Fedora 19 first beta includes new cloud software and devtools

The community behind The Fedora Project has released a first beta of Fedora 19, also codenamed Schrödinger’s Cat, on schedule. The beta version includes Red Hat’s cloud software OpenShift Origin and updated developer tools.

In contrast to the delays experienced by Fedora 18 ‘Spherical Cow’ during the development period, ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ has been released on schedule. The test version includes OpenShift Origin, a cloud package from Red Hat for provisioning platform-as-a-service services. OpenShift Origin provides developers working within cloud environments with support for a variety of programming languages, including PHP, Java, and Python. The cloud package has been updated to the latest ‘Grizly’ release from April.

Fedora follows the lead of many other Linux distributions in Schrödinger’s Cat by replacing MySQL with MariaDB. In addition, Fedora 19 contains many new developer tools, such as a tech preview of OpenJDK 8, PHP 5.5 and Ruby 2. The Developer Assistant tool also offers the possibility to quickly set up development environments via the command line. Hobbyists who want to experiment with 3d printers also get some new tools at their disposal.

By default, the beta of Fedora 19 is available with the desktop environment Gnome 3.8, KDE 4.10 or MATE 1.6, although other environments can be installed via so-called ‘spins’, including LXDE and XFCE. The Fedora 19 final is expected in the first week of July.