CHANGES IN THE LINUX v0.96 ROOT DISKETTE Jim Winstead Jr. - 4 July 1992 This file mostly contains info about the changes in the root diskette from Linux v0.95a to Linux v0.96. 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 0.96 release diskette. The changes between the Linux 0.96 and Linux 0.95a root diskettes are detailed below: - bash is back! /bin/sh is now a symlink to /bin/bash. ash was simple too buggy for general use as /bin/sh. (This was likely a result of a sloppy port to Linux rather than any flaws with ash, but it seems silly to worry about ash when bash fits.) - GNU tar is not on the root disk. Instead, the POSIX-defined utility 'pax' is included, which handles tar _and_ cpio archives. There are symlinks from /bin/cpio and /bin/tar to /bin/pax to allow using the tar and cpio interfaces to pax. (The big change you'll notice is that pax does not support a 'z' option for compressed tar files. You will have to pipe them through 'uncompress' first.) This was done because pax is roughly 1/3 the size of GNU tar, and GNU tar offered nothing significant beyond what pax does. - the install script has been completely rewritten. Now, it is much more intelligent, and tries to guide you along the path of installing Linux on your system. - split /etc/rc into /etc/rc and /etc/rc.local. /etc/rc.local is the only one you should ever have need to change. - mount has been improved to accept a -a option. This reads /etc/fstab and mounts the filesystems specified within, including swapping partitions. See /etc/fstab to see how it works. Similar changes have been made to swapon to allow the 'swapon' of a single swap file/partition from /etc/fstab. As a result of these two improvements, /bin/mount -a and /bin/swapon -a have both been added to /etc/rc, and you shouldn't need to add additional mount commands to rc.local - use /etc/fstab instead. Thanks to Doug Quale for writing the new mount and swapon. - uncompress is really a link to compress this time, I screwed up last time. oops! - I recompiled everything with GCC 2.2.2, and they are linked against shared libraries (located in /lib) - it is important that /lib be part of your root partition! - many of the small utilities are linked as 'impure' executables. This saves a great deal of disk space, at the expense that they can't be demand-loaded or shared. Most, if not all, of the utilities linked this way are very small and infrequently used, however, so the benefits far outweigh the small disadvantage there. - rootdev really is rdev this time. - /dev/MAKEDEV is a fairly generic script for making devices. It supercedes /INSTALL/mkdev from the 0.95a root disk, and really should be kept even after installation, because such things as the scsi tape devices are not made by default - this script allows you to make them when needed. - added the lp devices, scsi devices, and miscellaneous other devices. - included a new termcap file based upon the termcap file released with the setterm-0.96b utility. Also included are the termcap entires for X terminals and generic vt100 entries. 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. FUTURE CHANGES I'm already anticipating some changes for the next release, so here's a sneak preview: - you probably won't notice, but I plan on cleaning up the source of some of the utilities, most noticeably shutdown, passwd and mkfs. Those are all pretty ugly. - 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.) - 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 alpha testing.) Again, mail your questions, comments and suggestions about the root diskette to me at jwinstea@jarthur.Claremont.EDU.