Fedora 22 released

Fedora 22 released

The Fedora developers have released Fedora 22, and you can download it right now. The biggest news for desktop Fedora users is the inclusion of a new software store.

SJVN reports on Fedora 22 for ZDNet:

With Fedora 22 Workstation, the desktop now defaults to GNOME 3.16. While I still have no great fondness for GNOME 3.x, this version is far more useful than earlier iterations.

The biggest change is the addition of a software store. Other Linux distributions have long offered this, but better late than never. It simplifies the act of finding useful open-source software programs and keeping them up-to-date.

For developers, Fedora 22 Workstation’s best addition is the Vagrant developer environment software. Vagrant is an open-source program for creating development environments across a range of operating systems. It works with Fedora 22’s virtualization technology and requires no third-party virtualization tools to run.

More at ZDNet

Fedora Magazine has the official release announcement:

We are proud to announce the official release of Fedora 22, the community-driven and community-built operating system now available in Cloud, Server, and Workstation editions.

In addition to the latest versions of all your favorite free and open source software, Fedora 22 marks our second release with distinctly-targeted offerings for cloud computing, the server room, and the desktops and laptops of software developers and creators everywhere. Thanks to the hard work of developers, designers, packagers, translators, testers, documentation writers, and everyone else, we’re incredibly confident in saying that this is our best and most polished release yet.

Also with this release, we return to our traditional six-month cadence — we’ll see you back here sometime around Halloween!

More at Fedora Magazine

Linux redditors reacted to the news about Fedora 22:

Naranha: “Only drawback is libinput, the way it handles mouse acceleration is more than weird and can’t be turned off. Luckily you can simply remove xorg-x11-drv-libinput and Xorg falls back to evdev/synaptics.”

Zonker: “Have been running Fedora Workstation since the alpha. Really solid release, very few problems even when I first moved over to the alpha from F21.”

Minimarket: “This is a solid release. Lots of goodies for everyone. I’ve transitioned from Ubuntu 15.04 to Fedora 22 with minimal fuss. There are still many things I like better in Ubuntu but Fedora is catching up in some areas quickly while still sticking to its FLOSS-guided policies.”

Whenthetimerunsout: “I don’t like Gnome. Does anyone know if the KDE spin works well? Kubuntu is pretty good with Plasma 5.3 but Fedora 22 probably has 5.2.2? Can I get 5.3 for it easily?”

Mattdm_Fedora: “The KDE spin has a lot of love put into it by the awesome community in our KDE SIG and for F22 does indeed have 5.3. Grab it from http://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/kde/”

More at Reddit

DistroWatch reviews Kubuntu 15.04

Kubuntu is an excellent alternative to Ubuntu for those who prefer the KDE desktop to that of Unity. DistroWatch has a full review of Kubuntu 15.04, and was impressed with its performance.

Jesse Smith reports for DistroWatch:

I tried running Kubuntu in two test environments, a VirtualBox virtual machine and a desktop computer. In both environments the distribution performed well. Boot times were short, the Plasma desktop was responsive, my displays were set to their maximum resolutions and networking and sound worked as expected. Kubuntu was stable during my trail and performed tasks quickly.

…I found Plasma generally worked well and worked quickly. I experienced no crashes, no temporary freezing. Plasma was very quick to respond, both on physical hardware and in VirtualBox. I find Plasma to be less distracting and it has a more tidy layout when compared next to KDE4.

I generally enjoyed my time with Kubuntu 15.04. The distribution has gone through several changes in the past six months, swapping out KDE4 for Plasma 5, exchanging Upstart for systemd and removing KDM in favour of SDDM. Despite these significant changes, Kubuntu felt as stable as ever and, I think, was more responsive. I was quite happy with the default array of applications, the friendly system installer and the style of the Plasma 5 desktop. There were a few minor problems, rough edges like the network connection issue which prevented me from downloading additional desktop wallpapers. However, Plasma more than made up for it by improving widget management and offering great performance. Big adjustments may be happening behind the scenes, but Kubuntu 15.04 feels like an evolutionary step forward rather than a revolutionary change.

More at DistroWatch

Minecraft for Android will get a customization update

Minecraft is an incredibly popular game, and soon Android players will be able to customize it to their liking with custom skins and other cool options.

Michael Crider reports for Android Police:

Fancy a bit of customization for your Android version of Minecraft? You’ll soon be accommodated by developer Mojang. According to this blog post, the Pocket Edition of the game will get a significant update later this week, with player skins being the biggest addition. If you’ve played the PC or console version of Minecraft, you know that custom skins for player avatars have become a big part of the game’s community aspect.

At least a few free skins will be available, and Mojang will sell more as in-app purchases, with packs of around 20 skins costing one US dollar. But that’s not the only way to access the feature. You can also upload skins directly to your character via the web, including the ones you create yourself with the Minecraft Skin Studio. Man, that sounds really creepy.

Other improvements in the upcoming update include a new system for catching fish, two-player boats, and support for more languages.

More at Android Police

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