From: pmacdona@sanjuan (Peter MacDonald)
Subject: SLS update: more info
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, CANADA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 05:53:45 GMT

Here is the release notes I mentioned.  I posted these to the
announce channel  yesterday, but I have not seen them yet at
our site.  So sorry if you didn't get your days warning :-)

Peter
-----------------------------------------------------

Announcing SLS 99 p2.  This is a massive upgrade to the first
three series 'a', 'b', and 'c'.  So much has changed that
just listing them is infeasible.  Upgrading existing systems
is a problem.  Although this release has added support that
in the future will allow a automatic upgrading scheme,
it isn't finished yet.  Someday, when things settle down a 
bit I will be addressing that problem.

This release hopefully fixes most previously reported problems.
Notable exceptions are: getty/ugetty (locking and or char loss may
still not be perfect).  Ftp seems to have a problem with ls (kernel?).
Menu seems to have a problem with the change directory command.
Login doesn't like the backspace key, and requires ^H instead.
Note also, that this version of the kernel, and SCSI don't always
get along.

Some features of this release include: gcc 2.3.3, libc 4.2, many things
recompiled to use the libc 4.2, a fixed sed, /etc/clock,  screen, term, 
bc, cpio, rcs, zoneinfo, updated mailpak stuff (elm/uucp), shadow 
passwd support in everything, lilo 7, efs progs  11,  a fixed DOS emulator,
syslogd using SOCK_STREAM (as libc does),  ispell now works for emacs,
an info dir has been included to allow emacs info to work.  An updated
diff, lpr (configured correctly I hope),  a fixed minicom, and system V 
init is now standard (modified to use syslog).  The linux source includes
have been fixed.

There is also the addition of a setup script (/etc/syssetup) which is 
invoked at the end of doinstall to setup permissions and system specific
features.  The most important feature of this script is that it is
stored in a very small package (a4/syssetup.taz), which can easily 
added to and refined as problems are identified.
	
Tcpip is now setup in such a way that most normal users can configure it
by just using sethostname and domainname, editing /etc/inet/hosts,
and then running the script /etc/inet/hostcvt.build to generate
the proper name server files from the hosts file.  I will add this
to syssetup soon.

The shadow passwd suite now has a frontend for compiling existing
getpw* applications just by defining SHADOW_PWD when compiling
and adding -lshadow when linking.  Setgid shadow is also required.

The version of the kernel supplied has been compiled with two
patches in.  The first is the ipcbeta patches to give interprocess
communication and shared memory.  The other is selection, which allows 
using the mouse to cut and paste on the console.  The latter requires running
selection first.  Do "selection -h"  to see the parameters I 
added to it to allow mouse type selection etc.

I am slowly working on collecting source, but it is a lower priority
to me than the binaries.  This because, although those who want source,
want it really bad, the majority of people don't have the disk space
for source, or don't have the need, or both.  Also my time is limited.  
But mainly, I do not currently compile most of SLS.  Many components
are compiled by others.  However, I am collecting together sources for
things I do compile, as a start.  When it is ready, you will see it.

As usual, bug reports are appreciated.
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux