Rolling Notes

This page is a summary of the Release Notes and will only be updated after each release. Read the full Release Notes on sidux.com, the Live ISO or apt-get install sidux-releasenotes.

Release notes for sidux-2009-04 Moros on 2009-12-31

For "Μόρος", (Moros), development concentrated on updating the bootloader infrastructure for live- and installed system, but also took upstream changes like kernel 2.6.32 and KDE 4.3.4 and further KDE4 applications into account. On the installed system, grub2 now replaces the traditional grub-gfxboot bootloader, while the live system now employs isolinux and an improved gfxboot theme.

While grub2 offers increased flexibility for installations, like supporting new filesystems (ext4) or advanced installation options like LVM2 and improved detection capabilities for other distributions and operating systems, right now it is limited to a textmode menu. A new theming effort is currently under development and will be available in the future.

Even though support for plain wallpapers would be already supported by grub2, it is still fragile and prolongs the system boot. Internally the configuration system for grub2 uses scripts snippets under /etc/grub.d/ to create its configuration file "grub.cfg" in a way that allows many self updating features, such as automating fromiso support with the help of "grub2-fll-fromiso" (optional).

With isolinux now supporting gfxboot, it is now also possible to use isohybrid, which allows writing an ISO directly to USB storage or sd/ sdhc/ mmc memory sticks to make these bootable. isohybrid adds an MBR to the ISO and sets up a partition table with one active entry, the partition containing the ISO. Further partitions can be added to allow access to the unused part of the storage device.

As part of overhauling the gfxboot theme, the language menu has been moved to the F2 key and extended with a keyboard sub-menu, which allows further specifying the desired keymap. If the desired layout is not available from the menu, xkbmodel, keytable, xkbvariant and xkboptions can now be set as cheatcodes on the kernel command line. A new timezone menu has been added under F3, while F4 allows selecting the source of the compressed root filesystem (CD, harddisk, NBD), while advanced kernel options are available under F5; F6 allows adding including firmware images from live medium or removable storage.

Network booting from network block devices (NBD) is now supported, as well as fromiso/ fromhd systems on LVM2 volumes, further information about NBD support is available under Booting sidux over a network.

Kernel 2.6.32 doesn't only improve and stabilise hardware support for newer devices, it also allows enabling KMS (kernel based modesetting) for Intel graphic chipset and supports DRI and basic 3d support for ATi Radeon graphics cards up to the HD4xxx series (r6xx/ r7xx, hints for installing the required firmware are available at Hardware needing non-free firmware drivers).

Likewise virtualisation support through KVM has been improved and now also supports KSM (Kernel Samepage Merging) to reduce the memory footprint of concurrent virtual machine. Upstream kernel development has also focussed on improved powersaving capabilities and optimised driver support for webcams and wlan cards.

As usual, a large number of individual functionality enhancements and bugfixes have been applied to the full package line up and sidux' own packages, in order to improve the general distribution infrastructure.

Installation and localisation

Installation

It is recommended to set keymaps, locales and timezone before booting the live system to be installed, by selecting them from the boot menu [F2], [F3]. This way, locale settings propagate to all required places for the installed system and don't require cumbersome changes at several places.

Installation to USB cards

With sidux 2009-04 "Μόρος", it is also possible to write sidux ISOs directly to USB storage devices of sdhc memory cards (Secure Digital High Capacity cards) in addition to the well known possibility of using "install-sidux-to-usb" (install-usb-gui). This option is particularly useful if there is no existing sidux installation available and if an installation medium needs to be created from another distribution or operating system.

It is important to note that this method overwrites the whole USB medium and restricts the available storage to the size of the sidux ISO; install-usb-gui is not subject to these limitations and therefore the recommended option in case an existing sidux system is available. 

cat /path/to/sidux-*.iso > /dev/USB_raw_device_node
Other installation options

Further information about the sidux install is available from Installation options.

Network booting sidux

Starting with sidux 2009-04 "Μόρος", network booting over PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) and NBD (Network Block Device) is supported, the required settings can be configured from within the boot menu [F4]. Instructions about how to set up an example PXE+NBD boot server can be obtained at Booting sidux over a network.

Localisation

Refer to: Install Preparation

Non-free hardware drivers

Refer to Hardware needing non-free drivers

Hints for Upgraders:

sidux tries hard to provide seamless rolling dist-upgrade path for debian and to the packages that are sidux specific, nevertheless a few things remain that could be improved with manual interaction.

crda

The new regulatory domain framework for cfg80211 based wlan cards requires crda to allow access to wireless channels above ch11 (2.4 GHz or their 5 GHz equivalents), without crda only the "world domain" (channel 1-11) is available. Previous hacks using module parameters ("ieee80211_regdom={US,EU,JP}") are no longer available and prevent cfg80211 from loading, please remove eventual module-init-tools overrides ("grep -R ieee80211_regdom /etc/modprobe.d/" to find them) manually. 

# apt-get update apt-get install crda

Timezone settings

Older versions of tzdata (as present in previous sidux versions) didn't record and set the timezone correctly, please reconfirm and select your current timezone – even if it appears to work – through: 

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Obsolete packages

As part of the continuing development of sidux, a number of packages have been replaced by better alternatives or become redundant.

The following command is able to find packages not available from any active apt repository and may hint at obsolete packages, be careful about manually installed packages though. apt-show-versions is a separate package and isn't necessarily preinstalled. 

$ apt-show-versions | awk '/No available version in archive/{print $1}'
Content last revised 01/01/2010 0330 UTC