2011-08-20 - Dieter Plaetinck

Hi,

time for a much needed update to the Arch installation media, as the last release (2010.05) is not only quite outdated, but now yields broken installations if you do a netinstall (because the old installer is not aware of the changed kernel/initramfs filename in our new Linux 3.0 packages).

What has changed in this period of more than a year?

AIF (installation tool):

Experimental support for btrfs and nilfs2.

Support syslinux bootloader, as well as grub.

Changes to configuration formats to support new rc.conf and linux3.0

Make selecting source more flexible (multiple local and/or remote repos)

Show package descriptions when installing packages

Run with debugging and logging enabled by default, add /arch/report-issues script

Make automatic profiles switch source depending on whether core or netinstall system is running

Remove support for tcp_wrappers in accordance to Arch Linux policy

libui.sh (bash UI framework):

Made long checklists much easier in CLI mode, by using $EDITOR

More flexible initialization

Archiso (image builds):

Snapshot of current core, including kernel 3.0.3-1, pacman 3.5.4-3, glibc 2.14-4, mkinitcpio 0.7.2-1, initscripts 2011.07.3-1 and netcfg 2.6.7-1

Big overhaul: use dm-snapshot instead of aufs2

All needed files to boot for custom USB media installed on /arch

Allow changing NBD export name

Allow using serial console (kernel parameter: console)

Allow starting custom script (kernel parameter: script), autologin tty1.

Add self integrity test (kernel parameter: checksum=y)

Add support to mount iso in loopback mode

Added packages: btrfs-progs-unstable crda curl dhclient dialog dnsmasq hdparm netcfg nilfs-utils openconnect rp-pppoe rsync vpnc wpa_actiond

Removed packages: aufs2 aufs2-util joe ndiswrapper ndiswrapper-utils tiacx tiacx-firmware

Remove x86test, add HDT to initial syslinux menu

Add support for booting from memdisk

XZ compression for SquashFS and initramfs.

Obviously there's more, such as bunches of code cleanups and bugfixes, but this should be the most important.

The Official installation guide has been updated to reflect the changes where necessary.

Please assure tickets exist in the bugtracker - Release Engineering project for any issues you may find. To get in touch, join the arch-releng mailing list or visit the #arch-releng IRC channel