1. Welcome to Fedora 21

⁠1. Welcome to Fedora 21

⁠1.1. Welcome to Fedora

You can help the Fedora Project community continue to improve Fedora if you file bug reports and enhancement requests. Refer to Bugs And Feature Requests, on the Fedora wiki, for more information about bug and feature reporting. Thank you for your participation.

To find out more general information about Fedora, refer to the following pages, on the Fedora wiki (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/):

⁠1.1.1. Need Help?

There are a number of places you can get assistance should you run into problems.

If you run into a problem and would like some assistance, go to http://ask.fedoraproject.org. Many answers are already there, but if you don't find yours, you can simply post a new question. This has the advantage that anyone else with the same problem can find the answer, too.

You may also find assistance on the #fedora channel on the IRC net irc.freenode.net. Keep in mind that the channel is populated by volunteers wanting to help, but folks knowledgeable about a specific topic might not always be available.

⁠1.2. Overview

As always, Fedora continues to develop (Red Hat contributions) and integrate the latest free and open source software. The following sections provide a brief overview of major changes from the last release of Fedora.

For more details about the features that are included in Fedora 21 refer to the individual wiki pages that detail feature goals and progress: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/21/ChangeSet

⁠1.3. Hardware Overview

Fedora 21 provides software to suit a wide variety of applications. The storage, memory and processing requirements vary depending on usage. For example, a high traffic database server requires much more memory and storage than a business desktop, which in turn has higher requirements than a single-purpose virtual machine.

PPC 32bit discontinued

Support for 32 bit PowerPC systems has been fully discontinued with Fedora 21.

⁠1.3.1. Minimum System Configuration

The figures below are a recommended minimum for the default installation. Your requirements may differ, and most applications will benefit from more than the minimum resources.

1GHz or faster processor

1GB System Memory

10GB unallocated drive space

Low memory installations

Fedora 21 can be installed and used on systems with limited resources for some applications. Text, vnc, or kickstart installations are advised over graphical installation for systems with very low memory. Larger package sets require more memory during installation, so users with less than 768MB of system memory may have better results preforming a minimal install and adding to it afterward.

⁠1.3.2. Display resolution

Graphical Installation requires 800x600 resolution or higher

Graphical installation of Fedora 21 requires a minimum screen resolution of 800x600. Owners of devices with lower resolution, such as some netbooks, should use text or VNC installation.

Once installed, Fedora will support these lower resolution devices. The minimum resolution requirement applies only to graphical installation.

⁠1.3.3. Graphics Hardware

⁠1.3.3.1. Minimum Hardware for Accelerated Desktops

Fedora 21 supports most display adapters. Modern, feature-rich desktop environments like GNOME3 and KDE Plasma Workspaces use video devices to provide 3D-accelerated desktops. Older graphics hardware may not support acceleration:

Intel prior to GMA9xx

NVIDIA prior to NV30 (GeForce FX5xxx series)

Radeon prior to R300 (Radeon 9500)

⁠1.3.3.2. CPU Accelerated Graphics

Systems with older or no graphics acceleration devices can have accelerated desktop environments using LLVMpipe technology, which uses the CPU to render graphics. LLVMpipe requires a processor with SSE2 extensions. The extensions supported by your processor are listed in the flags: section of /proc/cpuinfo

⁠1.3.3.3. Choosing a Desktop Environment for your hardware

Fedora 21 Workstation's default desktop environment, GNOME3, functions best with hardware acceleration. Alternative desktops, such as those featured in Section 2.4, “Fedora Spins”, are recommended for users with older graphics hardware or those seeing insufficient performance with LLVMpipe.

Desktop environments can also be added to an existing installation and selected at login. To list the available desktops, use the yum grouplist command:

        yum grouplist -v hidden | grep desktop

Install the desired group:

        yum groupinstall "KDE Plasma Workspaces"

Or, use the short group name to install:

        yum install @mate-desktop-environment

⁠1.4. Feedback

Thank you for taking the time to provide your comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the Fedora community; this helps improve the state of Fedora, Linux, and free software worldwide.

To provide feedback on Fedora software or other system elements, please refer to Bugs And Feature Requests. A list of commonly reported bugs and known issues for this release is available from Common F21 bugs, on the wiki.

To provide feedback on the Release Notes, use http://bugzilla.redhat.com/.