Fedora 9 beta Linux distro released

Fedora 9 beta is available for download today, with a final release scheduled for April 29. The latest version of the free (as in beer) cousin of Red Hat Linux comes with a number of major updates, including support for the latest versions of the KDE and GNOME desktop environments. Here are a few highlights:

* Uses the 2.6.25-rc5 Linux kernel
* GNOME 2.22 with world time clock, improved file system performance, and security improvements
* KDE 4.0.2 with a completely redesigned desktop manager look and feel, and integrated desktop search
* Firefox 3 Beta as the default web browser
* Support for resizing ext2, ext3, and NTFS partitions during installation

One of the more noticeable improvements will be the fact that Fedora includes a new free Flash plugin for Firefox out of the box, so you’ll be able to watch YouTube within seconds of booting up your system. You can find a complete list of changes in the Fedora 9 beta release notes.