gbootroot/Changes

1.3.0 - 12/07/2001
------------------

Made the termcap check just a warning if terminfo or termcap don't exist,
If a terminfo directory is found, linux will need to exist or the test will 
return error.  This is better because the root filesystem can still work 
if this information doesn't exist.  A minority of gettys will fail if they 
use termcap or terminfo, but this check was removed from the chrooted tests 
several months ago for the reason just cited.  Note: check_getty_type_call 
was removed from Yard.pm, but exists in chrooted tests without the termcap
check.  Also, added a close which was missing.

Removed an unnecessary check from the fstab test, and improved a regexp which
was failing if tabs were used in the fstab.  

State is saved for all check buttons when the yard box is opened and
closed.  Deciding whether to save state between invocations of gbootroot
via a file.

Moved the Changelog from within gbootroot to a Changes file in 
/usr/share/doc/gbootroot, because it is getting quite large.

Improved the sizing of the UML box.

Added New Template (Alt-N) capability to the Yard Box.

Added several new FAQ questions,  added a lot more information on
"How do I use gBootRoot?"  Updated the graphics for the documentation.

Updated to version 2.4.14 of user-mode-linux.  Note: 2.4.15 was buggy
in respect to rebooting, and produced an address number at login, it appears 
to be a bad compile. 

The Yard Box has new check buttons which allows the parsing behavior of
the nss and pam configuration files to be turned off and on (default). 

Pam.conf and pam.d/{service names or *} can now be checked for their
specified service modules.  The service modules are located either in
/lib/security or /usr/lib/security and included with the file set if they 
are found on the host system.  The modules are then checked for their 
dependencies which are included if they haven't previously been specified.
Therefore, the user no longer needs to specify pam modules and dependencies 
in the template if the pam parsing option in turned on.
 
Nsswitch.conf can now be checked for the service modules it specifies.  The
service modules pertaining to the host systems libc6 are located and 
automatically included.  The modules are then checked for their 
dependencies which are included if they haven't previously been specified.
Therefore, the user no longer needs to specify nss modules and dependencies 
in the template if the pam parsing option in turned on.

$ENV{RELEASE} is now initialized every time a check is run on the template.
Information can come from three sources, the kernel version returned from
a selected kernel in the main section, the user defined kernel version
in the ABS, or `uname -r`.  User defined kernel version overrides the kernel.
The root_fs needs to be built in relation to the actual kernel modules 
it will run on.  Previously the $RELEASE value wasn't returned properly
because of some bugs in kernel_version_check.  This has been fixed. 

The proper ldd check is now used if a dynamically linked binary is detected
to require uClibc rather than libc6.  The ldd from the default location of 
/usr/i386-linux-uclibc/bin is used for uClibc.  The old behavior of
automatically including the default loader for the host system has 
been removed.

Fixed pam test so that the 3rd field rather than the 4th field is being 
checked in the service-name files found in /etc/pam.d/.  The 4th field is 
acceptable for pam.conf.  If a path is specified in either conf format, 
that path will be checked, otherwise, either the pam default path of 
/usr/lib/security or the FSSTD location /lib/security will be checked 
for a match.

Fixed nss test so that it checks for the right libnss_(service).so.$version 
if glibc 2.2 is used.  Glibc 2.0 and 2.1 used 1 and 2 respectively, but 2.2
uses 2.

Experimental busybox and uClibc functionality included for boot_fs.

Many improvements to the verbosity output.

Replacements path is set just once.

The Path Box only allowed extra paths to be added before the first generation 
of a root_fs creation, this was because the values weren't allowed to be 
changed after they were defined.  This has been fixed.

Symlinks have been vastly improved.  Fictional or real links can now be 
specified, and links always follow the link -> (file | directory ) format 
where either side can be existing dirs/files or fictional dirs/files on the 
system.

All of Tom's templates have been replaced with new templates clearly
marked as Examples.  

Example.yard takes advantage of the automated NSS and PAM feature, and can 
create a devfs or nondevfs root filesystem, and has many new replacements.  
The inittabs reflect modern versions of dpkg, rpm, and slackware based 
distributions.  

Example-Mini.yard demonstrates the bare minimum required to create a
working root_fs.  

The documentation in the new templates has been improved 
to respect the way gbootroot's Yard now works, since it has been greatly 
modified from the original, and some old features deemed unnecessary have
been removed.  

The Debian.yard example has had a name change to Example-Debian.yard,
and has additional documentation so the user understands its prerequisites.
The FAQ covers make_debian usage.

Chrooted tests in the Yard Box are disabled and removed when a non-root 
user runs the box. 

ARS and YardBox error handling is much better because $error has been made
private, before it was mostly global in YardBox.pm which meant an error 
value remained ERROR even when the problem was fixed which caused the 
YardBox to fail to work properly after certain errors.

When the ARS hadn't been opened yet, the program reported that the root 
device hadn't been umounted yet, this was observed with genext2fs but was
certainly a global bug.  This has been fixed.

The majority of add-on replacements except for passwd*, shadow, and 
ld.so.conf have a CVS Id and "make_debian replacement".  

Original CVS information is now preserved so
that non-root users and root can't edit global replacements, the basic idea 
is that root will usually be using an editor like Emacs in 
$HOME/.gbootroot/yard/Replacements which respects that CVS versioned files 
outside of the repository are read-only (essentially because the date has 
changed).  Users should make copies of versioned replacements which they 
want to edit, for instance: fstab.debian-1000  Also, they shouldn't defeat
the mechanism by removing the CVS directories, although, only root has
write permissions. 

All replacements are now symlinks which is helpful to maintain static 
information for add-ons, anotherwards, this allows the author to know that 
all his replacements are updated in user workspaces when he releases a new 
add-on.  Because of this change symlinks will now be respected in the 
Replacements directory since the file being pointed to will be used instead 
of the actual link when constructing the root filesystem.

Non-root users may now create boot disks.  Boot Loaders may required root 
permissions for some methods, and the fstab may need to be edited, see FAQ.  
And some /lib/modules/`uname -r`/modules  may need to be given world read 
permissions.

Non-root users may now create root filesystems up to 8192k in size using
genext2fs.  FAQ explains how to exceed this limit as a normal user.

Added sources.list replacement.

Added /swapfile to fstab.debian.

1.2.14 - 10/24/2001
-------------------

Append field in the ABS now saves state for non-root users.  Before it only
remembered state if lilo.conf could actually be read, ofcourse, this wasn't
an option for non-root users.  The beginnings of non-root boot and root_fs
creation capabilities have been put into place, but haven't been fully
implemented.  The end result of this is that directories created in
$tmp are now static for non-root users and now use the userid number to 
keep track of different non-root users.

The author of swim came out with a new version he now calls dswim.  This
means Debian System Wide Information Manager, but the "d" could also stand 
for different.  Changes have been made to make_debian to facilitate this 
much more stable version of swim, and better non-installed package checks 
have been implemented in make_debian.

The control dependencies have been vastly improved, and reflect the change
from swim to dswim.  Yard_chrooted_tests is now put in a gbootroot specific
directory since it is unique to gbootroot.

The lastest user-mode-linux is included: 2.4.12

Updated the documentation, and it includes a better explanation in step 7
for "How can I test gBootRoot?"

Added checks for the existence of ash, lilo, bzip2, and file for the 2 
disk compression method.

1.2.13 - 09/28/2001
-------------------
 
Renamed "lilo" Boot method to "2 disk compression." 

Added three new entry fields and one radio button to manage
 kernel modules, and made important changes to the 2 disk 
 compression code.

Advanced Section is now Advanced Boot Section (ABS).

Properly handles two different block devices with two 
 different sizes.  Tested on /dev/fd?.

Advanced Root Section (ARS) added. Includes root device and
size, root filesystem name with Save or Save As, filesystem
size, gzip/bzip2/none compression, user-mode-linux kernel
selection, Root Method and optional associated Template.

Yard Incorporation Tasks closed: 19556, 22668, 22496.

Yard Method added to ARS which generates the new well
featured Yard Box.

Yard Box includes alterable staging behavior for root
filesystem creation, template text search, adjustable
stripping behavior, editable filesystem and replacements,
$PATH appending, testing choices, Save and Save As.    

Seamlessly integrated Verbosity Box and slider bar
to control the verbosity level added to the main box.

Several bug fixes and enhancements to the original Yard 
scripts, including a choice of stripping features for
libraries, binaries, modules with corresponding sizing
checks, link -> file is now literal, unneccessary situations
for ../ x path_length removed, testing improvements.

Localized directories provided for users under 
$HOME/.gbootroot

Wrote make_debian to automate the creation of a Debian
template for the Yard Method.  This spawned the 
make-debian-x11 add-on which is simply the make_debian
script with easily made user modifications.

UML button added to ARS.  UML (user-mode-linux) Box
provides a testing bed for root filesystems.  Previous
Options are remembered to save typing, Abort button 
provides excellent process clean-up.       

Wrote an automated package creation script which can
be modified for other packages.  This script can be found
in CVS.

Added user definable resources file "gbootrootrc" for Gtk.

Bugs closed: 422436, 225252


1.2.2 - 09/03/2000
------------------

Development is now at sourceforge.net/projects/gbootroot.

Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn 'cretzu' added as developer 
08/13/2000.

Advanced Section GUI added.

Stripping (new) is now the default behavior.  Stripping 
options are in AS.

Cretzu's gdkbirdaao() " Guess Default Kernel Boot Image 
Root Device And Append Options" is incorporated both in 
beginner section and AS.

Cameron Caffee <Cameron_C_Caffee@AtlanticMutual.com> sends
detailed reports and helps with testing.  This leads to 
the discovery of the need for stripping, as well as a 
version check being incorporated into the program.

Option for additional devices in boot disk added to AS.

'Changed' signal replaces 'activate' in entry widgets.

Hard wired coding changes in initrd_heredoc(); 
development drive can be different than boot drive;  
added as an option to AS.

Step increment changed for device size spinner button.

New documentation and grammar corrections.

Bugs closed: 111579, 112555, 112949, 111580, 11636, 12073,
12215, 13385, 13453, 13455.


1.0.3 - 08.09.2000
------------------

Tmp and mnt are now created on the fly,
along with a new error function for mkdir(),
Gtk clean-up for this, and clean-up by signal handler
which should please Perlish and helpful Cristian.


1.0.2 - 08.06.2000
------------------

Changed logic slightly in submit() with returns rather
than a scalar to resolve a minor bug caused by some
changes in the previous version.


1.0.1 - 08.05.2000
------------------

Zas provided a correction for a Perl 5.6 error complaint.

Zas found some unecessary GDK lines causing some Gtk
warnings; these were commented out.

Cristian Ionescu-Idbohrn found a bug caused by putting
the Kernel or RootImage below the mount point.  An error
check and error dialog were added.


1.0.0 - 08.02.2000
------------------

First public release