Pidora for Raspberry Pi: Features and Specifications

After waiting for a long while, Raspberry Pi users are finally getting an optimized version of Fedora, the Pidora, to replace the current Rasbian OS. The news caused excitement among the Raspberry Pi community, who are finally getting the opportunity to enjoy Fedora on their devices after the previous attempt to introduce Fedora Remix for Pi ended up as a failure.
However, the Seneca Center for Development of Open Technology (CDOT), the authority group behind Pidora, is confident that the Raspberry Pi community would love the newly optimized OS, coupled with greater speed and most of the features of Fedora 18. The current Rasbian OS, which was a remix of the Open Source Debian OS chip based on ARMv6 would make way for Pidora, currently available for download on the CDOT website.

So what is in Pidora that has got the Linux community buzzing with excitement? Here are 5 features that are worth taking a look as far as Pidora is concerned:
1. Fedora Package availability: Via yum, most of the Fedora 18 packages are available in Pidora, with thousands of packages constructed along the line of the official Fedora release available for download as well.
2. Raspberry Pi Optimization: Pidora is essentially compiled and optimized with the hardware of Raspberry Pi in mind, thus allowing for increased compatibility and better hardware support.
3. First-boot: Dedicated first-boot designed for Raspberry Pi is a key feature of Pidora, along with added modules made along the same line for further ease of use.
4. Better memory management: Pidora comes with initial image size in compact form for download with auto-resize option for full memory capabilities, along with auto-swap ability for larger memory usage.
5. Language and Library Support: Pidora supports Python, Perl and C programming language in the OS and on the device. Also, it provides with support for libraries including GPIO, SPI and I2C interfaces.
However, apart from all the upgraded features, what really makes the Pidora stand out from the official Fedora OS is its architecture. The difference is noteworthy as not only is it in the coding line, but also has a pronounced effect on the functionality of the hardware as well. Whereas the official Fedora OS is based on its ARM architecture – basically the ARMv5 variation of armv5tel and ARMv7 variation of armv7hl, Pidora is based on the ARMv6. The ARMv6 comes with optional hard-float ABI since the Raspberry Pi also has a hardware floating unit.
For this reason, Pidora is fully optimized for Raspberry devices, paving the way for a faster, smoother experience. The floating point option is particularly important for math-intensive operations, and Pidora can fully utilize the Raspberry Pi for similar operations.
However, the biggest advantage of Pidora is that is finally resolves a long lasting woe of Raspberry Pi users – the lack of an OS dedicated to their devices. While the current Rasbian OS is OK enough, a Fedora remix was a long standing demand of the Pi community, and with the introduction of Pidora, CDOT might finally have fulfilled that demand.