CentOS-2 Enterprise Linux 2.1AS Release Notes
---------------------------------------------

DISTRIBUTION GENERAL NOTES
--------------------------

    - CentOS-2 does not contain any trademark restrictions.

    - This version already contains all the updates that were available at the
      time it was created.  There may well be new updates available now.

    - After installation you MUST install all the required patches. The default
      firewall should prevent immediate problems but new security fixes may
      already be available.

    - Several configuration tools are included that you can use to
      configure:

       -  networking (redhat-config-network)
       -  time/date (redhat-config-date)
       -  system control (redhat-config-services)
       -  users/groups (redhat-config-users)


    - The IBM Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 1.3.1 is NOT included.

    - GNOME 1.4 is included with this release and offers the Nautilus graphical
      shell and file manager.  The Preferences folder is the GNOME control
      center. 
 
    - Firewall Configuration -- For added security, you can configure a
      firewall as part of your system installation.  You can choose from two
      levels of security, as well as choosing which common system services
      should be allowed or disallowed by default.

      Please note that both medium and high firewall settings will cause
      RPC-based services (such as NIS or NFS) to be blocked, and thus fail.

    - XFree86 4.1.0 is included with this release and provides improved hardware
      support. 3D hardware acceleration for the ATI Radeon is included. 
      Most video drivers support the RENDER extension, providing 
      anti-aliased font support to a wider range of hardware.  The XIE 
      and Pex (Phigs) X extensions are officially deprecated by the 
      XFree86 team and will be removed from a future release of 
      CentOS.

    - Sendmail, by default, 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, please edit
      /etc/mail/sendmail.mc and change DAEMON_OPTIONS to also listen on
      network devices, or comment out this option all together. You will
      need to regenerate /etc/sendmail.cf by running the following command
      as root:
     
      m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/sendmail.cf
 
      NOTE: You must have the sendmail-cf package installed for this to 
      work.
 
    - XFree86 3.3.6 is deprecated and will be removed from a future
      release of CentOS.  It is currently included for compatibility.

    - The initscripts use /sbin/ip (from the iproute packages) for most
      operations. /sbin/ip requires the netlink and netlink routing features
      of the kernel to function properly; it is impossible to make use of
      the kernel's full routing functionality without these features. If you
      are building your own kernel, make sure that CONFIG_NETLINK and
      CONFIG_RTNETLINK are enabled.

    - Binutils and gcc support merging string constant duplicates across
      whole binaries or shared libraries (previously duplicates have been
      merged within a single compilation unit only).

    - The VNC package supports a new encoding type for low-bandwidth
      connections.

    - CentOS-2 includes the first release of
      the GNOME XSLT processor (xsltproc) using version 2 of the associated 
      XML library.

    - ODBC-support is available for php, postgresql 7.1.2 is included, and 
      python and perl interfaces are provided with this release.

    - The following packages/features are deprecated, and may be removed
      in a future CentOS-2 release:
       - Netscape 4.x
       - Qt 1.x
       - KDE v1 compatibility libraries/build environment
       - Red Hat Linux 6.x build environment
       - Enlightenment window manager
       - linuxconf
       - ncpfs
       - mars_nwe
       - XFree86 3.3.x
       - kaffe

    - Do not remove the /initrd directory for any reason. Removing this
      directory will cause your system to fail to boot with a kernel panic
      error message.


ANACONDA/INSTALLER NOTES
------------------------

 Bootloader
 ----------
 
    - CentOS uses GRUB as the default boot loader.
 
    - GRUB supports a password that controls access to the GRUB shell;
      because of GRUB's ability to run arbitrary commands, this can be an
      important aspect in maintaining system security.  Please
      carefully consider the implications of this before deciding
      whether or not to set a GRUB password.  This password is
      encrypted using MD5; see the grub-md5-crypt man page for more
      information.
 
    - If you are using the GRUB boot loader, please note that you do not
      have to re-run GRUB after upgrading your kernel.  This is different
      from the LILO boot loader, which required re-running LILO after each
      change.  Simply modifying GRUB's configuration file
      (/boot/grub/grub.conf) to point to your new kernel will allow GRUB to
      boot it.
 
    - If you decide to switch to using the GRUB boot loader after
      installation, or you need to reinstall GRUB, you may do so using the
      /sbin/grub-install command.  The command syntax must include the
      device specification showing where the boot loader should be
      installed.

      Example:
                /sbin/grub-install /dev/hda

    - To boot into single-user mode from GRUB, do the following from
      the GRUB menu screen:

          1.  Select the desired kernel.

          2.  Press the 'e' key to edit that entry.

          3.  Use the arrow keys to navigate to the kernel line
              (for example: kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.7-1 ro root=/dev/hda2)

          4.  Press the 'e' key to edit the line.

          5.  Add the argument 'single' to the end of the line and
              press return.

          6.  Press the 'b' key to boot.
  
 Partitioning
 ------------
   
   - The Disk Druid user interface has been designed to take advantage 
     of a graphical environment.

   - Disk Druid can create primary partitions by specifying a cylinder
     range.

   - Disk Druid supports the ability to specify that a new partition
     must be created as a primary partition.

   - Text mode installations have support for creating RAID devices.

   - Specifying spare drives for RAID devices is supported.

   - Autopartitioning allows you to specify which drives to use, and
     which to avoid touching at all.

   - Disk Druid provides an option to view and edit the results of
     autopartitioning (for graphical installations only -- under text mode
     you will always see the results).

   - The ext3 journaling file system is available.

   - Pre-existing file systems may be selected for reformatting during the
     installation.

     Pre-existing ext2 file systems may be migrated to ext3 during 
     installation.  This process does not affect the data on the file system.

   - Many additional sanity checks are made against user-created mount
     points; this should avoid most common problems (such as a '/' mount
     point of only 5 MB).

   - GNU Parted is used as the partitioning backend (rather than the
     libfdisk library).

     Parted determines the file system type by examining the actual
     file system written onto a partition, instead of relying on the
     file system type written in the partition table.  This can lead to
     confusing situations when there are pre-existing partitions.

     For example, if you use fdisk to change the partition type of a VFAT
     partition to ext2, parted will still see this as a VFAT partition
     because there is still a VFAT file system on it.  In this example, you
     must explicitly reformat the partition as ext2 via the Disk Druid
     interface before the partition will be treated as ext2.  Any time you
     use fdisk inside the installer, and then proceed to the Disk Druid
     screen to set mount points, you should also review and edit each
     partition (in Disk Druid) and appropriately set its format options.

 Kickstart
 ---------
 
   - During the installation process, a kickstart file reflecting the
     user-selected installation options is written to
     /root/anaconda-ks.cfg.  This file can be used to create an
     installation similar to the newly-installed system.

   - Kickstart runs in graphical mode (when this mode is available).
     However, it can be switched back to text mode by using the 'text'
     directive in the kickstart file.

   - Kickstart Configurator (ksconfig) supports creating partitions on
     a specific drive and an existing drive, configuring X, and writing
     pre-installation and post-installation scripts. It also allows users
     to preview their choices before saving the file, and has an 
     integrated manual to assist in easy kickstart file creation.

   - Kickstart offers the following features/directives:

     interactive:  Reads in kickstart file, fills in the installation UI 
                   with kickstart values, and waits for user input at 
		   each screen.

     text:  Forces kickstart to run in text mode (default is graphical mode).

   - The clearpart directive accepts an --ondisk option which allows you
     to specify on which drives to create partitions.

   - The bootloader command supports the following options:

     --append <args>:  Append <args> on the kernel line

     --useLilo:  Use LILO instead of GRUB
 
     --md5pass <crypted MD5 password>:  Password for GRUB to use
 
   - The xconfig directive supports the following:

     --resolution 1024x768:  Set screen resolution (1024 by 768 in this
                             example)

     --depth 16:  Set display color depth (16-bit color in this example)


MISCELLANEOUS
-------------

    - Support for upgrading to CentOS from a previous version of Red Hat
      Linux or CentOS is not included with this product. 
      Refer to the following URL for more information:

         http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/advanced/

    - The drivers.img driver disk image is delivered in multiple disk
      images.  For more information, please read the README file in the
      images/ directory on CD #1 (or in the install tree you are using for
      network installs).

    - The individual package selection screen supports a flat view of
      all packages.

    - For FTP-based installations, it is possible to loopback mount the
      CentOS-2 ISO images on an FTP server.  The
      ISO images should be loopback mounted as /disc1, /disc2, and so on, 
      in the same directory.  This directory should be then be specified when
      an FTP-based installation is started.

    - In order to maximize space in the install image, the BusyBox program
      provides support for many commonly-used commands.

    - Rescue mode prompts before attempting to mount file systems from
      the installed system.

    - USB floppy devices are supported during installation.


KERNEL NOTES
------------

   - The kernel includes the ext3 journaling file system, which has the
     following modes of operation:

       - ordered
       - journal
       - writeback

     The default is ordered, which will make sure that after a crash you
     should always see valid data in recently-written files.

     The writeback mode can be faster in some cases, but it does not
     force data to disk so rigorously; therefore, after a crash you may see
     corruption in recently-written files.

     The journal mode copies all data to the journal, and can result in
     great speed boosts if you are performing lots of synchronous data
     writes (for example, on mail spools or synchronous NFS servers).
     However, in normal use journal mode is usually significantly slower.

     The mode is set by using the 'data=<mode>' mount option in /etc/fstab
     or as 'mount -o data=<mode>' on the mount command line.

     Normally, an ext2 file system is checked automatically once either a
     certain period of time or a given number of mounts have passed since
     the file system was last checked.  At these times, a full file
     system check (fsck) of the file system will be forced at system boot 
     time in order to check the integrity of the file system.

     When the installer creates an ext3 file system or upgrades an ext2
     file system to ext3, it disables these automatic checks.  Use tune2fs
     with the -c and/or -i options to re-enable them, or to disable
     them on ext3 file systems that you create manually.

     Note that these cleanup fsck scans have nothing to do with the
     file system's behavior when an error is discovered on disk, or when
     a crash occurs.  If a file system consistency error is found on
     disk, then on subsequent reboot a fsck will always be forced, both
     for ext2 and ext3 file systems.  If a crash occurs on an otherwise
     intact file system, ext2 will always force a fsck, and ext3 will
     always perform its file system recovery step; these cleanups are not
     affected by the tune2fs forced-check interval settings.

     Please keep in mind that even a journaling file system can be damaged
     by power loss.  When a system loses power, that system's behavior is
     undefined.  For example, memory contents can decay (become randomly
     corrupt) as the contents are copied to a hard drive running on the
     last bit of power.  This is a fundamentally different situation from
     the more defined sequence of events caused by pressing the system's
     reset button while the system is running.  In addition, IDE hard
     drives do not provide all of the write order guarantees that SCSI
     drives do.

     Therefore, after a system crash, you will be offered a chance to
     choose to check the integrity of your file systems.  The file
     /.autofsck is the crash flag used to provide this functionality.
     You will be given five seconds to type "y" to check your file systems
     during a boot after your system has crashed for any reason.

    - The netconsole kernel patch has been added to the core distribution.
      This patch will be incorporated in future releases of CentOS. The
      netconsole patch enables kernel-level logging
      over a network via UDP packets. Note that netconsole currently has
      limited network driver support. Refer to the netconsole/netdump
      whitepaper located at http://www.redhat.com/whitepapers for more
      information.

    - SCSI layer locking offers improved performance.

    - The POSIX aio_* asynchronous I/O functions provide kernel support.

    - When using RAID storage configured with Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs)
      greater than zero, it is necessary to enable LUN support by adding
      the following entry to the /etc/modules.conf file:

      options scsi_mod max_scsi_luns=255

      After modifying modules.conf, it is necessary to rebuild the initial
      ramdisk using mkinitrd.  Refer to The Official Red Hat Linux
      Customization Guide for more information about creating the ramdisk
      image with mkinitrd.

    - The linux-abi facility for running some binaries built for various 
      versions of UNIX is not present in this release.
 
PRINTING NOTES
--------------

   - The printconf system provides a printconf-tui program, for 
     text-mode printer configuration.

   - The printconf-tui program provides command line import and export
     capabilities. The import can merge printer definitions with those 
     that are already present, or it can override them (the default).

     Example:

         printconf-tui --Xexport > settings.xml

         printconf-tui --Ximport < settings.xml
     or:
         printconf-tui --Ximport --merge < settings.xml

     Combined with redirection -- such as bash's 'here documents' (see the
     bash man page for more information) -- you can easily put printer setups 
     into kickstart files.

   - The printconf-tui program can clear settings completely.

     Example:

          printconf-tui --Xclear

   - The printconf tools provide limited printer auto-detection.

   - redhat-config-printer-tui and redhat-config-printer-gui alias
     printconf-tui and printconf-gui, respectively.
     
   - Ghostscript 6.51 is available with this release, and supports many 
     additional drivers, as well as encrypted PDF files.

   - Support is provided for Hewlett Packard hpijs ghostscript print drivers.
     Although they are not shipped with CentOS-2,    
     you can download these drivers from the project site at: 
     
     http://hpinkjet.sourceforge.net 
     
     The ghostscript print drivers should work as drop-in components.
     
     
DRIVER UPDATES
--------------

This release includes several new and updated drivers. In cases where the
update represents a significant change to the driver, such as a driver
re-write, the new driver has been added to the system with a different name,
and the original driver has been preserved.  This allows those who do not need
the features of the new driver, or who prefer not to make a change at this
time, to continue to use the old driver.

Drivers that have been updated in-place (not renamed) are
described in this section.  New drivers that have been added
with an alternate name are described in the section "Alternate Drivers". 

- LSI Logic MPT Fusion (mpt* drivers)

  Version 2.02.01 of the MPT Fusion drivers is included with this release. 
  These drivers provide new support for FC919X and FC929X adapters, and 
  provide various bug fixes.

- LSI Logic (AMI) RAID (megaraid driver)

  Support for the MegaRAID Elite 1650 adapter is available with v1.18, which is
  included with this release. A new, substantially re-written MegaRAID driver
  with additional hardware support is also available, as described in the 
  section "Alternate Drivers".

- 3ware (3w-xxx driver)

  Version 1.02.00.27 of the 3ware driver is included in this release. 
  This version adds support for the 8500 series of adapters, and provides
  various bug fixes.

- Adaptec RAID (aacraid driver)

  The aacraid driver in this release provides performance and stability 
  enhancements.  This driver also adds support for the following 
  adapter models:

  - Adaptec "catapult", "tomcat", 2120S (Crusader, Vulcan, Vulcan-2m), 
    5400S (Mustang)
  - Dell PERC 320/DC

- Broadcom Tigon3 (tg3 driver)

  The Broadcom Tigon3 supports netdump and adds support for the the 
  ALTIMA_AC9100.

  NOTE: A newer version of the tg3 driver (also with netdump support) is
  available, as described in the section "Alternate Drivers".

- Intel ICP vortex RAID (gdth driver)

  A bug in scsi.c that could cause an oops in the gdth driver was fixed.

- Intel i810 Audio (i810_audio driver)

  The driver version has been updated from 0.21 to 0.24 to add support for 
  new hardware and other enhancements. The new hardware includes: 
  Intel ICH4, Nvidia MCP2, MCP3, AMD 768, 8111_AC97. 

- Silicon Integrated System LAN (sis900_new driver)

  The default driver for the sis900 family of HBAs is drivers/net/sis900, 
  version 1.07.11.  A newer version is available, called drivers/net/sis900_new.

  This release includes sis900_new version 1.08.06, which adds support for 
  the SIS96x adapters, and various bug fixes. 

- SCSI drivers

  - The number of SCSI disks that can be configured is at least 128.
  
  - The system will not issue a SCSI start command to logical units that 
    indicate they require manual intervention to become ready. This 
    eliminates unnecessary long delays when configuring these devices.
    
  - A performance problem involving SCSI requests consisting of a single 
    segment and multiple buffer headers has been fixed.
    
  - Additions have been made to the list of SCSI devices that require 
    special handling during configuration.

 Alternate Drivers
 -----------------

 This release contains several alternate drivers that provide new hardware
 support and improvements.  These drivers are provided as alternates because
 each is substantially different from the corresponding original driver, and
 some users may prefer to continue running the original driver at this time.


 - Qlogic Fibre Channel (qla2xxx driver)

   A newer version of the driver for the Qlogic QLA2100, QLA2200, and QLA2300 
   adapters is included in this release.  This driver solves problems that were 
   encountered with the earlier driver when configuring certain FC topologies 
   and FC devices. 

   The new drivers are version 6.03.00, located in /drivers/addon/qla2xxx_60300, and are named 
   qla2100_60300.o  qla2200_60300.o  qla2300_60300.o 


 - LSI Logic (AMI) RAID (megaraid driver)

   A newer version of the driver for the LSI Logic MegaRAID family of adapters 
   is included in this release. This driver supports additional adapter models, 
   and provides various problem fixes.  

   The new adapter models are the DISCOVERY (0x000E), PERC4_DI (0x000F), and 
   PERC4_QC_VERDE (0x0407).

   The new driver is version 2.00.2, located in 
   drivers/addon/megaraid_2001/megaraid_2001.o.




 - IBM ServeRAID (ips driver)

   A newer version of the driver for the ServeRAID family of adapters is 
   included in this release. This driver adds support for the 5i RAID 
   controller, and includes various problem fixes. 

   The default ips driver in CentOS-2 is 4.80.26. 
   The newer version is 5.10.21, located in drivers/addon/ips_51021/ips_51021.o. 

   Note that the firmware version on the adapter must match the driver
   version.  Update your adapter firmware before switching to this new driver.

 - Intel PRO/100 (e100 driver)

   The e100 driver is an alternative to the eepro100 driver. The e100 may work 
   better than the eepro100 on some hardware.   

   This release provides two versions of the e100 driver.  One is the default 
   CentOS-2 version (1.6.22), located in drivers/addon/e100.o.
   The other is a new version (2.1.24-k2), located in 
   drivers/addon/e100_2124k2/e100_2124k2.o.

 - Intel PRO/1000 (e1000 driver)

   A newer version of the e1000 driver, for the PRO/1000 family of adapters, 
   is included in this release. This driver supports additional adapter models, 
   and fixes several problems. 

   The default e1000 driver in CentOS is 3.1.23. 
   The newer version is 4.4.12-k1, located in 
   drivers/addon/e1000_4412k1/e1000_4412k1.o. 

 - Broadcom Tigon3 (tg3 driver)

   A newer version of the tg3 driver, for the Broadcom Tigon3 family of 
   adapters, is included in this release. This driver supports the 5704 
   adapter models, and fixes several problems. 

   The newer version is 1.2e3, located in drivers/addon/tg3_12e1/tg3_12e1.o.

   This release provides netdump support for both the original tg3 and for 
   the new tg3_12e3. 

 - AMD PCnet32 and PCnetPCI (pcnet32 driver)

   A newer version of the pcnet32 driver, for the AMD PCnet32 and PCnetPCI 
   family of adapters, is included in this release. This driver fixes several 
   problems.

   The default version in CentOS-2 is v1.25kf.   
   The newer version, 1.27b, is located in drivers/addon/pcnet32_127b.o 

 - Silicon Integrated System LAN (sis900_new driver)

   The default driver for the sis900 family of HBAs is drivers/net/sis900, 
   version 1.07.11. A newer version, (1.08.06) is available, located in
   drivers/net/sis900_new.

   Some older models of sis900 adapters operate better with the default driver.
   Newer sis900 models may operate better with the newer driver.

 - Adaptec SCSI Adapters

   The default driver for the Adaptec family of HBAs is driver/scsi/aic7xxx.o, 
   version 5.2.5. A newer version (6.2.8) is available, located in
   driver/scsi/aic7xxx_mod.o.

   Some older models of Adaptec adapters operate better with the default driver.
   Newer Adaptec models may operate better with the newer driver.


 How to Use an Alternate Driver
 ------------------------------

 If it becomes necessary to change from the standard driver to
 an alternate driver, follow these steps:

 1. Edit /etc/modules.conf and replace each occurrence of the standard driver 
    name with the alternate driver name. For example, the line:

       alias scsi_hostadapter4 qla2200

    would become:

       alias scsi_hostadapter4 qla2200_60300

 2. Re-make the initial RAM disk, with commands similar to the following, 
    substituting the version number (for example, 2.4.9-e.11) of the current 
    kernel for <version>:

       cd /boot
       mv initrd-<version>.img initrd-<version>.img-saved
       mkinitrd initrd-<version>.img <version>

3 . If you are using LILO, then run LILO and reboot.  If you are running GRUB,
    just reboot.

