Welcome to FedoraOS.org

A: The aim of Fedora is to provide access to the latest stable FOSS implementations of powerful software solutions created by the Linux community. Fedora has a very short lifecycle compared to other popular Linux distributions. Due to the aggressive development schedule you are more likely to find newer or "experimental" software. If you like a fast paced operating system and don't mind upgrading every 6 months or so to keep up then chances are you'll like Fedora.

A: Fedora uses rpm/yum to manage software packages on the system. Any package available in an official Fedora repo can be rebuilt easily using the src.rpm to suit your needs. Compiling and installing source code in fedora in a non-rpm packaged manner is not recommended due to breaking dependencies, installing files in inappropriate locations, difficulty installing/upgrading or other problems. This can rapidly lead to broken rpm/yum or other important system packages and extra tedious work to fix it.

A: Fedora or any Linux operating system can be used as a server or a desktop, however, unless you have physical access to your server, have the knowledge to upgrade it and don't mind doing frequent upgrades, then Fedora is not the best choice for a server environment. If you are an enterprise you may consider a RHEL (Redhat Enterprise Linux) or its free clone Centos (Community Enterprise OS). These both have substantially longer release cycles and provide less of the "fluff" such as multimedia and other non mission critical software.

A: Fedora is a completely FOSS, which means it does not ship with software that contains restrictive or patent encumbered code. This does not mean you cannot easily obtain and install this software. There are several 3rd party software repositories that provide this service. You can do just about anything in Fedora you can with another distro or other operating systems.

A: Installing source code in the form of tar.gz, bzip or bin compressed files or any other non-rpm packaged form in Fedora is not recommended and can break yum and rpm if you don't know what you're doing and make a habit of this. Installing source will overwrite files owned by other packages or change directory paths for important libraries or other files, change permissions and break dependencies among other things. If you *must* have a particular software that is not packaged yet and available in a yum repository you have a few options: you can make your own rpm, you can volunteer to package and maintain the software yourself, you can request to have the software packaged and maintained by someone else. Maintainers list

6.] Q: What revisions of Fedora are currently supported?

A: As a general rule only the current and previous revision of Fedora are supported. This means that ALL other previous revisions are no longer receiving security updates, new packages, or technical support of any kind. Please read the channel /topic in #fedora on Freenode.

7.] Q: What version of Fedora should I use, there are so many?

A: Typically, most users will want the i386 version. Other versions are Respins x86_64, PPC, LiveCD and Test versions. Users of Test or Development versions are expected to provide feedback via email forums and bugzilla to improve the product. There is currently no support channel on Freenode for people who have updated to Development (Rawhide) or who are using Test releases. Don't ask for help with these in #fedora you are expected to know how to handle problems with these versions when they arise. There is enough to do supporting the current and previous releases.