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Date:      Tue, 12 May 1998 13:41:49 +0200
From:      Andreas Klemm <andreas@klemm.gtn.com>
To:        "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net>
Cc:        freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   2.2.6 ... 2.2.7 ... ???, features ??? (was Re: Linux as a Mozilla...)
Message-ID:  <19980512134149.A13697@klemm.gtn.com>
In-Reply-To: <199805101906.OAA00362@dyson.iquest.net>; from John S. Dyson on Sun, May 10, 1998 at 02:06:55PM -0500
References:  <19980510204411.25967@techunix.technion.ac.il> <199805101906.OAA00362@dyson.iquest.net>

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On Sun, May 10, 1998 at 02:06:55PM -0500, John S. Dyson wrote:
> but that culture needs to be slowly developed.  I am frustrated that I
> cannot participate more in advocacy right now, because I am busy making
> FreeBSD better (both at work and at home.)

Which reminds me, that I wanted to write an article about 2.2.6 ;-)

BTW, could someone please review our release notes ? Mybe some
important things are missing.

I'll try to extract the most important points from it for an article.
People most often don't want to see the gory details but something
like "milestones".

My last article was:
C't 06/97, S. 276-278, Vom PC zur Workstation, Vorstellung FreeBSD 2.2.1 
			from pc to workstation, presentation of FreeBSD 2.2.1

=====================
2.2.1 -> 2.2.2
=====================

A number of bugs in the Adaptec 294x/394x (AHC) driver were fixed
which could cause instability on heavily loaded systems.

NFSv3 is now the default, with fall-back to NFSv2 occuring as necessary.

An lchown() system call has been added for changing the ownership of symlinks.

Login classes added for setting default user limits (see login.
conf(5)).

ftpd now supports virtual FTP hosting.

Numerous security fixes (buffer overflows and other potential exploits fixed).

Better build support for C++ libraries added.

Support for the GLOBAL text/HTML source tag system added (man global).

/etc/sysconfig now replaced by /etc/rc.conf - a more concise customization
file with more knobs added.  Other things in /etc were also neatened
up, /etc/netstart being replaced with /etc/rc.network

User-mode ppp updated with various fixes and enhancements from 3.0-current.

Texinfo documentation mechanisms cleaned up in source tree.

=====================
2.2.2 -> 2.2.5
=====================

Better support for Cyrix and AMD processors.

The "world" target in /usr/src/Makefile has been made more
independent of the host system, allowing for easier bootstrapping
via source from very old systems.

Many many fixes to the documentation.

Many security enhancements, as reported through CERT and other
computer security organizations.

The installation program was further updated and fixed, some
year-old bogons finally eliminated for 2.2.5.

Important subsystems such as BIND and sendmail updated.

Support for ethernet media selection.   Replacing the far
more arcane "link" flag usage, a new media flag to ifconfig
permits specific interfaces on multi-port ethernet cards to
be selected by name (man ifconfig for more details).

Significant improvements to the AHC (Adaptec 394x/294X) driver
and AIC7xxx assembler.

Enhancements to the serial boot code and GDB remote support.

Make work-around available for CMD640 chipset (see /sys/i386/conf/LINT).

Newer 3Com 3c589D PCMCIA cards are now supported.

A new VGA library (/usr/src/lib/libvgl) now exists for doing simple
VGA graphics to syscons ttys (sort of like Linux's libSVGA).

The TCP connection timeout in lpd & friends can now be specified by a
printcap(5) capability, preventing it from hanging for too long when
working in an environment with many network printservers.

User-mode ppp updated with various fixes and enhancements from 3.0-current.
It's worth re-reading the manual page since some of the following changes
may disturb peoples current configurations:

  o The "set debug" command is now "set log".
  o The LCP log has been split into an LCP, IPCP and CCP log, so any
    "set log LCP" lines will need to be changed to "set log LCP IPCP CCP"
    to see the same output as before.
  o Ppp now uses syslogd to write its log files.
  o Ppp now has LQR disabled and openmode active by default.
  o Ppp now installs as group "network", with mode 4550.  You must add group
    69 (network) to /etc/group.  If you wish to allow users to run "ppp
    -direct ...", you must enable them by making them a member of group
    "network".  Client-side ppp now requires user id 0.

Refer to the ppp(8) man page and the relevent section of the handbook for
full details.

=====================
2.2.5 -> 2.2.6
=====================

Kernel features:

o Added support for SMC EtherPower II 10/100 Fast Ethernet card
  (aka SMC9432TX based on SMC83c170 EPIC chip).

o Added support for DPT SCSI RAID controllers (see LINT).

o New Plug and Play (PnP) support that allows you to (re)configure
  PnP devices.  Also support modems being detected by the PnP
  part and automatically attached.

o Alternate sound driver (/sys/i386/isa/snd) from Luigi Rizzo;
  it does not yet support MIDI (for that, use the old sound
  driver) but it does have much better support for PNP sound
  cards and is much easier to configure (only one device).
  See /sys/i386/conf/LINT for more info.

o Better Linux emulation (applications like RealVideo 5.0 for
  Linux now work).

o Added support for ATAPI floppy drives (LS-120)

o The psm, mse and sysmouse drivers are improved to provide
  better mouse support.  moused(8) has been modified to support
  various mice with a ``wheel''.  It also automatically
  recognizes mice which support the PnP COM device standard so
  that the user is no longer required to supply a mouse protocol
  type on the command line. 

Userland features:

o popen() library call now uses and offers bidirectional pipes.

o Added support for parallel makes in /usr/src (-j n works
  now with   world target, particularly useful with SMP
  machines).

o tcpdump(1) utility enhanced

o Support for ldconfig -R (remove) added.

o Various bugfixes and enhancements to pthread support.

o calendar(1) program brought more up-to-date.

o KerberosIV updated to latest version.

o Various curses(3) bugs fixed.

o Various IEEE754 conformance changes to libm(3).

o Much cleanup and general improvements to the documentation.

o Various improvements to the NIS code.


Security issues:

o Fixed /dev/io and mmap security holes.

o Better protection against "LAND attacks"

o Various buffer overruns detected and extra checks added.

o Pentium "F00F bug" is detected and a work-around installed to
  prevent hangs.

o srandomdev() support merged from -current and utilities updated
  to use it.


-- 
Andreas Klemm                                http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/~andreas
     What gives you 90% more speed, for example, in kernel compilation ?
          http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/~fsmp/SMP/akgraph-a/graph1.html
             "NT = Not Today" (Maggie Biggs)      ``powered by FreeBSD SMP''

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