CHANGES IN THE LINUX v0.97 ROOT DISKETTE Jim Winstead Jr. - 4 August 1992 This file mostly contains info about the changes in the root diskette from Linux v0.96 to Linux v0.97. BUGS 'mount' is broken in strange ways, particularly in passing options '-o whatever'. I'm working on this. CHANGES With the release of Linux v0.95a, the maintenance of the root diskette has been assumed by Jim Winstead Jr. (jwinstea@jarthur.Claremont.EDU). This continues with the release of the Linux 0.97 release diskette. The changes between the Linux 0.97 and Linux 0.96 root diskettes are detailed below, and the changes in earlier releases are summarized after that: - many small binaries were added, including: cmp cut date env find head id install logname nice nohup pathchk printenv printf sed setserial sort sum tac tee tr tty uname uniq wall wc who whoami write yes (Some of these may have been on previous root disks - I don't have the motivation to double check that. In any case, they are definitely on 0.97. :) - ps, w, uptime, and related utilities were removed. Because these programs rely very closely upon the kernel being used, they can be outdated quite quickly. - migrated mount/umount/swapon from /bin to /etc. This conforms to common usage (only root can use these programs), and current standards. - moved 'rootdev' to /usr/bin and renamed to 'setroot'. This reflects more common usage of the utility - it is no longer needed for inserting the root device in /etc/mtab, but it is still useful to change the root device of a kernel image. - removed /lib/libhard.2.2.2 and moved /lib/libsoft.2.2.2 to /lib/libm.2.2.2, instead of using a symlink. - upgraded efdisk and renamed to fdisk. efdisk was upgraded to v0.93, from Owen LeBlanc's MCC 0.96c interim release, with some small changes from me to support the -l flag, allowing it to completely replace fdisk. - fixed compress to work with long filenames. Previous versions of compress would refuse to compress files with names longer than 12 characters - this was hardcoded in the source the FSF makes available. - brought device names up to standards. Fixed some device names according to decisions made on the Linux Standards discussion list, particularly renaming /dev/lp* to /dev/par*, 'hard' /dev/fd* devices, /dev/bm (bus mouse), and fixing the numbering of /dev/ttys*. - revised /etc/group. /etc/group now contains only the 'standard' group names discussed in the Linux Standards list. Of special note is the renaming of the 'bin' group to 'obsolete'. Using the 'bin' group as a means of identifying executables is not recommended. That is what the executable bits are designed to do. - revised /etc/passed. /etc/passwd was changed as a result of the new /etc/group, and to eliminate unnecessary usernames - many groups were removed because using uid != 0 for important files is a security hole on NFS-mountable drives - changes file permissions and ownerships. This was done to reflect changes in /etc/group and /etc/passwd. - fixed up the install script where it was broken. All known major bugs were fixed. Particularly where /usr was concerned. - fixed the install documentation to refer to pax. - minor gaffes from 0.96 fixed (/etc/getty linked with shared libs, correct file ownerships, etc) If you have questions, problems, or complaints about the root diskette, either post to comp.os.linux, or send mail to me at jwinstea@jarthur.Claremont.EDU. If you have questions, problems, or complaints about the boot diskette or the kernel itself, post to comp.os.linux or send mail to Linus Torvalds at torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi. Remember, the only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask. SUMMARY This section very briefly summarizes previous changes. 0.95a -> 0.96 - reintroduced GNU bash as /bin/sh - replaced GNU tar (/bin/tar) with POSIX pax utility - all-new and improved installation script - split /etc/rc into /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local - new mount/umount/swapon with auto-mounting - uses /etc/fstab - recompiled all utilities with shared libraries (gcc 2.2.2) - added /dev/MAKEDEV - device creation script - all new /etc/termcap using "tc=con-unk" entries FUTURE CHANGES I'm already anticipating some changes for future releases, so here's a sneak preview: - the install script will be improved. The current one was written rather rapidly, so there are parts of it I'm not entirely happy with. - I'd like to write an update script that will allow people who have already installed Linux to update their binaries from the latest root disk. The install script could serve as a base for this, but is a little destructive at present. (It would simply copy over old binaries, etc.) - program to allow the 'intro' login to be more interactive, and will also serve more general purposes (it will be a generic curses-based file-selector with support for file descriptions). - the documentation on disk will be cleaned up, and possibly added to. - fill in the gaps in the MAKEDEV script. (SCSI tapes, more pty devices.) - the release after the extended filesystem is added to the Linux kernel, the root disk will use it. That means v0.98, if things go according to current plans. This is to allow time for bugs in the extended filesystem to filter out, and for the new mkfs and fsck to stabilize. (For those that don't know, the extended filesystem supports 4 terabyte partitions and long filenames, and is currently in testing.) Again, mail your questions, comments and suggestions about the root diskette to me at jwinstea@jarthur.Claremont.EDU.