rPath Linux 2.0 available

http://blogs.conary.com/index.php/conarynews/2008/05/09/r...

rPath is pleased to announce that rPath Linux 2 is now available
and recommended for general use as an appliance platform. rPath
Linux is a base operating system platform on which you easily
build customized virtual or software appliances, or even an entire
operating system of your own. Building on the rPath Linux foundation,
use rPath's tools to create and maintain your own minimal operating
system stack, with "Just Enough OS" to support the applications
and services you include.  What's new?

rPath Linux 2 is the next step in the evolution of the rPath Linux
platform. In addition to a technology refresh (new versions of
included packages), rPath Linux 2 is better tuned as a platform to
show off your work.

 o  Just Enough OS: rPath Linux 2 is smaller than rPath Linux 1.
    The group-appliance-platform recommended base software set is
    approximately half as large in rPath Linux 2 as rPath Linux 1,
    and the kernel is approximately a third smaller.

 o  Brandable Boot Splash: rPath Linux 2 implements a graphical boot
    process which is easy to customize to look the way you want. It
    does not require that your appliance include the X Window System,
    and thus uses very little disk space.

 o  Additional security mechanisms: several additional runtime
    security measures have been added to most packages ("stack
    protector" and "FORTIFY_SOURCE") and are enabled by default
    when you build your own software on the rPath Linux 2 platform.

 o  More robust system boot: The syslinux boot loader is now the
    default bootloader. This well-maintained boot loader is
    highly extensible, easily branded, and most importantly can be
    automatically updated safely and reliably. The syslinux boot
    loader has been the most common boot loader for ISO images for
    most Linux distributions for years; now it is the most capable
    system boot loader as well.

 o  The new Appliance Installer option installs your appliance
    software on systems in only a few minutes, requiring less memory
    than the earlier package-based installation mechanism. (It is
    still possible to use the slower package-based installation
    mechanism if you need to do so, but all the images we are
    building for the core OS at this time use the faster appliance
    installer.)


rPath Linux Images
==================

rPath has built three sets of images for rPath Linux 2. Each set is
based on a different group which defines the included software set:

 o  group-dist: A developer tool consisting of a large installation
    intended for developing Conary-based appliances, particularly
    for using Conary to discover a wide range of potential build
    requirements for packages, and for experimenting with the
    contents of the rPath Linux 2 operating system. (Remember that
    rPath Linux 2 is not a general-purpose desktop operating system;
    although X is included in this image, it is not an X desktop!)

 o  group-text-devel: A developer tool consisting of core
    text-mode-only development tools, useful primarily as a platform
    for running the rMake build tool to build packages.

 o  group-appliance-platform: A developer tool which contains only
    core software recommended to be on all normal Conary-based
    appliances. This is not intended to be useful itself. Instead,
    you can install this image and then migrate to a group that
    you have built using the group-appliance superclass during
    testing, before you create any images. You can also use it as a
    "vanilla" base installation on which to install software during
    the process of experimenting with defining an appliance. After
    installing appliance-specific software in an image installed from
    group-appliance-platform, the command conary updateall --items
    will show you group-appliance-platform plus the software you
    have installed, which you can then compare to the group recipe
    you define when following the step-by-step instructions for
    building appliances

rPath Linux 2 is the software in the Conary repository; these images
are merely snapshots of some of the contents of the repository.
http://www.rpath.com/rbuilder/project/rpath/release?id=6071


Updates, Bugs, And Features
===========================

rPath Linux 1 and rPath Linux 2 will be updated in parallel while
rPath Linux 1 is maintained (at least until November 2008). Because
rPath Linux 2 is an appliance operating system rather than a
desktop operating system, rPath recommends that users of rPath
Linux 1 update to an appropriate Conary-based operating system
for their needs. Foresight Linux is the most widely-used and
actively-developed Conary-based desktop operating system. Many
purpose-built server appliances are maintained on rBuilder Online for
various services. If none of them meet your needs, consider building
your own purpose-built server appliance on rBuilder Online. It is
easy to do, and step-by-step instructions teach the process easily.
http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Application_to_Appliance

rPath Linux update advisories, both for security and maintenance
updates, are published in several ways:

 o  To receive only security updates but not maintenance updates,
    subscribe to security-announce@lists.rpath.com at
    http://lists.rpath.com/mailman/listinfo/security-announce
 o  To receive both security and maintenance updates, as well as
    summaries of changes by group version, subscribe
    to update-announce@lists.rpath.com at
    http://lists.rpath.com/mailman/listinfo/update-announce
    or subscribe to
    http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Advisories:rPath_Linux_2_Changes

Please help us make rPath Linux better! Create issues to report
bugs or ask for new features in rPath Linux. Visit the rPath Issue
Tracking System at https://issues.rpath.com/ and use the "rPath
Linux" project to file your request.


Thanks
======

rPath would like to thank everyone who helped test the software
that has become rPath Linux 2. Special thanks go to Foresight Linux
(http://www.foresightlinux.org/) for building Foresight Linux 2 based
on rPath Linux 2 betas. Conary made it possible for the Foresight
developers to test the software on Foresight development and QA
branches before publishing updates tested as part of Foresight to
Foresight users.