back the April final release. Many of the features for Fedora 7 were covered in our Fedora 7: The Linux Knight in Shining Armor article. However, what we have to offer today is the first screenshots of Fedora 7 along with some of our very preliminary thoughts on the Fedora Desktop LiveCD.

The Fedora 7 Desktop spin weighs in at 1.9GB for the DVD edition, or three CDs. A LiveCD version of Fedora Core 7 Test 1 was also released to mirrors this morning. The LiveCD for Fedora 6.90 (7 Test 1) is currently 678MB. The newly employed Pungi was used for building the tree for this release. No server or KDE Desktop spin was done for Test 1.

For having a LiveCD test release, this is a beautiful first for the Fedora Project. We had loaded the LiveCD on a dual Intel Xeon LV (dual-core) system with a Tyan motherboard and NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 graphics card. After the LiveCD had loaded on a cursory look it is quite similar to Fedora Core 6 -- primarily with an identical background. However, the first difference we had noted was the updated icons, which we've been long been looking for. The Fedora Echo icon theme is a huge improvement over Fedora Core 6 and past releases. Beyond that, not all of the artwork is yet complete.

Network Manager is also updated in Fedora 7 Test 1, though the hopes for "rock solid" wireless support isn't yet a reality. Some of the other packages shipping with the Fedora 7 Test 1 LiveCD are GNOME 2.17.90, X.Org 7.2.0, Mozilla Firefox 2.0, and the Linux 2.6.19-1.2914.fc7 kernel. One of the highlights with GNOME 2.18 is the new Control Center, which is very handy and has also been included with the LiveCD.