Moving Toward Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Red Hat has not yet officially announced the features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, which is expected to be released some time in 2010. However, since the previous major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, several critical features have been replaced with new software projects in Fedora. So, even though there is no official feature list yet, learning at least some of the following current Fedora features should help you gear up for RHEL 6:

� Package Management � Expect tools such as pup (Package Updater) and pirut (Package Manager) to be replaced with PackageKit. The PackageKit facility includes features for installing and updating packages. New panel icons let you watch activities of PackageKit as it manages and installs software.

� Network Interfaces � Although NetworkManager was available in RHEL 5, expect it to be the default tool for managing network interfaces in Fedora. NetworkManager is particularly good at managing wireless interfaces and VPN connections.

� Encrypted File Systems � Among the many security features being tested in Fedora before they land in RHEL is the ability to encrypt file systems. Speaking of file systems, you can also expect ext4 to be the default file system type in RHEL 6.

� Virtualization � With Red Hat�s purchase of Qumranet, developers of Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) technology, you can expect virtualization support to shift from Xen to KVM in RHEL 6. KVM has already been included in several releases of Fedora.

These are just a few of the many features in the latest release of Fedora that you can look for in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Source of Information :  Wiley - Adobe Fedora Bible 2010 Edition Featuring Fedora Linux