[2318] in Release_7.7_team
Athena 8.4 early release, June 26
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Hudson)
Mon Jun 19 18:38:16 2000
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 18:37:46 -0400
Message-Id: <200006192237.SAA01930@egyptian-gods.mit.edu>
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
To: alexp@mit.edu, athena-rcc@mit.edu, zacheiss@mit.edu, bperrin@mit.edu,
cavan@mit.edu, dalmeida@mit.edu, davidh@mit.edu, foley@mit.edu,
hli@mit.edu, iggy@mit.edu, jmhunt@mit.edu, karen@mit.edu,
katiel@mit.edu, kcr@mit.edu, larugsi@mit.edu, lisanti@mit.edu,
mjv@mit.edu, nim@mit.edu, nschmidt@mit.edu, pbh@mit.edu,
pcollymo@mit.edu, pgalt@mit.edu, phils@mit.edu, rar@mit.edu,
release-team@mit.edu, cluster-services@mit.edu, salemme@mit.edu,
sipb-staff@mit.edu, ted@mit.edu, yak@mit.edu
The Athena 8.4 release is scheduled to go into early test on the
evening of Monday, June 26. Some notable changes in this release
include:
* Operating system upgrades to Solaris 7, IRIX 6.5.7, and Red
Hat Linux 6.2.
* The standard screensaver, xss, is now run by the default
xsession. By default, it will save the screen after ten
minutes of idle time and lock the screen after eleven
minutes. Users can put "set skip_xss" in .environment to
suppress this new behavior.
* Workstations will keep a local copy of netscape from the
infoagents locker in order to improve netscape startup time.
Draft release notes are available at
http://web.mit.edu/olh/Release/8.4/index.html.
Solaris machines will not take the update to 8.4 unless they have a
usr partition of at least 100MB. Machines with smaller usr partitions
will have to be reinstalled before they can take the update. You can
run "add release; checkpart" to see if your machine has an adequate
usr partition.
We also have a warning for IRIX users: due to a bad interaction with
AFS, we have been forced to temporarily disable a processor workaround
in the IRIX kernel for a buggy instruction (cvtl, which converts a
long integer to a floating point number) in the R5000 rev 1.x
processor, used by most of the Indy machines in the clusters. Testing
has not revealed any specific problems caused by disabling this
workaround, but it could conceivably result in incorrect results by
numerical programs. We will reenable the workaround as soon as we get
a fix from SGI for the AFS problem.
Solaris and IRIX machines which have AUTOUPDATE=true will
automatically update to the 8.4 early release. To manually update a
Linux machine, or a Solaris or IRIX machine which has
AUTOUPDATE=false, do a console login as root (type Control-P at the
xlogin window and log in as root using the text login display) and
run:
FOR SOLARIS MACHINES:
detach -O -a
attach -O athena-sun4sys-84
/srvd/update_ws
# Watch; eventually it will give you a prompt
exit
FOR IRIX MACHINES:
detach -O -a
attach -O athena-sgisys-84
/srvd/update_ws
# Watch; eventually it will give you a prompt
exit
FOR LINUX MACHINES RUNNING THE 8.3 PILOT RELEASE:
cd /afs/dev.mit.edu/system/rhlinux/athena-8.4/free/RPMS
rpm -U athena-ws-8.4-3.i386.rpm
update_ws 8.4
We expect the early release to be more or less complete, and it should
not noticeably interfere with your work except as noted above. If you
notice any bugs, please report them to bugs@mit.edu. Please send any
other feedback to release-team@mit.edu.
Here is a list of early machines and their contacts.
aalto phils
athanasius davidh
b52 jmhunt
blargh nim
cav cavan
chaos ted
condorcet hli
depot phils
dit alexp
djali athena-rcc,zacheiss
dry-cooked-sliced-beef kcr
fides dalmeida
finn pbh
florey yak
hume hli
imagineer iggy
inner-beauty lisanti
interstitial-spaces bperrin
kant hli
killer larugsi
kindness lisanti
lees2 karen
m33-222-10 pcollymo
m37-312-21 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-22 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-23 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-24 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-25 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-26 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-27 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-28 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-29 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-31 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-32 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-33 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-34 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-35 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-36 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-37 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-38 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-39 release-team,cluster-services
m37-312-40 release-team,cluster-services
manatee yak
mansard karen
mary-kay-commandos sipb-staff
mies phils
mozart nschmidt
muehlburger-tor mjv
mushu athena-rcc,zacheiss
oxyacetylene
pelli phils
rar rar
suan-la-chow-show kcr
test-sgi release-team,cluster-services
test-sparc4 release-team,cluster-services
test-sun2 release-team,cluster-services
the-brave-little-toaster athena-rcc,zacheiss
vanityfair pgalt
vegematic salemme
vice-grips foley
w20-575-1 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-31 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-32 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-33 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-34 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-35 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-40 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-41 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-42 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-43 release-team,cluster-services
w20-575-44 release-team,cluster-services
wimsey katiel
yak-spare-3 yak
