Technical notes on version 3.9.6 
                      16 September 2001
                        Kern Sibbald

General:
- Pulled in the latest copy of the manual, which corrects a number
  of errors reported by users.
- updated all the halt scripts in the distributions script to
  remove the sleep commands after the killpower. This will allow
  the halt script to run to completion and to synchronize any
  raid devices (often done in the final steps by the kernel).
- applied the RedHat apcupsd.spec patch supplied by Giulio Orsero.
- Made quite a few changes to the master/slave code so that
  it will reconnect in case of an error. It also sets a
  bit in Status when the slave is down, and polls the slave
  more frequently attempting to connect.

Changes submitted this submission:
- Modified calling sequence to the device self check to eliminate
  the time argument. This simplifies the code slightly.
- If a slave is marked DOWN, after 2 minutes, attempt to bring him back up
  on the next poll.              
- Applied pthread link fix reported by a user for netbsd and openbsd.
- Fixed a bug in apctest where the kill power test would not work
  because of the powerfail file was not created.
- Removed all the sleeps from the halt scripts as noted above.
- Added a new subdirectory to doc named jobs, which contains the
  job descriptions.
- Reworked the self test message code in the Smart driver a bit.
- Added locking code to linux-usb.c to correspond to new driver
  requirements.