Seneca breaks silence on Fedora Remix

Chris Tyler posted an update today.

Estimated release date is 20th, but lots of work to do.

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/arm/2012-July/003631.html

New estimated release date for Fedora Remix from Chris Tyler:

"aim to ship next week", with 3.2.27 kernel.

http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting-1/2012-09-26/fedora-meeting-1.2012-09-26-20.00.log.html

Also, the RPF is reportedly working with Fedora on firmware licensing:

>> I heard that there won't be an official Fedora build of the Raspberry Pi remix because

>> the firmware license is not compatible with the Fedora firmware guidelines.

>

> Correct at this point in time. I meant an official remix stable release.

> Fedora legal and the board are working with the foundation to try and resolve the firmware issue

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/arm/2012-September/004085.html

There is a new Seneca web site announcing Pidora,

their hard-float version of the Fedora 18 RPi Remix.

http://www.pidora.ca/

I don't see any release notes that mention what version of

the firmware is included or what problem reports have been closed. 

Their problem report #161 regarding obsolete firmware that prevents

booting with Hynix memory is still listed as Open:

http://trac.proximity.on.ca/projects/rpfr/report/1

I know they know what release notes are, since the soft-float F18

RPi Remix had them:

http://scotland.proximity.on.ca/raspberrypi/raspberrypi-fedora-remix/18/images/RaspberryPi-Fedora-Remix-18-Release-Notes.txt

which shows the firmware version (perhaps not accurately) as:   

    raspberrypi-firmware-20120727git0d88fba-1

and lists 3 fixed issues (although not by problem report number).

Coder27, do we know if Pidora has any particular "Super Abilities" or key selling features?

The problem as i see it now is  that Raspbian is so well engrained in to the documentaion  that no one will take Pidora seriously as an alternative except possibly as extertainment and psssibly some experimentation??

I must say even as a big Fedora nut I won't be busting a gut to put it on a spare SD card unless it offers something that Raspian doesn't.

Any ideas here guys ?

> do we know if Pidora has any particular "Super Abilities" or key selling features?

That's a really good question, and I hope Seneca addresses it in their release notes

and/or wiki.  It looks to me like they are still playing catch-up with Raspbian, based on

their open problem reports, such as ticket #4 suggesting they use Simon's

10-month-old optimized memcpy and memset.

http://trac.proximity.on.ca/projects/rpfr/ticket/4

In theory Seneca has an advantage in funding and team size, but this

advantage doesn't appear to have translated into tangible benefits so far.

Pidora 18 RC1 is now available for download from

    http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

although not (yet) from

     http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi#downloadcenter

Thanks for that I've down loaded

Wonder if it supports the Camera?

> Wonder if it supports the Camera?

They claim to have the latest firmware (as of May 14, 2013),

but apparently haven't tested the camera. 

I don't know if the camera requires any kernel changes, and if so,

whether those are included.

It may well have the firmware but also you need all the commands that are specifically supplied to access the camera for stills and movies.

The device isnt presented as a standard /dev/video device such as a usb cam

I dont know if they are going to release more code to access it

John,

    In a recent news article, Chris Tyler gives his explanation of what makes Pidora interesting:

        "Pidora contains a number of Raspberry Pi-specific Python modules and native libraries, such as WiringPi, bcm2835, and python-rpi.gpio. The kernel is also compiled to expose the Raspberry Pi interfaces such as I2C, SPI, serial, and GPIO, and several of these can be accessed with /sys file interfaces (even from bash) without using any special libraries or modules. In addition, Pidora contains Raspberry Pi-specific utilities and libraries for access to the Broadcom Videocore IV GPU."

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/23/fedora-project-announces-pidora-remix-for-raspberry-pi/

I read the Techcruch article and it seemed remarkably free of actual tech information ;(

I'm not sure if those libraries are anything special or just one of the Python Libs you can download easily anyway.

I'm excited to find out from a more serious and informative article what the "extras" are !

Ironicaly the commenters seemed more interested in the fact that "Pidor" was Slang for Gay in Russian!

> I'm excited to find out from a more serious and informative article what the "extras" are !

I would like to know too!

You should ask on the thread that Andrew from Seneca started recently,

and still monitors:

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/24270?start=0&tstart=0

I'm not exactly sure how the question was asked of Chris Tyler,

he may not actually be claiming that these items are all advantages

compared with Raspbian.

> I'm excited to find out from a more serious and informative article what the "extras" are !

I would like to know too!

You should ask on the thread that Andrew from Seneca started recently,

and still monitors:

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/24270?start=0&tstart=0

I'm not exactly sure how the question was asked of Chris Tyler,

he may not actually be claiming that these items are all advantages

compared with Raspbian.