Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Release Notes Changes and Updates for the Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring release. Introduction This page contains important information the Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring release, also known as Mandriva Linux 2007.1. The following topics are covered: * General information about new features and major changes * Changes to the Mandriva installer and upgrade instructions for Mandriva 2007 users * Changes to supported hardware and drivers * Changes regarding software packages * Other technical information for experienced users This document may be updated. The latest version of these release notes is available at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2007.1/Notes Please also refer to http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2007.1/Errata - the Errata for the 2007 Spring release. The Errata page contains information on known bugs and problems in the release and instructions on fixing, avoiding or working around them. General information about new features and major changes Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring includes the following versions of the major distribution components: kernel 2.6.17, X.org 7.2, KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18.0, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3, OpenOffice.org 2.1. Other major new features are the introduction of the Beryl 3D-accelerated desktop and the advanced Metisse window manager, and migration to the pm-utils suspend / hibernate framework. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is available in several different editions: * the "One" edition is an installable live CD integrating the latest proprietary drivers, available free of charge * the "Free" edition is a pure free / open source software edition, without any of the non-free packages bundled with other editions; it is also available as a free download * the "Discovery", "Powerpack" & "Powerpack+" editions, for beginner users, power users and SOHO users respectively, include support, services, a wider range of packages, and many third-party proprietary applications like Flash, Scilab or 03 Spaces. 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 Club * The Mandriva User Forums * The Mandriva Wiki * or at the main Mandriva site Changes to the Mandriva installer Floppy disk install images dropped The old floppy disk install images - (cdrom.img, network.img, pcmcia.img) - have been discontinued. You must use the CD image boot.iso, the USB drive image all.img, or directly use isolinux/alt0 (using tftp for example). For more information on ways to install Mandriva Linux, please see http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Installing_Mandriva_Linux. Printer configuration moved to post-install Configuration of printers is no longer performed during installation. You will be able to configure your printers (both local and network) once installation is complete. Changes to supported hardware and drivers Supported hardware In addition to the improved graphics card support discussed above, support for other devices has been added or improved. Notable changes include support for: * All JMicron IDE controllers * SiS 966 / 968 SATA controllers * Intel ICH9 SATA controllers * Many common laptop SD card readers * Attansic L1 ethernet controller (used on several Asus motherboards) * UVC-compliant USB video devices (particularly, many webcams) * Ralink RT2571W/RT2671-based wireless network devices * Many more monitors Alternative kernels For stability purposes, Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring uses the same kernel series as Mandriva Linux 2007: 2.6.17. Support for some hardware has been backported from later kernel versions; however, there are still some pieces of hardware that are supported by later kernels but not by the official Mandriva kernel (for instance, some integrated sound and wireless chipsets). If you have a piece of hardware that you believe may be supported by a later kernel, you may try one of the alternative kernels available in Mandriva Linux. Three alternative kernels are available in the contrib section: kernel-tmb, kernel-linus and kernel-multimedia. In most cases, the best alternative kernel to use is kernel-tmb. To install it, follow the instructions on http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software to configure Internet package repositories, and then use the Mandriva software installation tools to install the appropriate kernel-tmb -latest package: in most cases this will be kernel-tmb-desktop-latest (for single processor / single core systems) or kernel-tmb-desktop-smp-latest (for multiple processor / multiple core systems). This will automatically install the most recent version, and will ensure the package is kept up to date in future. If your system requires drivers to be compiled from source, either manually or via DKMS, you should install the matching -devel package: for instance, kernel-tmb-desktop-devel-latest. After installation, you may reboot your system, and you will see the new kernel on the boot menu. These alternative kernels are not officially supported by Mandriva. They may be unstable or may not support all the features that are supported by the official kernel. In particular, kernel-linus is a completely unpatched kernel built directly from the official kernel.org source code, and is consequently missing many useful additional drivers and patches contained in the other packages. Optional support for writing to NTFS drives The ntfs-3g system for accessing NTFS-formatted drives is available in Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Unlike the methods previously used (and still used by default) for accessing NTFS-formatted drives, ntfs-3g has support for writing as well as reading. Please note that, while ntfs-3g has been in development for some time and has been used by many testers with great success, we at Mandriva have not extensively tested it and cannot absolutely guarantee its safety. We would recommend you do not use ntfs-3g with vital data and keep a backup of any important data stored on a drive you use with ntfs-3g. ntfs-3g is available in the contrib section of the Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring repositories. To install it, you must have your system configured to be able to install packages from Internet repositories. For information on achieving this, please see http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software. You must install the ntfs-3g and dkms-fuse packages. To enable ntfs-3g support for removable drives under GNOME, follow these steps: * Run the Configuration Editor application (under System / Configuration / GNOME / Advanced on the menus) * Open the system folder * Open the storage folder * Open the default options folder * Click on the ntfs folder * In the right hand pane, double click fstype_override and type ntfs-3g into the entry box * Close the Configuration Editor application Alternatively, you may run the command gconftool-2 --set --type=string /system/storage/default_options/ntfs/fstype_override ntfs-3g, which will achieve the same effect. Enabling ntfs-3g support for system (non-removable) drives is a more advanced operation and is covered on http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2007.1/NTFS_writing. It is not currently possible to use ntfs-3g for removable drives in KDE. Changes regarding software packages Mandriva Tools package split The drakxtools package was split into drak3d, drakxtools, drakbackup, draktermserv, drakx-net, drakx-kbd-mouse-x11 and printerdrake. New MandrivaUpdate interface A new, simplified MandrivaUpdate is included in Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Users who preferred the Mandriva Linux 2007 system where updating was handled by rpmdrake can still use this method: the rpmdrake filters for available updates have been preserved. drakroam no longer needs administrator rights The drakroam utility for switching between, and configuring, wireless networks no longer requires administrator rights; regular users can access it. This helps organizations who wish to provide users with wireless access without giving them root access. Graphics card list cleaned up The list of graphics cards used by the installer and by the graphics configuration utility (drakx11) has been radically cleaned up for this release. The major changes are: Old cards and chipsets Most of the card-specific entries have been removed. This mostly affects cards that are several years old. Entries have been combined into generic entries covering all cards that use the same driver with the same option, usually named (Chipset)-based cards (for example, Trident-based cards). The only card-specific entries that have been preserved are those for cards which require special options. This change does not involve any loss of functionality: please do not worry if the specifically-named entry for your card has been removed in this release, it is still as well supported as it was before. In almost all cases, driver auto-detection will be correct: if your card is detected under one of the generic chipset-based entries, that means it uses that chipset, and the correct driver will be used. You do not need to adjust the detection or set the driver manually. If your card is not auto-detected and not listed by name, you must find out what chipset it uses. This information will probably be available from the manual for the graphics card. NVIDIA cards and chipsets The entries for NVIDIA cards have been reduced to the smallest amount necessary to ensure that the correct driver is chosen for the card. 99% of NVIDIA-based cards will be correctly auto-detected and the correct driver will be configured. Do not worry that the exact name, series or chipset of your card is not displayed, this does not mean support is in any way less than it could be. In the unlikely event that your card is not auto-detected, select the correct entry for your card based on the NVIDIA chipset it uses: for instance, if your card uses the GeForce 6600, you would choose the GeForce FX - GeForce 7950 entry, as the GeForce 6600 came after the FX but before the 7950. If you have a Quadro card and it is not auto-detected, you must know or find out which GeForce generation it corresponds to. ATI cards and chipsets The entries for ATI Radeon cards, which were previously named according to the driver used, have been renamed to match the scheme used by other drivers. They are now named according to the range of chipsets the entry covers (for instance, ATI Radeon (fglrx) has become ATI Radeon 9500 - X850). 99% of ATI-based cards will be correctly auto-detected and the correct driver will be configured. Do not worry that the exact name, series or chipset of your card is not displayed, this does not mean support is in any way less than it could be. In the unlikely event that your card is not auto-detected, select the correct entry for your card based on the ATI chipset it uses: for instance, if your card uses the Radeon 9200, you would choose the Radeon 9250 and earlier entry, as the Radeon 9200 came before the Radeon 9250. If you have a FireGL card and it is not auto-detected, you must know or find out which Radeon generation it corresponds to. Intel cards and chipsets The entries for Intel chips have been reduced to the smallest amount necessary to ensure that the correct driver is chosen for the card. 99% of Intel chips will be correctly auto-detected and the correct driver will be configured. Do not worry that the exact chipset name is not displayed, this does not mean support is in any way less than it could be. In the unlikely event that your chipset is not auto-detected, select the correct entry for your chipset: for instance, if you have an i915, you would choose the Intel 830 - 965 entry, as the i915 came after the i830. Other technical information for experienced users KDE New KDE system menu button: how to remove it Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring introduces a new, Mandriva-branded system menu button for KDE (the button at bottom left of the screen which opens the system menus). Some users find it to be too large. Also, some users who prefer to use a larger panel find it does not look very good with a larger panel size. If you would like to remove it, edit the ~/.kde/share/config/kickerrc and make the following change: in the [KMenu] section change the value of KMenuIcon to kmenu. To apply the new icon immediately restart kicker by running dcop kicker kicker restart. This will only make the change for your user. To make the change for all users, you must edit the system-wide configuration file. For instructions on editing system configuration files, please see http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Editing_configuration_files. The file can be found in one of the following locations: /var/lib/mandriva/kde-profiles/free/share/config/kickerrc /var/lib/mandriva/kde-profiles/one/share/config/kickerrc /var/lib/mandriva/kde-profiles/discovery/share/config/kickerrc /var/lib/mandriva/kde-profiles/powerpack/share/config/kickerrc /var/lib/mandriva/kde-profiles/powerpackplus/share/config/kickerrc The location depends on the edition of Mandriva Linux you are using. Make the same change to this file as was recommended earlier. To change the button, you can make a custom image and save it as ~/.kde/share/icons/customicon.png and use KMenuIcon=customicon.png in the kickerrc file. kickerrc allows this kind of entries: Sample of options: [KMenu] KMenuButtonRotate=true KMenuButtonScale=true KMenuIcon=mdv_kmenu ShowText=false TextRelativeXPos=0 TextRelativeYPos=0 TextFont=DejaVu Sans Mono,6,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0 TextColor=#FFFFFF UseSidePixmap=true * Explaining the options + KMenuButtonRotate Rotates bitmap if you put the kicker bar in vertical + KMenuButtonScale Scale button to fit kicker. If false, they will use standard bitmap size ( which can be any type ) + KMenuIcon Name of the bitmap icon ( HINT: To return original K, just change for kmenu ) + ShowText Show text ( what else could it be ? ;-) + TextRelativeXPos Relatve position in percent from X axis + TextRelativeYPos Relatve position in percent from Y axis + TextFont Font used on text ( if you add a huge font, the system will recalculate size up to be visible over button ) + TextColor Color of text + UseSidePixmap Enable to see the pixmap on sidebar Due to lack of time, the kicker kcontrol dialog did not include these options yet, so for now it is necessary to change these by hand. New KDE theme: how to go back to official KDE theme In Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring, a new look for KDE has been set up. Mandriva's theme is stored in /var/lib/mandriva/kde-profiles/. To revert back to the official KDE theme, you must configure KDE to use the theme in /usr. To do this, you must edit /etc/kderc to include this line: prefixes=/usr See http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Editing_configuration_files for instructions on editing system configuration files. You can then log out and back in, and you will have a full default KDE theme. As a more user oriented way of doing this, you can go to to kcontrol > option System Administration > option Mandriva KDE Profile Chooser and remove all entries ( in Administratior Mode ). This will make the standard kde config come back. Remember that this allows you to create you own custom profiles, you just need to copy one of the trees on /var/lib/mandriva/kde-profiles and add your entry in kderc, just following the same scheme. Experimental new Intel graphics driver Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring includes an optional experimental version of the driver for Intel graphics chips with some interesting new capabilities. The default driver is still the stable, tested version. For information on how to manually install and test the unsupported, experimental version of the driver, please see http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2007.1/Experimental_Intel_driver.