[Aurora-sparc-user] [ANNOUNCE] Aurora SPARC Linux Build 2.99 (Beta 2 for 3.0)

[Scot P. Floess]

Spot:

I'm looking at ibiblio and see the 2.99 directory has a date of Nov 30.  
However, the ISO's are dated Nov 7.  Are these the correct ISO's to 
download?

Thanks,

Flossy

Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> The Aurora SPARC Linux project is proud to finally drag Build 2.99 
> kicking and screaming into the light.
>
> Took us long enough, huh? Beta 1 was in April. Barring some sort of miracle,
> Aurora 3.0 will be the last sparc32 supporting release. So, if you're still
> clinging to your sparc32 systems, please test this beta out. After 3.0, 
> we're not even going to think about sparc32 (unless well bribed).
>
> This is a BETA release, for what will become 3.0. In fact, we're going to 
> give this release a short period of time to uncover any really nasty bugs,
> and then we're going to call it 3.0.
>
> Here are some of the key features in this release:
>
> - Fedora Core 6 based tree of packages (some things are newer)
> - Support for Niagara hardware (Sun T1000, T2000)
> - gcc-4.1.1
> - gnome 2.16
> - KDE 3.5.5
> - kernel 2.6.23.1 (with patches!)
> - Full support for LVM at installtime (no more crashes!)
>
> Like all BETAs, this one has some bugs. Here are the ones we know about:
>
> - Installs on sparc32 hardware usually work, but they're very touchy.
> If you're installing to a sparc32 system, use text mode. If it fails to find
> the cdrom, try: linux expert text
> - Smartd seems to make systems using the esp.ko SCSI driver very very
> unhappy. If your system is esp based, we highly recommend that you
> disable the smartd service in single-user before fully booting after
> install.
> - cpuspeed seems to hardlock some sparc64 systems (the V120 is an
> example). Again, if your system locks up at cpuspeed, we suggest that
> you disable the cpuspeed service in single-user mode.
> - Parted was doing incorrect things in previous Aurora releases. This is
> the source of the odd cylinder-head error messages that have popped up
> in the past. Sometimes these error messages are harmless, sometimes they
> are not. Either way, you can get rid of them by booting to rescue mode,
> then, at the shell prompt, run:
>
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/$DRIVE bs=1M count=1
>
> Where $DRIVE is your harddrive, likely sda or hda.
>
> Then, reinstall. The errors will vanish (for good!). Be aware that
> running this command will wipe out all the data and partitions on that
> disk.
>
> - E10000 systems are not yet supported. :/
> - Most IDE based SPARC systems need to boot with ide=nodma.
> Specifically, Ultra 5/10 and Sun Blade 100s need this for sure.
> - Systems that boot off qlogic attached disks are not supported, because 
> there is no working firmware loader in anaconda, and the qlogic driver 
> needs firmware.
> - The graphical installer on some sparc32 systems doesn't enable the mouse.
> Post installation, the mouse works fine in X.
> - We haven't spun the security updates into this yet. We'll do this before 
> 3.0 final.
> - Upgrades from 2.98 might not work. We found more errors in how we were
> handling partitions at installtime, and unfortunately, the best way to fix
> them is to destroy the partition tables entirely and reinstall from scratch.
>
> If you find other bugs, please report them at
> http://bugzilla.auroralinux.org/
>
> If you install 2.99 on a system, success or fail, we wanna know! Please
> take a moment and add your system to the table on our wiki:
> http://wiki.auroralinux.net/wiki/Build2.99TestMatrix
>
> You can download the files from our primary location:
> ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/aurora/build-2.99
> http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/aurora/build-2.99
>
> The mirror sites should pick it up in a few hours/days, depending on
> whether they still remember that we exist. :)
>
> Many thanks to the folks in #aurora on freenode for their help in
> getting this release out.
>
> ~spot
>
> _______________________________________________
> Aurora-sparc-user mailing list
> Aurora-sparc-user at lists.auroralinux.org
> http://lists.auroralinux.org/mailman/listinfo/aurora-sparc-user
> Aurora FAQ: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~mas01r/aurorafaq.html
>
>   

-- 
Scot P. Floess
27 Lake Royale
Louisburg, NC  27549

252-478-8087 (Home)
919-754-4592 (Work)

Chief Architect JPlate  http://sourceforge.net/projects/jplate
Chief Architect JavaPIM http://sourceforge.net/projects/javapim