163 lines
6.5 KiB
Plaintext
163 lines
6.5 KiB
Plaintext
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RELEASE NOTES FOR LINUX v0.95a
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Linus Torvalds, March 17, 1992
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This is file mostly contains info on changed features of Linux, and
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using old versions as a help-reference might be a good idea.
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COPYRIGHT
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Linux-0.95a is NOT public domain software, but is copyrighted by me. The
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copyright conditions are the same as those imposed by the GNU copyleft:
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get a copy of the GNU copyleft at any major ftp-site (if it carries
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linux, it probably carries a lot of GNU software anyway, and they all
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contain the copyright).
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The copyleft is pretty detailed, but it mostly just means that you may
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freely copy linux for your own use, and redistribute all/parts of it, as
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long as you make source available (not necessarily in the same
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distribution, but you make it clear how people can get it for nothing
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more than copying costs). Any changes you make that you distribute will
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also automatically fall under the GNU copyleft.
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NOTE! The linux unistd library-functions (the low-level interface to
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linux: system calls etc) are excempt from the copyright - you may use
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them as you wish, and using those in your binary files won't mean that
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your files are automatically under the GNU copyleft. This concerns
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/only/ the unistd-library and those (few) other library functions I have
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written: most of the rest of the library has it's own copyrights (or is
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public domain). See the library sources for details of those.
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NEW FEATURES OF 0.95a
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0.95a is mainly a bug-fix release: it didn't even get it's own version
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number. Plain 0.95 fixed a lot of bugs in 0.12, but also introduced
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totally new bugs: 0.95a tries to correct these. The bugs corrected
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(knock wood) are:
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- floppy and harddisk drivers should now once more work with most
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hardware: I'd be interested in reports of "unexpected HD interrupt"
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and "reset-floppy called" with the new kernel.
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- A rather serious tty-bug corrected: this one messed up the screen
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under 0.95, and switched characters over the serial lines. Under
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extreme circumstances it could even crash the machine.
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- ptrace had a bug: hopefully it works now.
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- The extended partitions didn't work under 0.95, although most of the
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code was there. Please somebody tell me it works under 0.95a.
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- the 0.95 fdisk was broken: a new one with the new root-floppy should
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clear up the confusion.
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- select() and the sleep-wakeup code had fundamental (but relatively
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benign) problems under 0.95 (and all earlier versions). The sleeping
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code is totally redesigned, and select should work better even under
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load.
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One actual new feature, not just a bug-fix:
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- ser3-4 support is there, although I've been unable to test it (as I
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haven't got more than ser2). NOTE! Due to AT hardware limitations,
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ser1 cannot be active at the same time as ser3, and likewise ser2 and
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ser4 are mutually exclusive. The interrupt-handlers should have no
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problems with shared interrupts, but the actual hardware probably has,
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so the kernel disables interrupts from one serial line when the other
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one is opened.
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- faster default keyrepeat rate: this is going to need some getting used
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to, but is extremely practical especially with bigger screen sizes.
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- VGA cards that aren't recognized at bootup are put into the 80x50
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character mode if <enter> was pressed when asking about SVGA modes.
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NEW FEATURES OF 0.95
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Init/login
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Yeah, thanks to poe (Peter Orbaeck (sp?)), linux now boots up like a
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real unix with a login-prompt. Login as root (no passwd), and change
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your /etc/passwd to your hearts delight (and add other logins in
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/etc/inittab etc).
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Virtual consoles on any (?) hardware.
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You can select one of several consoles by pressing the left alt-key and
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a function key at the same time. Linux should report the number of
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virtual consoles available upon bootup. /dev/tty0 is now "the current"
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screen, /dev/tty1 is the main console, and /dev/tty2-8 can exist
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depending on your text-mode or card.
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The virtual consoles also have some new screen-handling commands: they
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confirm even better to vt200 control codes than 0.11. Special graphic
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characters etc: you can well use them as terminals to VMS (although
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that's a shameful waste of resources), and the PF1-4 keys work somewhat
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in the application-key mode.
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Extended vt200 emulation
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0.95 contains code to handle a vt200 application keymap mode: the cursor
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keys send slightly different codes when in application mode, and the
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numeric keyboard tries to emulate the vt200 application keys. This
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probably isn't complete yet.
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Symbolic links.
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0.95 now allows symlinks to point to other symlinks etc (the maximum
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depth is a rather arbitrary 5 links). 0.12 didn't like more than one
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level of indirection.
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Virtual memory.
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VM under 0.95 should be better than under 0.12: no more lockups (as far
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as I have seen), and you can now swap to the filesystem as well as to a
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special partition. There are two programs to handle this: mkswap to set
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up a swap-file/partition and swapon to start up swapping.
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mkswap needs either a partition or a file that already exists to make a
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swap-area. To make a swap-file, do this:
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# dd bs=1024 count=NN if=/dev/hda of=swapfile
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# mkswap swapfile NN
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The first command just makes a file that is NN blocks long (initializing
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it from /dev/hda, but that could be anything). The second command then
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writes the necessary setup-info into the file. To start swapping, write
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# swapon swapfile
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NOTE! 'dd' isn't on the rootdisk: you have to install some things onto
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the harddisk before you can get up and running.
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NOTE2! When linux runs totally out of virtual memory, things slow down
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dramatically. It tries to keep on running as long as it can, but at
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least it shouldn't lock up any more. ^C should work, although you might
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have to wait a while for it..
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Faster floppies
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Ok, you don't notice this much when booting up from a floppy: bash has
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grown, so it takes longer to load, and the optimizations work mostly
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with sequential accesses. When you start un-taring floppies to get the
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programs onto your harddisk, you'll notice that it's much faster now.
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That should be about the only use for floppies under a unix: nobody in
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their right mind uses floppies as filesystems.
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Better FS-independence
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Hopefully you'll never even notice this, but the filesystem has been
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partly rewritten to make it less minix-fs-specific. I haven't
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implemented all the VFS-patches I got, so it's still not ready, but it's
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getting there, slowly.
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And that's it, I think.
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Happy hacking.
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Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi) |