Discussion on:

Fedora 18 finally to be released with game-changing features

Agree AD will be an interesting and worth a try but will it be a game changer?

Please revisit this in 1-2 years to see.

You say "Out of the box, Fedora 18 will be able to join a Windows Active Directory.(...) I would like to think other distributions would pick up on this, but major kudos to Fedora for finally having the smarts to make this a reality for users"

You should really thank Samba devs at Samba.org for this, it??s they who added this feature to Samba, and Fedora devs only choose to package Samba 4.0 w F18....

Sheesh....
FC

I agree, massive thanks to the samba team! Jack should definitely have mentioned the difference is Samba 4. THAT has been a long time in the making, sheesh, "fedora" was still "red hat" when the first samba 4 packages started showing up in testing, wasn't it?

In any event, I remember trying proto-samba 4 as far back as 2005 with Mandriva 10.2

Credit where credit is due. The biggest story of all here is definitely making the jump to samba 4 as the default. Way to go fedora team!

The notion that the testing ground for the most successful distro on the planet will ever be irrelevant is just silly. Fedora is used to try out new features before they migrate to Red Hat Enterprise - with a $1billion dollar in revenues to back it Fedora will always be relevant.

shudders. this term should be banned from the IT lexicon. unless something actually changes the game. linux is nice, but has a long way to go before it is accepted by the masses.

mint is a nice start.

In regards to Active Directory, SuSE and OpenSuSE have had that feature for a few years, so one would have to ask when will Fedora become cutting-edge again? Until Fedora can catch up to the other distributions, it still runs the risk of becoming a foot-note in the history of Linux.

Burning the DVD right now.

Hopefully be back in a couple of minutes.

I am and will stay a fan!

As a user who got "burned" first by KDE and now Gnome going haywire with their UI's I am glad to see another alternative desktop. I will give MATE a try and see how it compares to XFCE.

1 Reason: LDAP. It's a key protocol that none of us can live without and it requires that authentication programs be compiled against OpenSSL.

Debian based systems compile against the GnuTLS libraries. Howard Chu (Chief Architect, OpenLDAP) noted, "GnuTLS considered harmful" and why.
http://goo.gl/jq9da

You can join AD with Debian systems but you should be aware of the inherent risks.

When you've vetted both veins of Linux (redhat and debian), the differences ultimately come down to this problem.

Debian holds the philosophical believe that all software included in its distro should be of a certain nature, licence-wise. And, in principal, I agree.

But Redhat holds a more pragmatic view. OpenSSL has been around forever. It's everywhere and unavoidable. Generally, when you login to a secure site, their secure certificate was issued with OpenSSL technology, as they have been since the late 90's. So Redhat leans heavily on OpenSSL and compiles all auth-mechanisms against it.

Test both systems side-by-side (redhat and debian), as I have, and realize that everything else will work out as you had envisioned it - everything, but the deal-breaker will be this 1 point. It's so frustrating.

For that reason alone, Fedora is now, and shall always be: King.

Thanks for writing this. I've been running the beta for about a month now. Just ran the updates for the official release.

Cannot get the LiveCD to load on HP 630 laptop. Ubuntu 12.1 did fine. Error is in-kernel X.509 cert (-129) and modsign cert key not valid. looks like bug 861322 over in RH bugzilla, which was fixed a while back. ??? Not a good sign.

Downloading now to try out on one of my development boxes. Have always liked Fedora and the fact that they're offering a usable desktop (Mate), makes it even more appealing!

Come one... You're kidding right? What do you base that on? Distrowatch rankings? Fedora is and has been one of the most widely used distros out there. Yes, Ubuntu has overshadowed it, but when it's the testing grounds for the most widely used enterprise Linux distro, it has a bright future. Ubuntu's time at the top isn't anything new. Red Hat once claimed that crown, followed by Mandrake. Every dog has its day and, now, Ubuntu has shot itself in the foot and lost favor. Fedrora continually just chugged along with plenty of users and a vibrant communtiy.