Fedora, Red Hat’s community Linux’s arrival has been delayed until early next week, June 2, but the release candidate is already looking mighty darn good.
I’ve been using Fedora 11 since the late beta showed up in mid-April, and I’ve been very impressed. It’s fast, it’s stable, and it’s got a snazzy new look. That said, there’s one change that I’m not crazy about, audio control, so let’s get that out of the way first.
In Fedora 11, or more properly its main desktop interface, GNOME 2.26, uses a new and mindlessly simple audio control: the PulseAudio volume control widget. Instead of multiple sliders that give you direct control over the low-level ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) system, you get one slider for volume. That’s it.