If you want to really take Linux to the edge of what's possible, you run Red Hat's community Linux distribution, Fedora. And, for those who like to live dangerously, you can always run Fedora betas. The latest, Fedora 24 Beta, is out now.

Fedora

Fedora 24 Beta, comes in three separate editions: Fedora 24 Cloud Beta, Fedora 24 Server Beta, and Fedora 24 Workstation Beta. All three versions are built from the same set of base packages. These include glibc 2.23 and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 6. All the base packages have been with the new compiler for better code optimization.

Fedora Cloud 24

Fedora Cloud 24 now includes OpenShift Origin for Fedora. This is a Kubernetes-based cloud distribution. It's optimized for application development, automating deployment, operations, and containerized applications scaling.

Fedora 24 is also the foundation for Fedora Atomic Host. This is a lightweight platform, which is designed with the sole purpose of running containerized Docker applications. It includes package enhancements and bug fixes and a new "developer mode". When run this way, the host is downloaded and automatically starts Cockpit along with a tmux, a terminal multiplexer, session. Put it together and it makes it much easier to work via the developer console and obtain key information for the session, including the IP address and root password.

Since cloud jobs are going better for Linux professionals, getting started with Fedora cloud today is a great idea for your job hunt tomorrow.

Fedora 24 Server

The server doesn't include a lot of new features. The most noteworthy of them, at first glance, is it now uses rolekit more to help simplify setting up server roles.

It also includes FreeIPA 4.3. This is an excellent, open-source identity management program. This version has an improved Domain Controller which will help streamline replica installation, segment creation, and replica topology visualization. Finally, the overall footprint of Fedora Server has been made smaller by removing unneeded packages.

Fedora 24 Workstation

And, now for the part that most of you want to know about: The desktop. OK, so maybe there never will be a "Year of the Linux desktop," but Linux desktops are still great for power users and developers.

This latest version includes numerous package and component tweaks. The most interesting addition is a preview of GNOME 3.20, Dehli. While I'm not a GNOME 3 fan, this latest iteration of the GNOME 3 desktop environment looks interesting.

It also comes with Wayland, a next-generation X display server. But, alas, Wayland is now not ready for prime time. Fedora developers still plan to fully implement it as the default graphics server for future versions of Fedora. I'm not going to be holding my breath.

You can check Fedora out today. All three Fedora versions can be downloaded from the main website. Not ready to put your computer's fate in the hands of a beta release? The final version of Fedora is scheduled to arrive on June 14.

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