use unicode strings

Partially Fixes #14695
add unicode prefix to some strings
corrected file.append state to not report modifications when file is in correct state
Fix service.py version parsing for SLE 11

"osrelease" on SLES 11 is in the form "11 SP3", i.e. major version, then a space, then service pack number. This means we can't just split on '.' to get the major number for comparisons. Rather we need to split on non-digit characters to handle both space-delimited and dot-delimited release formats (yuck).
Adding the ability for apt based pkg installs to not install packages that have been marked as recommended.  By default these packages are installed but passing install_recommends as False will cause these not to be installed.
Cleanup cp.push and file_recv_max_size options
Fix broken link

Closes #15077
Merge pull request #15081 from cachedout/15077

Fix broken link
Merge pull request #15035 from UtahDave/2014.7fixhighstateoutputter

use unicode strings
fixing the debian_ip to allow setting a hostname that is not a FQDN per #15085
Merge pull request #15080 from cachedout/cp_cleanup

Cleanup cp.push and file_recv_max_size options
Merge pull request #15094 from garethgreenaway/15085_debian_hostname

fixes to debian_ip
Trim the output file as opposed to delete to keep same permissions.

Fixes #14979
Add test case for output file permissions

Refs #14979
Add support for `--output-file-append`. Fixes #15074.
Add test case for `--output-file-append`
Catch exception raised when pkg.refresh_db is called

This catches an exception that may be raised as part of the code added
in #14812.
pylint fixes
Merge pull request #15111 from pakdel/cloudstack__block_device_mappings

pylint fixes for pull request #15009
Added support for wildcard characters in package version strings.
This is a potential fix for #12560, where a package with a wildcarded
version will be installed, but then fail to verify afterwards.