Contents

        * 1 Introduction
        * 2 General information about new features and major changes
             + 2.1 Editions
        * 3 Deprecation
             + 3.1 kernel-laptop removed
        * 4 Changes to supported hardware and drivers
             + 4.1 High memory support (up to 4GB) in kernel-desktop586
               (Mandriva Linux One)
             + 4.2 gspca-supported webcams working out of the box
        * 5 Changes regarding installation
             + 5.1 New installer
             + 5.2 Post-install streamlining in One installer
        * 6 Changes regarding Mandriva tools
             + 6.1 New default authentication scheme
             + 6.2 Orphan package detection in urpmi
             + 6.3 Repository update type changes in repository configuration
               tool restricted
             + 6.4 Font size and physical DPI
        * 7 Other Changes
             + 7.1 LEGACY_PTY_COUNT is now 0

 Introduction

   This page contains important information the Mandriva Linux 2009
   release.

   The following topics are covered:
     * General information about new features and major changes
     * Changes to the Mandriva installer and upgrade instructions for
       Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring users
     * Changes to supported hardware and drivers
     * Changes regarding software packages
     * Other technical information for experienced users

   Please also refer to Mandriva Linux 2009 Errata - the Errata for the
   2009 release. The Errata page contains information on known bugs and
   problems in the release and instructions on fixing, avoiding or working
   around them.

   For a more detailed and graphical introduction to the most obvious
   user-visible changes in this release, please see the Release Tour.

   Mandriva Linux 2009 is not yet released. These release notes currently
   cover the pre-releases of Mandriva Linux 2009. The current pre-release
   is Mandriva Linux 2009 RC 2.

 General information about new features and major changes

   Mandriva Linux 2009 includes (or will include) the following versions
   of the major distribution components: kernel 2.6.27, X.org 7.3, KDE
   4.1.2 (and 3.5.10 in /contrib), GNOME 2.24, Mozilla Firefox 3,
   OpenOffice.org 3.

 Editions

   Mandriva Linux 2009 will be available in several different editions:
     * the One edition will be an installable live CD integrating the
       latest proprietary drivers, available free of charge
     * the Powerpack edition will include support, services, a wider range
       of packages, and many third-party proprietary applications such as
       (but not necessarily including) LinDVD, Scilab and 03 Spaces. The
       list of commercial applications in 2009 Powerpack has not yet been
       finalized; a definitive list will be provided closer to the time of
       release.
     * the Free edition will be a pure free / open source software
       edition, without any of the non-free packages bundled with other
       editions, available as a free download

   For more information on the editions in which the latest Mandriva Linux
   2009 pre-release is available, see the specific page.

   For more information on the various editions, see Choosing the Mandriva
   Linux edition that's right for you.

   Additional information is also available online:
     * List of Compatible/Certified Computers and The detailed Mandriva
       Hardware Database
     * The Mandriva User Forums
     * The Mandriva Wiki

 Deprecation

 kernel-laptop removed

   The kernel-laptop flavor of the official kernel no longer exists in
   Mandriva Linux 2009. It had few remaining customizations as compared to
   the kernel-desktop flavor. Some of these were now irrelevant and have
   been removed; the others were now safe to add to the kernel-desktop
   flavor (and will benefit desktop users in terms of increased power
   efficiency). So the kernel-desktop flavor is now as efficient for
   laptops as kernel-laptop previously was, and will be used on all
   desktop and laptop systems.

 Changes to supported hardware and drivers

 High memory support (up to 4GB) in kernel-desktop586 (Mandriva Linux
One)

   In previous releases, the kernel-desktop586 kernel flavor - which is
   mainly intended for supporting legacy systems with true i586 (Intel
   Pentium or compatible) processors, as the most common kernel-desktop
   flavor supports only i686 (Pentium II or compatible) and newer
   processors - supported only up to 1GB of RAM. This was decided on the
   basis that a system with an i586 processor was very unlikely ever to
   have more than 1GB of RAM. However, since the introduction of the One
   edition of Mandriva Linux, it has used this kernel in order to ensure
   that One can be used on the widest possible range of hardware, with the
   consequence that One would by default never support more than 1GB of
   RAM. With systems with more than 1GB of RAM becoming commonplace, with
   this release we have adjusted kernel-desktop586 to support up to 4GB of
   RAM, as the kernel-desktop flavor does. Our testing indicates that any
   performance compromise resulting from this on true i586 systems will be
   very small, so this should not unduly inconvenience the small
   proportion of users actually running Mandriva Linux on i586 processors.

 gspca-supported webcams working out of the box

   With Mandriva Linux 2009, the dozens of webcams supported by the gspca
   driver will work out of the box, with no configuration or package
   installation necessary. In earlier Mandriva Linux releases support for
   these webcams was available only upon manual installation of a driver
   package.

 Changes regarding installation

 New installer

   With Mandriva Linux 2009, the traditional installer (DrakX) has been
   completely overhauled, with a substantial rewrite and a completely new
   interface. These changes make the installer more attractive, powerful
   and easy to use.

 Post-install streamlining in One installer

   The One installer (different from the traditional DrakX installer) now
   has improved post-install streamlining abilities. After it has
   completed installation, it will automatically remove drivers for
   hardware that is not present on your system and localization packages
   for languages you do not use. This will reduce the future boot time and
   disk space usage of the installed system.

 Changes regarding Mandriva tools

 New default authentication scheme

   Mandriva Linux 2009 introduces a new authentication scheme called tcb -
   the alternative to shadow. The tcb suite is designed to better protect
   user passwords when fully switched to the tcb scheme (each user has
   access only to their own shadow password via /etc/tcb/(username)/shadow
   instead of a global /etc/shadow file). It also works with the old
   shadow scheme, which is the default usage in Mandriva Linux. A tool
   called set_tcb is included to automate switching back and forth between
   shadow and tcb passwords.

   The pam_tcb module is fully backwards-compatible with pam_unix and as a
   result most, if not all, PAM configuration files that use pam_unix will
   continue to work, provided the system still uses /etc/shadow (pam_unix
   compatibility will not work if the system is using tcb passwords).

   Another advantage to using pam_tcb is the ability to use stronger
   blowfish, sha256c, or sha512c passwords instead of md5 passwords. By
   default, new installations will use blowfish for passwords.

   Upgrading to Mandriva Linux 2009.0 from previous versions of Mandriva
   Linux will not automatically migrate PAM configuration files and will
   rely on pam_unix compatibility, which will also continue to use md5
   passwords. To take full advantage of the new password hashes, PAM
   configurations (notably the /etc/pam.d/system-auth file) will need to
   be updated to call pam_tcb directly. This can also be managed with the
   set_tcb tool. Existing MD5-based passwords will continue to work, and
   new or changed passwords will use the chosen hash.

   There should be no changes when using LDAP or NIS for authentication.

 Orphan package detection in urpmi

   The Mandriva package manager, urpmi, has been given the capability to
   detect and remove 'orphan' packages - packages which were installed as
   dependencies of other packages that have since been removed. Whenever
   you complete an urpmi operation, you will be notified of currently
   installed 'orphan' packages. You can remove them with the command:
urpme --auto-orphans

   Note that this system is not capable of detecting pre-existing orphans,
   if you update from an earlier version of Mandriva Linux to Mandriva
   Linux 2009. Only packages that are both installed and subsequently
   become orphans following the installation of Mandriva Linux 2009 will
   be picked up by this system.

 Repository update type changes in repository configuration tool
restricted

   In Mandriva Linux 2009, by default, you can no longer change whether a
   repository is considered an update repository or not. There is very
   little need for anyone to change this status, and we found that in
   previous releases, some users would mistakenly set repositories that
   should not be update repositories as update repositories - for
   instance, backports repositories - and end up installing packages they
   did not need, with negative consequences. This is why we have changed
   the application so this status cannot be changed.

   If for some reason you really must change this status - for instance,
   you really want to update all packages from backports repositories, and
   you accept that this can cause applications to break - you must run the
   application from a console, in expert mode:
drakrpm-edit-media --expert

   However, we reiterate that it is usually a bad idea to change this
   status for any repository.

 Font size and physical DPI

   Previous releases of Mandriva Linux have attempted to set the correct
   DPI (dots per inch) value for your system's monitor. This DPI value is
   subsequently used by the desktop when rendering fonts. This system is
   intended to ensure that a '10 point' sized character is rendered with
   the exact same physical size on any monitor.

   While a laudable goal, this system has never worked without problems.
   Aside from bizarre results when the DPI detection system fails, no
   desktop environment's interface is yet fully resolution independent,
   which means that on a high DPI screen (usually a small monitor with a
   high native resolution, such as many modern laptop displays),
   characters could be much larger than the interface elements they are
   supposed to match (which are designed to be a certain number of pixels
   in size and will consequently vary in physical size on different
   monitors). Similar problems often occur on websites, which are often
   designed with specific sizes in pixels in mind and do not consider the
   issues associated with the goal of resolution independence. Briefly,
   the computing world as most people experience it is not designed to
   accommodate the ideal of resolution independence.

   With Mandriva Linux 2009 we have therefore decided to succumb to the
   convention of most other operating systems and distributions and set
   the same DPI value for all monitors, regardless of what the correct
   value should be. The value that will be set is 96 dpi, which is the
   value used in most operating systems. This will result in characters of
   the same point size appearing physically larger or smaller depending on
   the actual physical size and resolution of your monitor, as many users
   are accustomed to in Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X, and as many
   applications and web sites are designed to expect. Users whose eyes are
   not equal to the task of reading a tiny '10 point' font on a
   high-resolution laptop screen can still adjust the DPI value in the KDE
   or GNOME Control Center, or simply increase the default font sizes.

   More information can be found here.

 Other Changes

 LEGACY_PTY_COUNT is now 0

   Legacy pty (/dev/ttyxx) are still enabled in our kernel but we now
   create none by default, to save several seconds of boot time. If you
   need some for an obsolete application, you can add the boot parameter
   pty.legacy_count=32 (or another number depending on your needs).