Fedora 19 highlights development and management tools

“In this release, the Fedora Project community has absolutely demonstrated that agility matters,” said Robyn Bergeron, Fedora Project Leader. “From high-level features for enabling cloud and virtualization infrastructure, all the way down to process-level and virtual-machine level portability, combined with the newest developer toolchains, Fedora 19 contains cutting-edge technologies that enable scalability, resilience, and flexibility that are vital in a technology world increasingly focused on rapid delivery of solutions, services, and information.”

Create and Develop
With a variety of developer tools, ranging from popular languages and packaging tools to testing and instrumentation features, Fedora 19 enables developers of all skill levels to create and deploy code in many environments. Prominent new features in Fedora 19 include:
· Developer's Assistant, a tool suitable for beginners or seasoned developers for initiating code projects with language-specific templates, samples, and toolchains;
· 3D printing capabilities, ranging from software for creation of 3D models, to tools for generating and sending code to 3D printers;
· the node.js runtime and npm package manager, for developing scalable network applications or real-time applications across distributed devices; and
· OpenShift Origin, a Platform-as-a-Service infrastructure, including a variety of cartridges for developing and deploying applications.
· Additionally, Fedora strives to include the latest language stacks in each release, and Fedora 19 continues in this tradition with updates to PHP (5.5), the recently released Ruby 2.0.0, and a tech preview of the upcoming OpenJDK8.

Deploy, Monitor and Manage
Fedora 19 also provides a variety of improvements to the management of the operating system, including the boot process, recovery from failures, migration of systems, and more. Fedora 19 includes tools for diagnosis, monitoring, and logging that enable users to be proactive, not reactive, leaving them with more time to spend doing the things they love to do. Notable enhancements include:
· virtual machine storage migration, enabling the migration of virtual machines and associated, in-use storage without requiring shared storage between hosts;
· systemd resource control, for modifying service settings without reboot;
· checkpoint and restore capabilities for processes, for recovery from failures or process migration between machines;
· OpenLMI, a common infrastructure for remote management of systems and storage;
· and the latest release of OpenStack, known as “Grizzly,” including the incubated Heat and Ceilometer projects.

Everyday Productivity
In addition to the many “under the hood” improvements in Fedora 19, many other enhancements can be seen directly by the desktop user. New features for everyday use include enhancements to CUPS, which now uses PDF as the standard print job format, enabling easier post-processing, and faster printing; and federated Voice-over-IP (VoIP), enabling Fedora users to make calls utilizing a user@domain address with the same convenience as email. Fedora 19 also shines with a variety of desktop options, including GNOME 3.8, with improved privacy and sharing settings, and an option for enabling “GNOME Classic,” providing an experience similar to GNOME 2; KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.10, with new print, screenlock, and accessibility features; and the MATE 1.6 desktop environment, which includes numerous enhancements to this desktop environment.

Along with these features, Fedora 19 offers more than 50 features for developers to enjoy.

The Fedora Project aims to release a new version of its free operating system approximately every six months, as a rapid development cycle encourages collaboration and the inclusion of the latest, leading-edge open source features available. Fedora is built by community members from across the globe, and the Fedora Project’s transparent and open collaboration process has attracted thousands of registered contributors, who collectively deliver releases of Fedora to an ever-expanding base of users worldwide. The total of unique IPs across Fedora releases since tracking was initiated at Fedora 7 is now approaching 48 million connections.

The Fedora Project has also held multiple Fedora User and Developer Conferences (FUDCon) around the world during the past year, including events in Paris; Valencia, Venezuela; and Lawrence, Kansas. The next FUDCon is planned for Sept. 26 - 29, 2013, in Cusco, Peru. 2013 also brings the debut of Flock, the Fedora Project's first contributor-focused conference, attracting contributors from around the world. Flock will take place Aug. 9-12, 2013, in Charleston, South Carolina.