Fedora Linux 18 beta finally released

The latest version of Fedora has just moved to beta and it includes the GNOME 2.x fork MATE desktop as well as the GNOME 3.x desktop.

Fedora 18 offers a brand-new version of the Gnome desktop, version 3.6, straight from the upstream development process. Updates have also been made to the KDE, XFCE and Sugar desktop environments. Fedora's new installer user interface enhances the anaconda installer with improvements in ease of use and installation.

This release includes several language updates, including the move to Perl 5.16, updating the Python 3 stack from 3.2 to 3.3, Rails 3.2 and updated D and Haskell programming environments.

Fedora 18 includes the final release of Samba 4, and can be used on an Active Directory domain out of the box. An integrated, new native management software allows you to access data and server information easily.

OpenStack in Fedora 18 has been updated to Folsom, the most recent release by the OpenStack community. This Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform enables the creation and management of cloud infrastructure.

Eucalyptus 3.1, another IaaS platform, is available in Fedora for the first time, and includes the major components of Eucalyptus. Storage System Management CLI tools simplify the user interface by providing unified abstraction and interface for multiple storage technologies, including lvm, btrfs and md raid.