Fedora 20 Linux Updates Open Source Virtualization and Cloud

Here's a Christmas gift you don't even need to pay for: Fedora Linux, the open source operating system supported by Red Hat (RHT), has introduced Fedora 20, the latest and greatest version of the platform. Code-named "Heisenbug" (yes, that's a geek pun), the release brings updates for the open source cloud, virtualization and more.

Perhaps the biggest new feature in this release is official support for ARM as a primary architecture, which could help drive Fedora adoption not only on mobile but also in the emerging ARM server world. As Red Hat noted: "While x86/x86_64 serves as the default architecture for the majority of Fedora users, ARM is rapidly growing in stature and already dominates the mobile world. Beyond mobile and the maker movement, ARM shows great promise as a powerful and cost-effective technology for the server world."

Fedora 20 is also designed to make deployment in and of the cloud more seamless. It is available in the form of what Red Hat calls "first-class cloud images" tailored for running as guests in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and OpenStack clouds. Improvements to the libvirt virtualization infrastructure also make it possible to run ARM guests on x86 Fedora hosts, another feature that certainly won't hurt Fedora's appeal in the server market.

And for people who just want to use Fedora on their personal PCs to get their work done, the release brings updated versions of the GNOME and KDE desktop environments, to iterations 3.10 and 4.11, respectively. That enhancement, in turn, adds new applications and features that come as part of the updated desktop environments, and should help keep home users happy (unless, of course, they prefer Canonical's Unity over GNOME or KDE—but then they'd probably be running Ubuntu, although Unity for Fedora has been available for some time).

There's a lot of other cool stuff in Fedora 20, too—an impressively large amount, actually, given the frequency with which the Fedora team pushes out new releases, about twice a year. The Fedora developers—and Red Hat, which uses Fedora as a proving ground for many of the features that later make it into Red Hat Enterprise Linux—are no doubt proud.

And the Fedora community has particular reason to celebrate the Fedora 20 release because it marks the 10th anniversary of Fedora's birth. It all started with Fedora 1, which appeared in November 2013 with the codename "Yarrow." Now I feel old, since my days as a Linux user date back to Fedora 5, circa 2006.

Ah, to be young again—or to have better ARM support. Life is a series of trade-offs, I guess.