The Fedora Project team is excited to announce the beta release of its free, fully functional Linux
operating system, Fedora 19, code-named “Schrödinger's Cat.” Fedora continues to enable users to experience the latest in free and open source technology, integrated into a Linux distribution and ready for free download, use, modification and redistribution.

The Fedora Project worldwide community works to advance the cause of software freedom. These
contributors hail from a variety of industries and educational backgrounds, and are dedicated to
creating a vibrant, growing community to advance free and open source software. The most anticipated result of this community is the Fedora distribution itself, the open operating system released by the project approximately every six months. Each Fedora release represents the culmination of work by hundreds of engineers and thousands of contributors from many different locations and many different walks of life.

Software enthusiasts are encouraged to download the beta release of Fedora 19, take it for a test drive and help identify items that need attention before Fedora 19 is delivered for general availability. With the beta release, the software is relatively stable, but real-world use and reports from users helps identify any lingering bugs so they can be addressed before it is more widely distributed.

What's in the box? Read on for what you can do with Fedora 19, and check out the features supporting those capabilities:


Create and Develop

Let your imagination run Free (as in Freedom!): tools for creativity and development abound in Fedora 19. Whether you're a seasoned developer, an aspiring programmer, or have the Maker spirit within you, Fedora can be your outlet for creations of all types.

-- Developer's Assistant: Perfect for kicking off a new project, or learning the ropes of software development, this tool helps you to get started on a code project with templates, samples, and toolchains for the language of your choice – and helps you push code out to GitHub when you're ready.

-- 3D printing: A variety of tools for 3D printing – ranging from software for creation of 3D models, to tools for generating and sending code to send to 3D printers – are available in Fedora 19, including OpenSCAD, Skeinforge, SFACT, Printrun, and RepetierHost.

-- OpenShift Origin: Build your own Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) on Fedora! Easily develop and deploy software with a variety of cartridges, and get your apps in the hands of users more easily than ever.

-- Node.js: For building scalable network applications, or real-time apps across distributed devices, the node.js runtime and npm package manager addition enables both development of new applications, as well as the ability to run node.js applications on top of Fedora.

Additionally, Fedora strives for inclusion of 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

Make your machines work for you – not the other way around. Whether you have one, or “one too many” machines, Fedora 19 provides a variety of improvements to the management of the operating system, including the boot process, recovery from failures, migration of systems, and more. Tools for diagnosis, monitoring, and logging enable you to be proactive, not reactive, leaving you with more time to spend doing the things you love to do.

-- Virt Storage Migration: Move your virtual machine – and its associated, in-use storage – without requiring shared storage between the hosts.

-- OpenStack Grizzly: Just released in April, the newest release of OpenStack – Grizzly – enables the buildout of an IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) cloud platform.  Maintained with the OpenStack team at Red Hat, currently the top corporate contributor to the OpenStack project[confirm that this is accurate on the release date], Fedora 19's Grizzly “stack” also includes the incubated Heat and Ceilometer projects.

-- systemd Resource Control: Modify your service settings on the fly, without a reboot – all through systemd's ability to dynamically modify resource control parameters at runtime.

-- Checkpoint & Restore: For situations such as recovering from process failures, or moving a process to another machine for maintenance or load balancing, the ability to checkpoint and restore processes may be your solution.

For more information on the above listed features, as well as the many others you will find in Fedora 19, visit this release's feature list.


Getting Started with Fedora 19 Beta

Ready to get started? Download the Fedora 19 Beta here.

Your contributions count! Every bug uncovered is a chance to improve the experience for Fedora users around the world. Be sure to check out the known, common issues with the Beta on the Common Bugs page; tips on how to effectively report bugs can be seen here.

Want to contribute further to Fedora? There are many ways to contribute beyond bug reporting. From translations, to testing and feedback of software updates, the creation of content for documentation, marketing, and artwork, assisting in promotional activities, and much, much more – the Fedora Project has many ways in which you can get involved. Visit http://join.fedoraproject.org for more information.

The Fedora Project is a Red Hat-sponsored community project.  For more information about Fedora, check out the Fedora Project homepage.