Some of the notable features introduced in this version of Fedora are as follows -
A new upgrade tool called FedUp is included to help you upgrade from Fedora 17 to 18. FedUP can use several sources to perform an upgrade. The Fedora mirrors are used by default. It can also use an installation image with the
--iso
argument, or use the --device
to use a device or mountpoint as a source. Options are also available to enable or disable network repositories.UEFI Secure Boot will be supported in Fedora 18. This will allow Fedora to boot on systems that have Secure Boot enabled. Tools are available for administrators to create custom certificates to sign local changes to GRUB or the kernel. This means Fedora will be (as of now) one of the few Linux distributions that can be installed alongside Windows 8.
Fedora 18 adds FedFS which is a mechanism to provide a coherent namespace across multiple file servers. The code provided in this package is a technology preview. The intent is to provide a full and supported Linux FedFS client and server implementation based on this code.
Terminals get more colorful with support for 256 colors.
Additional
Fedora users now have the option of using Cinnamon, an advanced desktop environment based on GNOME3. Cinnamon takes advantage of advanced features provided by the GNOME backend while providing users with a more traditional, accessible desktop experience.
Gnome is the latest version 3.6. And KDE is 4.9.
These are just a few features newly included in Fedora 18. Read the release notes to know more.
You can download Fedora 18 Desktop edition at fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora. Fedora 18 spins can be downloaded at fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options.