The Fedora Project is a Linux spin-off from Red Hat, and has a much more aggressive release cycle than its parent, coming out twice or three times in a year with more cutting edge software than the more conservative Red Hat Linux distribution.

The Fedora Project is attempting to raise the bar in desktop usability with its latest release, Core 6. Thanks to Fedora's aim of always shipping the latest versions of software and being completely free, Fedora tends to appeal to home users, users wishing to experiment, and power users who want the latest and greatest in the Linux world.

Although Fedora is normally available on the cover of some magazine or other, we downloaded the ISO images from the Fedora site and burnt them to CD. Installation involved simply popping the first disc into our test desktop PC and booting the machine up, then following a graphical install wizard.

The installer hasn't really changed from version 5 and is very straightforward and fast. Options are grouped to simplify installation, so of course we selected the lot. Total install time was in the region of twenty minutes and required the first three ISO images only. The final two are only required for upgrades, and possibly custom installs.

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Installation was completely flawless on our test machine. Our only minor gripe was the lack of inclusion of some PHP and MySQL packages despite selecting a 'development' install type. We've encountered this before, and while it's trivially easy to fix using the Yum installer, we would have thought that these were sufficiently in demand to merit being part of the standard install. Still, Fedora does have the unenviable task of trying to please nearly all types of user, which can't be easy.

For many, a more glaring issue would seem to be the lack of support for MP3 or DVD playback or recording. This is a conscious decision by the Fedora project, because the formats are patented and require licenses and so conflict with the Fedora Project's philosophy of free software. Adobe's Flash player and RealPlayer are other victims of this policy, as well as Sun's Java compiler.

This is not insurmountable and many Web sites offer advice. However, it means that there may be one or two essential items that need installing after the basic distribution is installed and some, like the Sun Java runtime, might cause conflicts later on. Other distributions like Ubuntu provide a way of installing these packages using restricted repositories that can be accessed after intallation of the completely free software, so it's a shame that Fedora hasn't found a way of helping users through this issue.

Our first impressions in day to day use are that the Gnome desktop is much slicker than previous versions. Transitions between virtual desktops are available, making desktops appear to be stuck onto a rotating cube, an innovation we've seen before on Apple Macs. Window transitions are also available, making them appear to wobble like jelly when they're moved around. These transitions are turned off by default, either in case they annoy users or because Fedora is often installed on older, slower hardware.

Although it's difficult to compare Fedora with Windows or Mac OS X, we generally found the user interface to be quite consistent, simple to configure and clean, so we'd say the developers are achieving their goal of creating a general purpose, appealing desktop environment. Comparing with other distributions like Mandriva or Ubuntu, we'd say there's little between them.

Cosmetics aren't everything and Fedora Core 6 features some notable improvements in other areas like package management and security. Package management is handled by Yum and Pirut, and these have been improved greatly since Core 5. It's now very straightforward to add and remove applications, although there are still a few issues with Pirut, like its propensity to simply close if it can't access the online package list. Still, having a graphical front-end like this is an enormous benefit.

The security layer, SELinux, a frequent source of confusion for new and more experienced users alike, has a new graphical configuration utility which aims to simplify the system. Users can not only turn this on and off, but set the level of security and customise specific protection settings. A troubleshooting tool could be invaluable for those wanting to use SELinux effectively rather than simply deactivate it when it gets in the way, which is a common solution.

The Fedora Project's goals of providing only non-proprietary software, and making the complete system simple and useable, cause some conflicts that could deter some of the target audience. Our advice is to download a few of the major Linux distributions, including this one, and see which suits you best. One thing's for certain, Fedora is here to stay, and it's likely to get better.