To:	linux-alpha@vger.rutgers.edu
Subject: aboot 0.7 released
From:	David Huggins-Daines <dhd@linuxcare.com>
Date:	02 May 2000 23:34:23 -0400

Hi,

Here's yet another aboot release for you all:

http://www.debian.org/~dhd/aboot/aboot-0.7.tar.gz

(maybe moving to somewhere @ linuxcare.com in the near future)

What's new in this release:

  * (Partial) support for Rock Ridge long filenames on ISO9660
    filesystems

  * Many bugs in the ISO9660 code fixed.

  * Several bugs in the ext2 code fixed.

  * initrd support (use the 'initrd=' option like in loadlin on
    i386).  Note that this is not the same code as the initrd support in
    TurboLinux's version of aboot, because I never knew that work had
    been done.  Otherwise I'd have used it.

  * support for multiple pheaders (because RH6.1's linker is strangely
    broken and often wants to split the kernel in half at data.init)

  * a.out support is gone (let me know if you miss it, I can put it
    back)

  * Stupid bugs in 0.6 swriteboot (that I caused, darn) are fixed,
    since 0.6b actually.

  * Some other improvements, see the changelog.

Some things to watch out for:

  * net_aboot doesn't seem to work - it appears to either overflow the
    kernel stack or fall off the end of memory at the end of
    decompression.  This appears to be rather difficult to debug, and
    I don't use it anyway ... patches are welcome :-)

  * The UFS filesystem code may have suffered code rot and become
    non-functional.  I don't have Tru64 or *BSD on any of my Alphas at
    the moment so I can't test it anyway.

  * The multiple pheader support seems to work with the kernels I've
    tried it on, but there may be lurking horrors in there.

I'd appreciate any feedback people can give.  Of course, I can't
guarantee that there won't be a "brown paper bag" 0.7a release...

-- 
David Huggins-Daines, Senior GNU/Linux Consultant, Linuxcare, Inc.
613.223.0225 mobile
dhd@linuxcare.com, http://www.linuxcare.com/
Linuxcare. Support for the revolution.