Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 Update 5 Release Notes


Introduction

The following topics are covered in this document:

  • Changes to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program (Anaconda)

  • General information

  • Kernel-related information

  • Changes to drivers and hardware support

  • Changes to packages

Changes to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Program (Anaconda)

The following section includes information specific to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation program, Anaconda.

Note

In order to upgrade an already-installed Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 system to Update 5, you must use Red Hat Network to update those packages that have changed. The use of Anaconda to upgrade to Update 5 is not supported.

Use Anaconda only to perform a fresh install of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 5.

  • If you are copying the contents of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 5 CD-ROMs (in preparation for a network-based installation, for example) be sure you copy the CD-ROMs for the operating system only. Do not copy the Extras CD-ROM, or any of the layered product CD-ROMs, as this will overwrite files necessary for Anaconda's proper operation.

    These CD-ROMs must be installed after Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been installed.

General Information

This section contains general information not specific to any other section of this document.

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 5 now includes the diskdump facility, which can serve as an alternative to (or be used in conjunction with) the Red Hat netdump facility.

    The diskdump facility for i386 systems currently support the aic7xxx, aic79xx, mpt fusion, dpt_i2o, megaraid2, sym53c8xx, and SATA devices. On ia64 systems, the aic7xxx, aic79xx, mpt fusion, megaraid2, sym53c8xx, and SATA devices are supported. On AMD64 and Intel® EM64T systems, the aic7xxx, aic79xx, mpt fusion, megaraid2, sym53c8xx, and SATA devices are supported.

    Note

    The sym53c8xx and SATA modules are newly supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 5.

    Usage of the diskdump facility requires a dedicated disk device or disk partitions that are large enough to contain all physical system memory. In the event of a system crash, memory will be written to the configured disk location. Upon subsequent reboot, the data will be copied from the configured disk location and formatted into a vmcore file, identical in functionality to that created by the netdump facility, and stored in the unique subdirectory /var/crash/. The vmcore file may be analyzed using the crash(8) utility.

    The kernel modules required for the diskdump facility are automatically included in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 kernel. The associated user-space diskdump package is named diskdumputils-1.0.0, and like netdump, is installed by default.

    The available and appropriate disk location must first be configured and then preformatted for use. After formatting, the diskdump facility may be turned on with chkconfig(8), and then the service must be started. Detailed documentation concerning configuration and user tasks is included with the diskdumputils at the following:

    /usr/share/doc/diskdumputils-1.0.0/README
    

    Further information can be found in the diskdumpfmt(8), diskdumpctl(8), and savecore(8) man pages.

Kernel-Related Information

This section contains information related to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 5 kernel.

    Changes to Drivers and Hardware Support

    This update includes bug fixes for a number of drivers. The more significant driver updates are listed below. In some cases, the original driver has been preserved under a different name, and is available as a non-default alternative for organizations that wish to migrate their driver configuration to the latest versions at a later time.

    Note

    The migration to the latest drivers should be completed before the next Red Hat Enterprise Linux update is applied, because in most cases only one older-revision driver will be preserved for each update.

    These release notes also indicate which older-revision drivers have been removed from this kernel update. These drivers have the base driver name with the revision digits appended; for example, megaraid_2002.o. You must remove these drivers from /etc/modules.conf before installing this kernel update.

    Keep in mind that the only definitive way to determine what drivers are being used is to review the contents of /etc/modules.conf. Use of the lsmod command is not a substitute for examining this file.

    Changes to Packages

    This section contains listings of packages that have been updated or added from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 as part of Update 5.

    Note

    These package lists include packages from all variants of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. Your system may not include every one of the packages listed here.

    The following packages have been updated from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 3:

    • *** Still in development ***

    The following packages have been added to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 5:

    • *** Still in development ***

    The following packages have been removed from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 5:

    • *** Still in development ***

    ( x86 )