StartCom Linux ML 5.0.x Release Notes

The version of glibc provided with StartCom Linux 5.0.x performs additional internal sanity checks to prevent and detect data corruption as early as possible. By default, should corruption be detected, a message similar to the following will be displayed on standard error (or logged via syslog if stderr is not open):

*** glibc detected *** double free or corruption: 0x0937d008 ***

By default, the program that generated this error will also be killed; however, this (and whether or not an error message is generated) can be controlled via the MALLOC_CHECK_ environment variable. The following settings are supported:

Should you have a program from a third party ISV that triggers these corruption checks and displays a message, you should file a defect report with the application's vendor, since this indicates a serious bug.

When building kernel modules that are not shipped with StartCom Linux 5.0.x, the kernel-source package is no longer required. Instead, external kernel modules should be built using the template contained in the file kbuild/modules.txt (as part of the kernel-doc package) or Documentation/kbuild/modules.txt (as part of the kernel sources themselves.)

The sound subsystem is now based on ALSA; the OSS modules are no longer available.

System environments using the kernel's "hugepage" functionality should be aware that the name of the /proc/ entry controlling this feature changed between StartCom Linux 3.0.x and StartCom Linux 5.0.x:

The Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel driver (lpfc) is currently undergoing public review for possible inclusion in the Linux 2.6 kernel. It is included in StartCom Linux 5.0.x for testing purposes. Changes to the driver are expected. If there are problems with the driver or, if for some reason it is no longer on-track for inclusion in the Linux 2.6 kernel, the driver may be removed from the final StartCom Linux release.

The lpfc driver currently has the following known issues:

In the past, the process of updating the kernel did not change the default kernel in the system's boot loader configuration.

StartCom Linux 5.0.x changes this behavior to set newly-installed kernels as the default. This behavior applies to all installation methods (including rpm -i).

This behavior is controlled by two lines in the /etc/sysconfig/kernel file:

In order to eliminate the redundancy inherent in providing a separate package for the kernel source code when that source code already exists in the kernel's .src.rpm file, StartCom Linux 5.0.x no longer includes the kernel-source package. Users that require access to the kernel sources can find them in the kernel .src.rpm file. To create an exploded source tree from this file, perform the following steps (note that <version> refers to the version specification for your currently-running kernel):

You can then proceed as usual.

obj-m    := foo.o

KDIR    := /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build
PWD    := $(shell pwd)

default:
    $(MAKE) -C $(KDIR) SUBDIRS=$(PWD) modules

              

StartCom Linux 5.0.x includes an updated version of the Evolution graphical email client. This version adds a number of new features, including:

The gimp-perl package has been removed from StartCom Linux 5.0.x because GIMP was updated to 2.0 and the Perl bindings were neither ready nor part of the main package anymore.

Users of Perl scripts in GIMP should install the Gimp Perl module from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/.

The default Input Method (IM) for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, and Korean has been changed to IIIMF — the Internet/Intranet Input Method Framework. IIIMF is supported as a native GTK2 IM module, and also through XIM using the httx client. IIIMF supports the use of multiple Language Engines (LEs) at the same time; using the GNOME Input Method Language Engine Tool (GIMLET — an applet) it is possible to switch between LEs of different languages inside GTK2 applications.

IIIMF currently defaults to using Ctrl-Space or Shift-Space for toggling the input method on and off (Emacs users can use Ctrl-@ instead of Ctrl-Space to set the mark.)

Depending on your selection at the language support screen during installation, one or more IIIMF language engines may be installed. The IIIMF server package (iiimf-server) will also be installed if a language engine has been selected. The language to language engine (LE) package mappings are as follows:

Accordingly, input via IIIMF will be enabled if you have chosen one of the following as your default locale:

To aid your use of IIIMF, if you have selected one of the above locales and you are using the GNOME Desktop, when you first login the GIMLET utility (part of the iiimf-gnome-im-switcher package) will automatically be added to your panel.

GIMLET is a utility for switching between the different LEs that are installed on your system. Using a different language engine allows you to enter text in different languages. Alternatively you may add GIMLET manually to your panel by right clicking on the panel and selecting:

Add to Panel -> GIMLET

Should you wish to switch between IIIMF or the legacy input method framework XIM, you can use the system-switch-im application. After changing the input method framework your changes will be reflected when you next start the X Window System.

By default, the Sendmail mail transport agent (MTA) does not accept network connections from any host other than the local computer. If you want to configure Sendmail as a server for other clients, you must edit /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and change the DAEMON_OPTIONS line to also listen on network devices (or comment out this option entirely using the dnl comment delimiter). You must then regenerate /etc/mail/sendmail.cf by running the following command (as root):

make -C /etc/mail

Note that you must have the sendmail-cf package installed for this to work.

The default /etc/php.ini configuration file has been changed to use the "production" defaults rather than "development" defaults; notable differences are:

The package now uses the "apache2handler" SAPI for integration with Apache httpd 2.0 rather than the "apache2filter" SAPI. If upgrading from previous releases, the SetOutputFilter directives should be removed from the /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf file.

The following changes have been made to the packaging of PHP extension modules:

There has been some confusion regarding font-related issues under the X Window System in recent versions of StartCom Linux (and versions of StartCom Linux before it.) At the present time, there are two font subsystems, each with different characteristics:

- The original (15+ year old) subsystem is referred to as the "core X font subsystem". Fonts rendered by this subsystem are not anti-aliased, are handled by the X server, and have names like:

-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--10-100-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

The newer font subsystem is known as "fontconfig", and allows applications direct access to the font files. Fontconfig is often used along with the "Xft" library, which allows applications to render fontconfig fonts to the screen with antialiasing. Fontconfig uses more human-friendly names like:

Luxi Sans-10

Over time, fontconfig/Xft will replace the core X font subsystem. At the present time, applications using the Qt 3 or GTK 2 toolkits (which would include KDE and GNOME applications) use the fontconfig and Xft font subsystem; most everything else uses the core X fonts.

In the future, StartCom Linux may support only fontconfig/Xft in place of the XFS font server as the default local font access method.

NOTE: An exception to the font subsystem usage outlined above is OpenOffice.org (which uses its own font rendering technology).

If you wish to add new fonts to your StartCom Linux 5.0.x system, you must be aware that the steps necessary depend on which font subsystem is to use the new fonts. For the core X font subsystem, you must:

1. Create the /usr/share/fonts/local/ directory (if it doesn't already exist):

mkdir /usr/share/fonts/local/

2. Copy the new font file into /usr/share/fonts/local/

3. Update the font information by issuing the following commands (note that, due to formatting restrictions, the following commands may appear on more than one line; in use, each command should be entered on a single line):

ttmkfdir -d /usr/share/fonts/local/ -o /usr/share/fonts/local/fonts.scale

mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/local/

4. If you had to create /usr/share/fonts/local/, you must then add it to the X font server (xfs) path:

chkfontpath --add /usr/share/fonts/local/

Adding new fonts to the fontconfig font subsystem is more straightforward; the new font file only needs to be copied into the /usr/share/fonts/ directory (individual users can modify their personal font configuration by copying the font file into the ~/.fonts/ directory).

After the new font has been copied, use fc-cache to update the font information cache:

fc-cache <directory>

(Where <directory> would be either the /usr/share/fonts/ or ~/.fonts/ directories.)

Individual users may also install fonts graphically, by browsing fonts:/// in Nautilus, and dragging the new font files there.

NOTE: If the font filename ends with ".gz", it has been compressed with gzip, and must be decompressed (with the gunzip command) before the fontconfig font subsystem can use the font.

Due to the transition to the new font system based on fontconfig/Xft, GTK+ 1.2 applications are not affected by any changes made via the Font Preferences dialog. For these applications, a font can be configured by adding the following lines to the file ~/.gtkrc.mine:

style "user-font" {

fontset = "<font-specification>"

}

widget_class "*" style "user-font"

(Where <font-specification> represents a font specification in the style used by traditional X applications, such as "-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*".)

The full set of LVM2 commands is now installed in /usr/sbin/. In boot environments where /usr/ is not available, it is necessary to prefix each command with /sbin/lvm.static (/sbin/lvm.static vgchange -ay, for example).

In environments where /usr/ is available, it is no longer necessary to prefix each command with lvm (/usr/sbin/lvm vgchange -ay becomes /usr/sbin/vgchange -ay, for example).

The new LVM2 commands (such as /usr/sbin/vgchange -ay and /sbin/lvm.static vgchange -ay) detect if you are running a 2.4 kernel, and transparently invoke the old LVM1 commands if appropriate. The LVM1 commands have been renamed to end with ".lvm1" (for example, /sbin/vgchange.lvm1 -ay).