Releases/Mandriva/2007/Notes
From Mandriva Community Wiki
This page outlines various notes about new features and update tips for Mandriva Linux 2007.0.
[edit] Introduction
This document contains important information about the Mandriva Linux 2007 release.
The following topics are covered:
- General information about new features and major changes
- Changes to the Mandriva installer and upgrade instructions for Mandriva 2006 users
- Changes to supported hardware and drivers
- Changes regarding software packages
- Other technical information for experienced users
Please also refer to Mandriva Linux 2007 Errata - the Errata for the 2007 release. The Errata page contains information on known bugs and problems in the release and instructions on fixing, avoiding or working around them.
[edit] General information about new features and major changes
Mandriva Linux 2007 integrates the latest versions of the major open source projects: kernel 2.6.17, KDE 3.5.4, GNOME 2.16, and many others.
Many major new features have also been integrated:
- a 3D/OpenGL desktop interface with both AIGLX and XGL support
- improved rpmdrake software management tool
- the new Mandriva 'Ia Ora' desktop theme and screensavers
- improved network tools to access the Internet from any wireless or 3G/GPRS networks
- Support for the XDG menu system, a freedesktop.org standard
- new "Web 2.0" frameworks, like Ruby on Rails, Django and Catalyst
- the Invictus redundant / failover firewall system
Mandriva Linux 2007 is available in several different editions:
- the "One" edition is an installable live CD integrating the latest proprietary drivers, available free of charge
- the "Free" edition is a pure Free Software version, without any of the non-free packages bundled with other editions; it is also available as a free download
- the "Discovery", "Powerpack" & "Powerpack+" products, for beginner users, power users and SOHO users respectively, including support, services and many third-party applications like LinDVD and Cedega
Additional information is also available online:
- The Mandriva Hardware Database
- The Mandriva Club
- The Mandriva User Forums
- The Mandriva Linux Development Community (Wiki)
- or at the main Mandriva site
[edit] Changes to the Mandriva installer and upgrade instructions for Mandriva 2006 users
The Mandriva installer has been updated to support the following new features:
- multi-arch mode (32 & 64-bit)
- Express / Live Install mode
- Driver updates or patches on USB media
- Use of additional media during installation
- In-place system upgrade for Mandriva Linux 2006 users
[edit] multi-arch mode
The Mandriva Installer now supports both 32 & 64-bit architectures and auto-detects the right platform at boot time. A single installation medium is now provided for both architectures.
[edit] Express / Live Install mode
With the "Discovery" and "One" editions of Mandriva Linux 2007, the system is provided as an installable live CD. Users can test drive the product on their system and then decide to proceed with an express installation mode. In this mode, all the software packages present on the installation media are copied to a new partition on the hard drive from within the running live CD - no need to reboot to a separate installation mode. The other post-installation steps (club signup, package updates) will then proceed as usual.
[edit] Patches during installation
The Mandriva installer now supports USB keys as a source for driver updates or patches. Previously, only floppy drives were supported.
[edit] Use of additional media during installation
Update media can be added at the end of the installation process. All available updates can be retrieved and applied at the end of the installation process. This feature works both in interactive mode and in the automated mode (auto_inst_cfg). Of course, this feature requires that the system is already configured to have working network access to the update medias.
It is also possible to integrate additional or custom media during the installation process. This can help administrators doing automated installations. The following example shows how to modify the auto_inst_cfg configuration file:
media => [
{ type => 'media_cfg', url => 'nfs://a_server/the_path/i586/media' },
{ type => 'media', id => "media=more_apps", url => 'ftp://a:a@server//the_path2/media/apps' },
],
The packages provided by the additional media are available both during the installation process, to select additional packages or install groups, and also for updates.
[edit] Upgrade instructions for Mandriva 2006 users
The Mandriva Installer supports in-place system upgrade for Mandriva Linux 2006 users. Users of the previous version of Mandriva Linux can choose the upgrade installation path from the installation media. The upgrade procedures replaces the installed system with the new packages provided by Mandriva Linux 2007, including kernel and driver updates. User data is preserved as usual. Configuration settings are migrated to the extent supported by the various software installed.
We have validated many upgrade paths from Mandriva Linux 2006 during the beta test period. However, some additional operations may be necessary to complete the upgrade, due to some major updates like xorg path changes, the overhauled menu system, and the new KDE default configuration scheme.
In case of errors, it is advised to perform the following operations:
- check if all updates have been installed: to do that, open a shell window, and use the 'urpmi --auto-select' command
- re-run Mandriva configuration tools to ensure settings are applied: open the Mandriva Control Center and visit each configuration section, review settings then press the 'OK' or 'Apply' button, to write a new configuration file
- re-run other desktop configuration tools (KDE): open the KDE Control Panel, visit each configuration section, review settings and apply
- re-run other desktop configuration tools (GNOME): open each configuration tool in the System / Preferences menu, review settings and apply
- If your display configuration appears to have been broken by the upgrade, boot in 'failsafe' mode, run XFdrake, configure the display and reboot. If this still does not work, do the same thing but remove the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file first. You may also have to run mousedrake and keyboarddrake after doing this, to recreate your mouse and keyboard configuration.
These operations are optional. All settings should be migrated by either the Mandriva tools or the desktop configuration system. Consult the updated version of these release notes and refer to additional online support resources if you still experience problems after an upgrade.
[edit] Changes to supported hardware and drivers
Mandriva Linux 2007 supports a wide range of hardware configurations, and some of the most recent platforms:
- support for the latest Intel Core / Core 2 Duo CPUs (laptop, desktop and server reference designs)
- advanced ACPI suspend/restore support (S3/S4), tested on many notebook configurations, in particular Intel ICH6, ICH7, ICH8 (*)
- support for hardware virtualization features, like Intel VT(tm)
- support for all Intel graphic adapters, including the latest GMA950(i945G) & x3000(i965G),
- support for all the latest Intel ICH8 based platforms, NVIDIA nForce 5 and ATI SB600 chipsets
- support for the latest Intel WiFi adapters (ipw2200 / ipw3945), the latest ndiswrapper, atheros and bcm43xxx modules
- support for all major graphic cards (Intel, ATI, NVIDIA) with X.Org 7.1, VIA Unichrome, SiS (660), etc.
- support for all major xDSL adapters, including fixes for the Speedtouch models
- support for the latest storage drivers, including updated Adaptec drivers with Host RAID support
- support for the major sound chipsets with ALSA 1.0.12 final (note Creative X-Fi cards are not supported in Linux)
Mandriva Linux 2007 now includes proprietary drivers by default, even in the One freely downloadable versions. A Free Software edition (the "Free" version) is also available, without the offending non-free components.
- In the Mandriva One live CD edition and in Mandriva Discovery, both the nvidia and nvidia_legacy drivers are available, to support all hardware configurations without the need for a persistent configuration mechanism. Once installed, or with the other editions (Powerpack, etc.), only one of these NVIDIA drivers can be installed at a time to prevent configuration errors.
Additional and up-to-date information about hardware support and certified configurations is also available in the Mandriva Hardware Database.
(*)Note: ACPI suspend/restore support depends on many components and drivers: please check the HCL for certified configurations.
[edit] Changes regarding software packages
[edit] Changes to the Mandriva Linux base system
Mandriva Linux 2007 ships with updated components at the base system level:
- latest 2.6.17 kernel, with up-to-date RSBAC support
- gcc 4.1 and glibc 2.4
- LSB 3.1 compliant
- Xen 3.0.2 (plus patches) with hardware acceleration support
- improved boot speed with parallel init
- new and improved bootsplash support
Mandriva Linux 2007 contains an updated multi-arch switch system. Users can build 32-bit applications also from a x86-64 workstation without any chroot or rpm coloring/repacking tricks. To use this feature, just install the required 32-bit development packages and rebuild with linux32 rpm --rebuild _package_.src.rpm.
There are no longer separate kernels for systems with more than one processor core (the -smp kernels). All three kernels include support for multiple processor cores. At boot time, the kernel will detect whether multiple processors are present and enable or disable SMP support as appropriate.
Warning: the PAE addressing mode previously available with standard Mandriva 2006 kernels is now only available in "kernel-enterprise". This in particular affects systems with more than 4GB of memory, which should use kernel-enterprise.
The optimal kernel "flavor" is automatically selected by the Mandriva Installer. Similarly, Mandriva Linux 2006 users should be migrated transparently to the right kernel with the installer-based upgrade procedure.
For users performing a manual upgrade, the recommended upgrade path is as follows:
- users of kernel-2.6.12.x, who do not require PAE, can move to the kernel-2.6.17.x release
- users of kernel-2.6.12.x, who do require PAE support, must move to the kernel-enterprise-2.6.17.x release
- users of kernel-i586-up-1GB-2.6.12.x should move to the kernel-legacy-2.6.17.x release
- users of kernel-i686-up-4GB-2.6.12.x should move to the standard kernel release
Mandriva Linux 2007 now ships with JRE (Java Runtime Environment) 1.5 by default on 32-bit x86. This package is not distributed in the "Free Software" edition.
Mandriva Linux 2007 now ships with the Mono C# environment by default, after licensing updates.
[edit] Changes to Mandriva tools
The Mandriva tools have been updated to provide new features and improved interfaces.
The updated XFdrake tool (X Window configuration) supports many new configurations and options:
- support for card specific options (clone, BIOS FN key for ATI cards, etc.)
- automatically detects and applies recommended settings for DRI, Composite, EXA, multi-head support
- add support for the new horizontal wheel feature (e.g. mouses like the Logitech MX-1000 model), with thumb "back/forward" support
- enhanced monitor detection support, including monitor-edid fixes
- most VGA projectors are now supported out of the box, with the new Display Clone option turned on by default
- evdev is now used in addition to the traditional X and imwheel components for pointer devices with many buttons and /or a horizontal wheel, providing improved support for these devices: try your thumb buttons!
Other minor interface improvements have also been integrated.
The new drak3d tool detects the best settings depending on card brands and supported features and automatically enables either AIGLX or XGL, only allowing you to select configurations which should work on your hardware.
The Mandriva Network tools include many new features:
- support for 3G/EDGE/GPRS network access, including the most common devices offered by phone operators
- extended hardware integration, like rf-kill switch support
- enhanced information messages to help with network access troubleshooting
- new configuration interface for network profiles support
- new VPN support (OpenVPN and vpnc)
- Improved zeroconf support
- Bluetooth networking support
- improved user interface, with additional network status notifications
The Mandriva 'rpmdrake' tool has been reworked and features a new and improved user interface with the software installation and removal modes merged.
urpmi now supports rollbacks: see urpmi-recover(1) for details.
[edit] Invictus Firewall
The Invictus Firewall is a new module for building a cluster of firewalls with full failover and high-availability features.
Invictus Firewall integrates ucarp and ct_sync in the background to achieve this. ucarp monitors the status of each firewall, and decides which router is the current master in the cluster. ct_sync is a kernel module which replicates the connection tracking state across multiple firewall nodes.
In order to secure the replication connection, it is required to update the iptables configuration on each node and mark the traffic between the interfaces with the CONNMARK target.
Check out the online documentation of Invictus Firewall for more information.
[edit] Digital Imaging sub-system
Mandriva Linux 2007 introduces CUPS 1.2, the new generation of the Common Unix Printing System with:
- Vastly improved web interface with local and printer auto-detection, easy queue setup with a few clicks, access to all installed printer drivers, most important CUPS server configuration functions (printer sharing, debug mode), access to log files, searchable job and print queue lists, searchable documentation
- Fast SNMP-broadcast-based scan for network printers (~4 sec)
- Per-queue de-activation of printer sharing
- More detailed definition of acces rights per-printer
- IPv6 support
- Improved interface for printer drivers
Also new:
- HPLIP 1.6.9: Support for the newest HP printers and multi-function devices from HP, with support for faxing and printing onto CDs/DVDs
- Gutenprint 5.0.0 final release: Highest photo quality on most Epson inkjet printers including the recent models
- Many other new printer drivers and PPD files to support thousands of printers, including the latest models from Ricoh, Gestetner, Infotec, Lanier, NRG, Savin, HP, Epson, Brother, Samsung, Konica Minolta, and many more.
- Printerdrake, the Mandriva printer setup tool, supports the new features of CUPS and HPLIP in its graphical user interface, automatically downloads firmware and color profiles for printers which need these files, allows fast discovery of network printers and of their communication protocols (IPP, TCP, and LPD), configuration of optional printer add-ons during printer setup, and more.
- SANE 1.0.18: Support for many new scanner models.
- Epson Avasys scanner driver: Support for latest Epson scanners.
- GPhoto 2.2.1 + DCRaw 8.31 + UFRaw 0.9: Support for the latest digital cameras and their RAW image formats.
USAGE NOTE: In order to fax with an HP multi-function device, users need to start "hp-sendfax" (Menu: Office -> Communications -> Fax -> HP Sendfax) BEFORE sending a job to the fax printer (usually with a print queue name with "FAX" in it), otherwise the job will be discarded. It is possible to send more than one job into one fax. Fax is available through the print functionality of any application.
[edit] KDE Desktop & related applications
Mandriva Linux 2007 features the new KDE 3.5.4 release, with many improvements and bugfixes. Further information about this release is available on the KDE site.
The KDE desktop included in Mandriva 2007 now uses a new configuration scheme with a "cascading overlay" approach. In particular it enables administrators or OEMs to change almost all KDE settings without needing to touch standard KDE packages or recompile packages.
Additional KDE configuration profiles can be referenced in /etc/kderc. The default configuration profiles are now available in different packages:
- mandriva-kde-config-common-2007
- discovery-kde-config-2007
- powerpack-kde-config-2007
- powerpackplus-kde-config-2007
- one-kde-config-2007
- download-kde-config-2007
- mandriva-kdm-config-2007
KDE now supports the new standard XDG menus.
KDE now uses kmplayer with the xine backend by default. Kaffeine is still available, but is not recommended due to instabilities when used as a konqueror plugin.
KDE now integrates the Kerry search front-end by default.
[edit] GNOME Desktop & related applications
Mandriva Linux 2007 ships with the latest GNOME 2.16 release. Further information about this release is available on the GNOME site.
[edit] Mozilla applications
Mandriva Linux 2007 ships with the Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird 1.5 releases.
The Mozilla Firefox packages have been split into multiple packages, with a library part and a program part. Multiple versions of the Firefox libraries can now be installed in parallel to cope with other program dependencies like Epiphany or Eclipse that also use the Gecko engine.
Mandriva Linux 2007 features native 64-bit Mozilla browsers with support for 32-bit plugins. 64-bit native browsers and JVM add improved performance while preserving compatibility with existing 32-bit plugins like FlashPlayer, RealPlayer, and Acrobat Reader 7.
[edit] OpenOffice.org
Mandriva Linux 2007 integrates the latest OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 release, supporting the ISO-standard Open Document Format as well as most of the Microsoft proprietary document formats and the .sx* formats used by OpenOffice 1.x.
This version includes the latest VBA model patchset to enhance compatibility with Visual Basic macros included in many legacy documents.
The native x86-64 version is currently not recommended for intensive or enterprise use. The x86-64 packages can be installed concurrently with the i586 version, allowing you to switch from one version to the other. The x86-64 version can be launched with the 'ooffice2.0_64' command.
The font wizard may not work properly in some situations: in this case, users are advised to install all .TTF fonts into ~/.ooo-2.0/user/fonts/ (this is also applicable to Type1 and other bitmap fonts).
Some new clipart is now provided in the openoffice-clipart packages.
[edit] Apache
Apache has been updated to the latest 2.2 stable version. Configuration files need to be manually reviewed and migrated to the new version. Please refer to the indivual package release notes in /usr/share/doc/apache-base-2.2.3/README.urpmi and /usr/share/doc/apache-conf-2.2.3/README.urpmi.
[edit] Other technical information for experienced users
[edit] New XDG Menu system
Migration to XDG Menu system (as explained on XDGMenuSystem and MenuMigrationToXDG) has been completed with Mandriva Linux 2007.0. The Debian menu system is no longer used and files in /usr/lib/menu, /etc/menu and ~/.menu are now ignored. Menu customization should be done using desktop menu editors, such as kmenuedit (for KDE) or alacarte (for GNOME).
If upgrading from an older version of Mandriva Linux, no customization (such as menu changes or applications association to file type) will be migrated to the new system. Those customizations will need to be re-done using desktop native tools. To prevent conflicts, old generated files in ~/.local/share/applications, ~/.local/share/desktop-directories and ~/.config/menus/*.menu will be renamed as ~/.local/share/applications-obsolete, ~/.local/share/desktop-dirctories-obsolete and ~/.config/menus/*.menu.obsolete when doing a first login using Mandriva Linux 2007.0.
[edit] New Init system
Mandriva Linux 2007.0 introduces a new parallel initialization system, replacing the classic sequential initialization system. This means that during boot, many services are started at the same time, improving boot speed. Dependencies in the initialization scripts are used to ensure the correct starting order for services that rely on other services being started first. This system should work without problems on most systems, but there are some potential issues. For more information on these, see the Errata.
[edit] Unicode migration
Mandriva Linux 2007 uses Unicode UTF-8 encoding and locales by default. This is in contrast to previous releases, which used various non-Unicode locales and encoding for each country. Users upgrading or migrating data from previous releases may find that special characters are not correctly displayed. To resolve this issue, we recommend using the convmv utility to convert the files to UTF-8 encoding. To do so, use this command:
convmv --notest -r -f source_encoding -t utf8 directory_or_file
where source_encoding is the original encoding - e.g. iso8859-1 - and directory_or_file is the directory or file that you wish to convert. You must have the convmv package installed to run this command. If you do not have it installed, you can install it via the graphical software installation tool (rpmdrake). If you cannot find it through rpmdrake, you must first add software package sources from one of our public mirrors. Run the Software Media Manager: open the Mandriva Control Center, and go to the Software Management tab. Click the link titled 'Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system'. Click 'yes' when asked if it is OK to continue. Now click the 'Add...' button on the right hand side of the new screen. When asked whether to add 'Official updates' or 'Distribution sources', click 'Distribution sources'. Click 'Yes' in reply to the question about the mirror list. When the mirror list appears, choose a mirror close to your geographical location. Wait for the process to complete.
[edit] USB and/or removable media management
Removable storage media are automatically managed by HAL, D-BUS and the respective KDE or GNOME media managers.
Devices mounted through an automatic desktop mechanism must be unmounted with the same mechanism (the "remove safely" action offered by the file/device manager applications). Such devices cannot currently be unmounted from the command line, except by the super-user.
Devices are mounted under /mnt by default.
[edit] New X.org 7.1 graphical sub-system
Following upstream changes in X.org 7.0, the few large packages that made up X.org releases prior to 7.0 have been split into many small packages, one for each driver and library. See this Cooker mailing list post for more details.
Software cursor can be configured from XFdrake for owners of specific cards that do not support accelerated pointers.
On specific notebooks, Clone is automatically disabled to prevent stability issues experienced during the beta period.
[edit] Base system packages and common libraries
[edit] cron
Cron was updated to the latest version. crontab now requires an empty /etc/cron.deny file so it can be used by any user (this was not the case before). Use "touch /etc/cron.deny" to restore the old behavior.
[edit] glibc
glibc has been updated to the 2.4 version, which implies the removal of linuxthreads, replaced by ntpl. See [[1][this Cooker mailing list post]] for more details. As linuxthreads has been broken and deprecated for some years, this should not be a problem, except on some legacy software.
[edit] nss_ldap
Upstream, the intended behaviour of (the upstream default) 'bind_policy hard' has been correctly implemented. This changes the default upstream behaviour to block on connecting to the first LDAP server. On Mandriva, the default for bind_policy has been changed to "soft", to retain the previous default behaviour. The default upstream behaviour may be had by setting "bind_policy hard" in /etc/ldap.conf
[edit] keychain
For gpg and ssh agents, the new preferred solution is based on the keychain package, which properly handles both tools. Keychain provides authentication dialogs in three environments, console, qt and GTK+, so every user that needs GPG cryptography or SSH public key agents only need install the package keychain, and nothing more. This solution now deprecates home dir scripts, so users are advised to remove custom ssh-agent and gpg-agent scripts on home, in favour of keychain.
[edit] PalmOS based PDAs
Pilot-link (software used to access PalmOS based PDAs) has been upgraded to version 0.12 and has been configured to use only libusb to communicate with USB PalmOS based PDAs. The 'visor' kernel module will no longer be loaded and software used to synchronize with such PDAs should be reconfigured to use the usb: port, instead of the deprecated /dev/pilot , /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyUSB1 device nodes.
Using "usb:" port may crash Kpilot. You can still use a /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyUSB1 port, until you do (as root, and before plugging your PDA): modprobe usbserial and modprobe visor.
WARNING: Using a /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyUSB1 port with Kpilot may cause either no data sync'ed or data loss. Do backup first and use with great care.
[edit] netplugd
In previous releases, the netplugd daemon was included in the net-tools package. Since it should not be used by default, netplugd has been moved in its own package, in the contrib repository. Use of the ifplugd daemon is preferred, since it is supported by Mandriva initscripts, more configurable, and has been used by default for a few years.
[edit] irssi
irssi perl support was split from the main package, in irssi-perl subpackage. Install it if you need to run perl scripts.
[edit] New Shorewall version 3
Shorewall has been upgraded to version 3. The syntax of the /etc/shorewall/zones files has changed in this Shorewall release. If you upgrade from a previous Mandriva release, please run the firewall configuration tool (drakfirewall) to update your firewall configuration.
[edit] autofs
autofs 5 introduced changes in LDAP support. Most importantly, you have to configure the LDAP schema you're using in autofs configuration (/etc/autofs/autofs.conf), and package update can't handle it. autofs client no longer supports --timeout number_of_seconds option. Server must be reconfigured to use instead --timeout=number_of_seconds.
[edit] php-session
Changes have been made to the way PHP session files are dealt with. Sessions are now saved in /var/lib/php instead of /tmp and a cron script (/etc/cron.d/php) will clean the directory when needed.
[edit] Changes regarding packages
Mandriva Linux 2007 contains updated packages of the major open source components and is one of the most up-to-date distributions on the market. Updates are too numerous to list, but new (previously not distributed) packages have also been added. Some packages have been dropped from the distribution because they have been obsoleted by newer components, because they are not maintained, or because of licensing changes.
You can see the full list of changes at MandrivaLinux2007Packages (http://qa.mandriva.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/MandrivaLinux2007Packages)
