CHANGES IN THE LINUX v0.97.1 ROOT DISKETTE Jim Winstead Jr. - 16 August 1992 This file mostly contains info about the changes in the root diskette from Linux v0.97 to Linux v0.97.1. 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 0.97.1 release diskette. The changes between the Linux 0.97.1 and Linux 0.97 root diskettes are detailed below, and the changes in earlier releases are summarized after that: - fixed mount. A few hours after releasing 0.97, I figured out why mount wasn't working correctly with the MS-DOS filesystem. 'mount' now does things correctly, and will even pass 'odd' mount options correctly (i.e. the conv=something option for the MS-DOS fs). Thanks to Werner Almesberger for providing smount, from which most of my changes to Doug Quale's mount were taken. - made passwd sgid system. I forgot to last time, which made /etc/passwd belong to whatever group the person who last changed their password belonged to. Thanks to Scott Mace (emace@tenet.edu) for spotting this one. - fixed bug in /etc/termcap. The 'is' and 'rs' strings had an extra colon in them, and the k? strings were wrong. Special thanks to Jaakko.Hyvatti@Helsinki.FI for pointing this out. - fixed pax (some). Pax was broken in a few spots, and I've been trying to clean it up. In particular, it would give some false errors because it would try to create some directories twice. Duh. I'm also trying to bring it up to POSIX compliance, since it's quite out of date. - fixed problems with GNU fileutilities. The GNU fileutilities (cp, du and ls in particular) were making some bad assumptions about the blocksize on filesystems. I think I've tracked that all down. Also, fixed ls so it recognizes the dir and vdir counterparts using argv[0] instead of seperate filenames. I was also able to trim some size off a few utilities due to functions available in libc. - compiled GNU text utilities to use getopt/regex from libc. I also fixed cat so you can use it with the various options (like -v, etc). This saved over 30k. (Wow!) - compiled GNU shell utilities to use getopt/regex from libc. This saved another 30k. Wow again! - compiled GNU tput to use termcap from shared libs. A lot of the changes to be like this, don't they? :) Saved about 4k here. - compiled sed with -N. Saved 6k. :) - added creation of user account to /INSTALL/install. The install script now asks for a username to create an account for and sets it up. This should encourage not using 'root' all the time. 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. 0.96 -> 0.97 - many small binaries were added. - ps, w, uptime, and related utilities were removed. - migrated mount/umount/swapon from /bin to /etc. - moved 'rootdev' to /usr/bin and renamed to 'setroot'. - 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. - fixed compress to work with long filenames. - brought device names up to standards. - revised /etc/group. - revised /etc/passed. - changes file permissions and ownerships. - fixed up the install script where it was broken. - fixed the install documentation to refer to pax. - minor gaffes from 0.96 fixed (/etc/getty linked with shared libs, correct file ownerships, etc) 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. Michael K. Johnson (johnsonm@stolaf.edu) has said he is working on this and the update script (below). - 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.