The third beta test snapshot toward rPath Linux 2 has been released.

rPath Linux 2 beta releases are available on the conary.rpath.com@rpl:2-qa label.

New in this release:

• All updates, particularly security updates, since rPath Linux 2 Beta 2 have been incorporated into this release.
• Anaconda installation onto iSCSI now work correctly. (RPL-2301)
• The kernel portion of open-vm-tools is now in kernel:vmware instead of kernel:runtime to facilitate removing those modules on systems that need to run the host modules instead. (RPL-2200)
• The telnet-server package is now available. (RPL-2369)
• The splashy boot/shutdown graphical splash screen program is now gracefully quiet by default, preventing it from presenting scary-looking error messages in normal operation. (RPL-2289)
• As always, too many other bugs have been fixed to list in this summary.

rPath Linux 2 will be an appliance operating system. In keeping with this focus, the installer ISO images for rPath Linux 2 Beta 3 are intended primarily for testing the installer, and secondarily as a platform for testing appliance development. This is not a general purpose operating system.

To test rPath Linux 2 Beta 2, we have migrated multiple appliances to an rPath Linux 2 Beta 2 base. In the near future, we will be testing an automated migration process for systems with configuration files that use the /dev/hd* names for IDE devices so that they will work with newer kernels that use /dev/sd* instead. For details, see issues RPL-2250 and RPL-2302.

Be aware that updates of 64-bit appliances that contain 32-bit compatibility libraries from rPath Linux 2 Beta 1 to rPath Linux 2 Beta 2 may not work without applying a manual workaround as described at CNY-2553. New installations are recommended particularly for this case.

Migrating appliances from an rPath Linux 1 base to an rPath Linux 2 Beta base has been tested, and there are known issues with migration, particularly regarding conversion in device names for PATA IDE devices. Please test migrations, but assume that they may break in ways that make it inconvenient or even impractical to recover the test system. Most of our internal appliance testing so far has been of creating working systems based on rPath Linux 2 Beta, not of migrating.

Security update announcements will be made available for rPath Linux 2 Beta, but security updates for beta releases will be lower priority than security updates for generally available releases. Because security-announce@lists.rpath.com is intended to be very low-traffic, security update announcements for this Beta release will be sent only to the update-announce@lists.rpath.com mailing list. Group change summaries will be provided only on the wiki, not sent via email to the update-announce list. Note that most changes to the beta will not reference an advisory.

If you are not yet familiar with rPath Linux or the ground-breaking Conary technology, we recommend that you use our supported and maintained rPath Linux 1 product to become familiar with both technologies before experiencing this beta test snapshot. For a desktop appliance operating system based on rPath Linux 2 Beta components, you may wish to try Foresight Linux 2.