Fedora Project releases version 11 of Linux OS

The company said that the current version of its platform will last for at least a year, but suggested that users should adopt Fedora 11 as a "hobby" or to offer an early insight into the next version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

"This release, like its predecessors, is the culmination of over six months of work by the Fedora community. It combines the efforts of volunteers, Red Hat engineers and many upstream communities into a leading-edge distribution that anyone can download, use and redistribute for free," the group said in a statement.

"Twice a year, the Fedora Project releases a new version of Fedora with a projected lifetime of about a year. This quick release cycle results in consistent development and integration of the latest in open source technologies.

"That makes Fedora useful not just to hobbyists and enthusiasts, but to those looking for a sneak peek at technologies that may be found later in Red Hat Enterprise Linux."

Fedora 11 contains a number of new features, including support for biometric devices such as fingerprint readers, and a rewritten virtual machine creation wizard.

Other additions include automatic font installation to ease the use of foreign language documents, and better kernel mode setting features for video cards from Intel, ATI and Nvidia. Boot-up and start-up speeds have been improved, and the software now contains automatic bug reporting tools.

The Fedora Project has published a huge amount of supporting information and documentation to support the release, including podcasts, screen-casts and interviews to reflect the hobbyist nature of early adopters.