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Scientific Linux 6.4

Release Notes

Release Notes for Scientific Linux 6.4
March 27, 2013

The Upstream Vendor 6.4 release notes.
The Upstream Vendor 6.4 technical notes.

Send comments/issues/test reports to scientific-linux-devel@fnal.gov during our pre-release period

Send comments/issues/test reports to scientific-linux-users@fnal.gov after our official release

Table of Contents

Major Differences from SL6.3

Packages changed/added

OpenAFS
OpenAFS kernel module package has changed. With SL6.0 we started packaging the OpenAFS client's kernel module according to the guidelines from TUV's Driver Update Program.
Due to unanticipated changes with the 6.3 kernel, we've had to revisit the process. With the 6.4 release, we modified the packaging to provide a dedicated build of the module for each minor SL release, instead of one module for all SL6 kernels. Since the EL kernel ABI is supposed to be kept stable within a minor release, this should avoid the problems some SL users experienced.
For those updating their system using yum, this change should be completely transparent.
yum-conf-sl6x
This is now installed by default. You may remove it to return to the historical behavior.
yum-conf-sl-other
This now features an entry for 'sl-addons' repo. For more information on sl-addons please view the README file within the repo itself.
xorg-x11-server
Features a new ABI, this was a security errata so it should be available to earlier releases.
matahari
Upstream has discontinued the matahari packages

CHANGED compared to Enterprise 6

Packages Changed by Scientific Linux

Packages modified by Scientific Linux should contain 'sl' within their release string.
Packages can be changed for a few reasons - removing trademarks, fixing errors, providing different behavior, or fixing build issues. Each of the changed packages below lists is reason for its change along with some historical information.
httpd
Changed the default index.html to remove upstream's branding.
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
plymouth
Removed the red colors for text mode.
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
redhat-logos
Changed all trademarked icons and pictures from upstream.
Changed styles of items such as background, gdm, and kdm to change the tradedress style.
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
sl-bookmarks
sl-bookmarks replaces redhat-bookmarks and removes upstream branding
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
sl-indexhtml
sl-indexhtml replaces redhat-indexhtml and removes upstream branding
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
sl-release
sl-release replaces redhat-release and removes upstream branding
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
sl-release-notes
sl-release-notes replaces Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-Release_Notes*
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
anaconda
Add the Scientific Linux install classes
DVD installs do not ask for the network unless needed
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
redhat-rpm-config
Changed to recognize Scientific Linux as an Enterprise Linux
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
xorg-x11-server
Changed to remove TUV's support URL
This change went into effect with SL 6.3 and continues in this release.

Packages Changed for building reasons

Some packages would not build in our build environment. We changed these packages in order for them, or other packages, to build. The changes are minimal and are associated with a bug filed upstream to hopefully reduce this list over time. The final packages have been compared to freely available ones and are not significantly different.
To distinguish these packages we typically put 0.sl6 at the end of the release number.
epydoc
To fix a build error with python-nss a patch was added (bz#578920)
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and was fixed by upstream in 6.1
For some features texlive-dvips and texlive-latex are required, but not listed in the SPEC file. (bz#522249)
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
mod_auth_kerb
We Changed "--with-krb5=/usr/kerberos" to "--with-krb5=/usr" because the krb location changed in SL6. (bz#661777)
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and ended with SL 6.3
opal
opal needed a bug fix patch in order for ekiga to build. The opal-3.6.6-buildopts.patch was missing one line for it to work properly. (bz#661769)
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
pilot-link
When "autoreconf -is" is called this causes libtool to run from /usr/bin/libtool which is version 2.2.6b but the source ships its own libtool in pilot-link-0.12.4/libtool which is version 2.2.6 and called from the make files. This version mix does not work. (bz#663632)
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
rome
TUV 6 provides jdom-1.1.1 and not jdom-1.0 so we changed it to 1.1.1 (bz#665537)
This change went into effect with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
qpid-cpp
The SPEC file wrongly mandates TUV be listed as the vendor (bz#785919)
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and ended in SL 6.3
qpid-qmf
The SPEC file wrongly mandates TUV be listed as the vendor (bz#785921)
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and ended in SL 6.3

Changes to comps.xml

The comps.xml file determines what packages are in groups. This determines what packages get installed automatically when you select a group during install, or when you use yum groupinstall.
We have made the following changes to comps.

Removed compared to Enterprise 6

rhn-client-tools
We cannot provide RHN connections, so we have removed the RHN tools. People requiring RHN must use Enterprise Linux from upstream
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
rhnlib
We cannot provide RHN connections, so we have removed the RHN tools. People requiring RHN must use Enterprise Linux from upstream
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
rhnsd
We cannot provide RHN connections, so we have removed the RHN tools. People requiring RHN must use Enterprise Linux from upstream
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
rhn-setup-gnome
We cannot provide RHN connections, so we have removed the RHN tools. People requiring RHN must use Enterprise Linux from upstream
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
subscription-manager
We cannot provide RHN connections, so we have removed the RHN tools. People requiring RHN must use Enterprise Linux from upstream
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
yum-rhn-plugin
We cannot provide RHN connections, so we have removed the RHN tools. People requiring RHN must use Enterprise Linux from upstream
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.
vdsm
Was accidentally released by TUV. This is a part of RHEV and not Enterprise Linux so it has been removed.
This change went into effect with SL 6.2 and continues in this release.

ADDED compared to Enterprise 6

Packages added

We have added several packages to Scientific Linux that are not found anywhere on the Enterprise releases. These have been added for various reasons which are noted below.
icewm
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
Summary : Fast and small X11 window manager
Added because we needed a lightweight modern window manager. There are some machines that just don't have much CPU and/or memory, and both KDE and GNOME can really slow these machines down.

This is not installed by default.

  • icewm
  • icewm-l10n
  • imlib - for dependencies
  • gtk+ - for dependencies
  • glib - for dependencies

OpenAFS
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
Summary : OpenAFS distributed filesystem
Added because many educational and research centers around the world use AFS as some type of central file system.

This is not installed by default.

  • openafs
  • openafs-authlibs
  • openafs-client
  • openafs-compat
  • openafs-firstboot
  • openafs-kernel-source
  • openafs-kpasswd
  • openafs-krb5
  • openafs-plumbing-tools
  • openafs-server
  • kmod-openafs

revisor, livecd-tools, liveusb-creator
This was added with SL 6.0 and moved into 'sl-addons' in 6.4.
Summary : Scientific Linux Spin Creation
Tools to create Scientific Linux "Spins" or "Sites"

This was not installed by default.

  • revisor
  • revisor-cli
  • revisor-gui
  • revisor-isolinux
  • revisor-rebrand
  • revisor-reuseinstaller
  • revisor-unity-scripts
  • sl-revisor-configs
  • livecd-tools
  • liveusb-creator

yum-autoupdate
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
Summary : Automatically update your machine daily via yum.
Added for those users who want their system automatically updated without having to worry about doing it by hand.

This is installed by default.

  • yum-autoupdate
abattis-cantarell-fonts
This was added with SL 6.1 and continues in this release.
Summary : Cantarell, a Humanist sans-serif font family
Added because our new graphical theme uses this font.

This is not installed by default.

  • abattis-cantarell-fonts
External Repositories for yum
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.
Summary : Various External Yum Repositories
These are not supported by Scientific Linux but are here for your convenience.

This is not installed by default.

  • adobe-release / yum-conf-adobe
  • atrpms-repo / yum-conf-atrpms
  • elrepo-release / yum-conf-elrepo
  • epel-release / yum-conf-epel
  • rpmforge-release / yum-conf-rpmforge
  • rpmfusion-free-release / yum-conf-rpmfusion

Tweak RPMs ADDED

One of the goals of Scientific Linux is to be as close to the original vendor release of Enterprise Linux. But there are several things that people want to change, for one reason or another. In order to have both worlds we have created these tweak rpm's, more commonly known as SL rpm's. These rpm's can be added or removed to add or remove a feature. It is up the individual user to determine if they want a particular feature or not.

None of these packages are installed by default unless it is noted that they are.

SL_desktop_tweaks
This adds a terminal icon to the kicker panel for GNOME. It also adds the "add/remove programs" menu item to KDE.
Installed by default for the GNOME and KDE desktop groups.
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.

Who Needs This?
Pretty much any previous desktop user of linux. It's not a necessity, and the icons can be added manually, but it's much nicer to just have them there from the start.

SL_enable_serialconsole
This script makes all the changes necessary to send console output to both the serial port and the screen. This also creates a login prompt on the serial port and allows users to login at this prompt.
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.

Who Needs This?
Headless servers that want to redirect their output through their serial console during bootup, and also plan on logging in on those consoles.

Note: It is usually best to install this package after an install. You can either do this by hand, or in the %post section of a kickstart file. This is because the grub file and bootloader aren't created during an install, until after all the packages are installed.

There are 4 packages, which correspond to a serial port speed

  • SL_enable_serialconsole
  • SL_enable_serialconsole-96 (9600 baud)
  • SL_enable_serialconsole-192 (19200 baud)
  • SL_enable_serialconsole-384 (38400 baud)
  • SL_enable_serialconsole-1152 (115200 baud)

SL_no_colorls
Turns off automatic colors in ls.
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.

Who Needs This?
People who don't like the colorized ls or whose terminals can't read the escape sequences.

SL_password_for_singleuser
Changes /etc/sysconfit/init to require the root password for single user mode.
This was added with SL 6.0 and continues in this release.

Who Needs This?
In our opinion, everyone needs this. We're quite surprised that Enterprise Linux isn't this way by default. If you are concerned about someone getting root access to your computer by just sitting down to it, then this is something you will want to install along with setting a GRUB password.

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