The individual aspects changed from version to version are outlined in the following in detail. This summary indicates, for example, whether basic settings have been completely reconfigured, whether configuration files have been moved to other places, or whether common applications have been significantly changed. Significant modifications that affect the daily use of the system at either the user level or the administrator level are mentioned here.
Problems and special issues of the respective versions are published online as they are identified. See the links listed below. Important updates of individual packages can be accessed at http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/downloads/ using the YaST Online Update. For more information, see Section 3.0, Online Update.
Refer to the article Known Problems and Special Features in
SUSE Linux 10
in the SUSE Support Database at http://www.novell.com/suselinuxportal under the keyword special
features.
For Apache version 2.2, Section 22.0, The Apache HTTP Server was completely reworked. In addition, find generic upgrade information at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/upgrading.html and the description of new features at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/new_features_2_2.html.
By default, xinetd no longer starts the vsftpd FTP server. It is now a stand-alone daemon and you must configure it with the YaST runtime editor.
With Firefox 1.5, the method for applications to open a Firefox instance or window has changed. The new method was already partly available in former versions where the behavior was implemented in the wrapper script.
If your application does not use mozilla-xremote-client or firefox -remote, you do not have to change anything. Otherwise the new command to open a URL is firefox url and it does not matter whether Firefox is already running or not. If it is already running, it follows the preference configured in .
From the command line, you can influence the behavior by using firefox -new-window url or firefox -new-tab url.
On some computers, Firefox with Pango support enabled is very slow. The performance seems to depend on the X server. Set MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0 if you want to switch on font rendering for your environment anyway:
export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=0 firefox
As with every major release update, it is strongly recommended to perform a backup of the MySQL table files and create an SQL dump beforehand. After the update, /etc/init.d/mysql automatically executes mysql_fix_privilege_tables. Refer to http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/upgrade.html for more information and detailed instructions.
The local and IO APIC for the 32-bit x86 architecture has changed. A local and IO APIC (I/O Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) is an SMP-capable replacement for PC-style interrupt controllers. SMP systems and all recent uniprocessor systems have such a controller.
Until now, local and IO APIC was disabled on uniprocessor systems by default and had to be manually activated by using the "apic" kernel parameter. Now it runs by default and can be manually deactivated. For 64-bit systems, APIC is always enabled by default.
Any system with a BIOS version newer than 2001 gets local and IO APIC activated by default unless local and IO APIC is disabled in the BIOS or by the user.
Any BIOS from Intel newer than 1998 gets local and IO APIC activated by default.
Any system with more than one CPU gets local and IO APIC activated by default.
If you experience problems with devices not working properly, you can manually apply the following configuration options:
To disable local APIC, use nolapic (this implies disabling IO APICs).
To disable IO APIC, use noapic.
To get the same default as earlier releases, use nolapic.
The ulimit settings can be configured in /etc/sysconfig/ulimit. By default, only two limits are changed from the kernel defaults:
SOFTVIRTUALLIMIT=80 limits a single process so that it does not allocate more than 80% of the available virtual memory (RAM and swap).
SOFTRESIDENTLIMIT=85 limits a single process so that it does not occupy more than 85% of the physical memory (RAM).
These soft limits can be overridden with the ulimit command by the user. Hard limits could only be overridden by root.
The values have been chosen conservatively to avoid breaking large processes that have worked before. If there are no legitimate processes with huge memory consumption, set the limits lower to provide more effective protection against run-away processes. The limits are per process and thus not an effective protection against malicious users. The limits are meant to protect against accidental excessive memory usage.
To configure different limits depending on the user, use the pam_limits functionality and configure /etc/security/limits.conf. The ulimit package is not required for that, but both mechanisms can be used in parallel. The limits configured in limits.conf override the global defaults from the ulimit package.
A new mounting mechanism replaces the submount system used earlier. This new mechanism does not unmount media automatically, but on hardware request. Some devices, most notably older CD drives but also some new drives with broken firmware, do not send this signal. To eject the media on such devices, select Eject in the context menu (opened by right-clicking) of the device in "My Computer" or select Eject in the context menu of the device icon on the desktop.
Refer to the Bugs
article in the openSUSE wiki at http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs.
The kernel-default package contains the standard kernel for both uniprocessor and multiprocessor systems. The kernel comes with SMP support and runs with minimal overhead on uniprocessor systems. There is no kernel-smp package anymore.
Include the language add-on medium in your list of installation sources, if you want better support for one of our tier 2 languages. Tier 2 languages are all but the tier 1 languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, simplified and traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Czech). Support for tier 1 languages is available on the standard media set.
Refer to the Bugs
article in the openSUSE wiki at http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs.
The scope of the text installation pattern is very limited. It is not recommended to install this pattern without adding additional software. Add packages from other patterns. The purpose of this pattern is to have a minimal bootable system running on real hardware. It provides a multiuser system with local login, network setup, and the default filesystems. No service is enabled by default and the only YaST modules installed that are those needed during installation.
After setting up the update configuration at the end of the installation, YaST offers to add the following three software repositories as additional installation sources:
The oss
repository contains the complete FTP
distribution including more packages than are available on the
CDs.
The non-oss
repository contains software under a
propietary or non-open source license.
The debug
repository contains debuginfo packages
used for debugging programs and libraries and getting backtraces. If
an error occurs, this additional information helps you write good
bug reports.
The source RPMs for oss
are available at
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/src-oss, the source RPMs for
non-oss
are available at
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/src-non-oss.
The 1-CD installation media (GNOME or KDE) come with language support for American English only.
Support for all the other languages is available separately. If you
are interested in additional languages, add an extra online repository
during installation offering these translations. The oss
repository, as mentioned above in Section "Adding Extra Software
Repositories During Installation", is such a repository.
By default, the new YaST gtk front-end runs on the GNOME desktop, and the YaST qt front-end on all the other desktops. Feature-wise, the gtk frontend is very similar to the qt front-end described in the manuals.
One exception is the gtk software management module (see the Start-Up guide in Chapter 3), which differs considerably from the qt port. To start the qt flavor on the GNOME desktop, proceed as follows:
Open the /etc/sysconfig/yast2 file as root.
Change WANTED_GUI="auto" to WANTED_GUI="qt", save and exit the file.
To start the gtk flavor of YaST, no matter on which desktop, proceed accordingly, but changing WANTED_GUI="auto" to WANTED_GUI="gtk".
Find more detailed information about new features at http://en.opensuse.org/AppArmor/Changes_AppArmor_2_1.
The syntax now distinguishes directories from files. There are additional minor syntax bug fixes.
The reporting of change_hat related events and information has changed. The log messages and profile state (as available via /proc/<pid>/attr/current) are reported as /profile//hat.
A new change_profile policy specification has been added. Change_profile is similar to change_hat, but allows changing to any profile (including hats), not just hats. The restriction is that the profiles that can be changed to must be specified. To change to a hat via change_profile instead of change_hat the hat name is specified by separating the profile and hat_name with // .
The GAIM instant messenger has been renamed to Pidgin.
GNOME 2 is installed under the /usr file system hierarchy since openSUSE 10.3 and KDE 4 now follows. KDE 3 will stay in /opt for compatibility reasons.
Before starting the update, make sure that there is enough disk space under /usr (approx. 2.5GB for both the desktops is required). If you are short on space under /usr, resize or rearrange your partitions.
There is a format change in Berkeley DB's on-disk log files between Berkely DB 4.3 and 4.4. This change prevents an installed OpenLDAP server from starting after the system update.
To avoid this issue, export existing LDAP Databases using the slapcat utility before starting the system update and re-import the data using slapadd after the update. On an already updated machine get the LDAP Server running as follows:
Stop the LDAP Server.
Remove all files starting with _db. from the database directory.
Start the LDAP server again.
libata uses /dev/sda for the first harddisk instead of /dev/hda. Disks with more than 15 partitions are not handled automatically right now. You can disable libata support by booting with the following kernel parameter:
hwprobe=-modules.pata
Then you see all the partitions > 15 again and can access them for installation.
The back-end technology of boot.crypto has been changed from cryptoloop to dm-crypt.
Any old /etc/cryptotab will work unmodified on openSUSE 10.3 (modulo hdX->sdX issues due to libata changes—see above). Additionally, /etc/crypttab (note the missing 'o') is now supported which also including support for LUKS volumes. In contrast to previous releases boot.crypto is no longer enabled by default. YaST enables it if you create an encrypted volume with YaST. You can also manually enable it with the following command:
chkconfig boot.crypto on
It is still possible to use cryptoloop via losetup and mount. Since we dropped the crude loop-AES patch from the util-linux package, some parameters for losetup (such as itercountk and pseed) no longer exist. If any of these settings are used in /etc/fstab the device cannot be mounted directly any more. Migrate these settings to /etc/crypttab where boot.crypto contains the necessary compatability code.
You now can configure quota for user accounts from within YaST. To
enable quota support activate the Enable quota support
check box in the fstab options when partitioning in the first stage of the
installation. Thus, ensure that
/etc/init.d/boot.quota script is executed at the boot
time. Then in the second stage, the advanced options for user accounts
provide the quota module where quota rules can be set.
If you enable quota support in the partitioner in the running system after the installation, either reboot the system or manually remount the partitions concerned and execute the following command as root:
/etc/init.d/boot.quota restart
The Zeroconf service—also known as Bonjour, Multicast DNS, mDNS, or DNS-SD—is now provided by the Avahi stack instead of mDNSResponder. However, the mDNSResponder and howl compatibility libraries are still available.
To enable mDNS for all network interfaces, use the Zeroconf/Bonjour
Multicast DNS
SuSEfirewall rule.
Older Intel graphics chips are supported by two drivers
(i810
and intel
). The intel driver is the
default on openSUSE 10.3 due to the high demand for features like native
mode setting (no longer VESA BIOS based) and RANDR 1.2 support.
When updating to openSUSE 10.3, the i810 driver is not exchanged with the intel driver. Use "sax2 -r" to switch to the intel driver.
The intel driver is still not as stable as i810; use "sax2 -r -m 0=i810" to switch back to i810, if you encounter problems that did not occur previously with the i810 driver. In those cases, consider to open a bug report against the intel driver.
Two drivers are available now: the traditional ipw3945 driver is installed by default and the new iwlwifi driver is an alternative offer. Note the following caveats:
ipw3945 works on hidden networks. It does not survive suspend/resume cycles.
iwlwifi does not work on hidden networks. It supports suspend/resume cycles.
You can change the default using YaST. Click "Software" -> "Software Management" and remove the ipw3945d package. Then the alternative iwlwifi driver gets automatically selected for installation.
The cdrecord package has been dropped from the distribution. The new wodim, genisoimage, and icedax packages from the cdrkit project can be used to record data or audio CDs on a CD recorder that conforms with the Orange Book standard. Binaries got renamed as follows:
cdrecord -> wodim readcd -> readom mkisofs -> genisoimage cdda2wav -> icedax
If your application relies on the old names, install the cdrkit-cdrtools-compat package. In long term, however, it would be good to have native support for wodim in all front-end applications, because it offers some improvements:
the preferred way of specifying a device is dev=/dev/cdrecorder, dev=/dev/hdc, dev=/dev/sr0, etc.
available devices can be listed with wodim -devices
suid root is not needed
If you maintain such a front-end or script, consider adding native wodim support.
Use growisofs for writing DVDs. The graphical front-ends handle this transparently.
If you did not install the KDE desktop during the initial openSUSE 10.3 installation, then later install the KDE Base System and KDE 4 Base System patterns, the KDE 4 application path will come before the KDE 3 application path. This means that if you launch a KDE application such as Konqueror, the KDE 4 version of Konqueror loads instead of the KDE 3 version.
When you open an MP3 file in Kaffeine, you will see an error message telling you that the software required to play this file is not installed. openSUSE then offers to search for a suitable codec which you can install with YaST. You can also switch the engine from Xine to Gstreamer by clicking to get MP3 support.