- Arch-announce - lists.archlinux.org

[arch-announce] Dropping i686 support
by Recent News Updates 01 Apr '09

01 Apr '09

Recently the developers have been discussing the possibility of adding some additional optimizations to our i686 port to improve multimedia support. This would involve reducing the compatibility with older systems. As some of you may have heard ([1], Google translation [2]), this discussion has resulted in the decision to focus exclusively on the x86_64 port. The overall opinion of the developers is that the x86_64 port is now complete enough to justify this decision and that this is in keeping with Arch's philosophy of supporting current generation hardware. The x86_64 architecture has been available since 2002 (compared to i686 which is from 1995), and we believe most of our i686 users have x86_64 compatible hardware. An official time-line for the deprecation of the i686 port has not been established, but an official announcement needs to be made, as the decision has already been leaked to the ArchLinux-BR community. However, it is likely that major updates (GNOME, KDE, Xorg, etc) will not be built for i686 in the immediate future. Users will still be able to build packages for i686 packages using ABS. As most of the architecture specific patches are for x86_64, this should be relatively pain free. [1] <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/archlinux-br/browse_thread/thread/d1b6075adf…">http://groups.google.com/group/archlinux-br/browse_thread/thread/d1b6075adf…</a> [2] <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2…">http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2…</a> URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/440/

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[arch-announce] ATI catalyst support dropped
by Recent News Updates 23 Mar '09

23 Mar '09

As many of you may have noticed, support for the catalyst ATI Linux driver, has been moved to the AUR (Arch Linux User Repository). This was partly due to lack of motivation from the maintainer in charge of the package and lack of support from AMD to the general Linux ecosystem. AMD has been great to the Linux community, and they are constantly improving their support, but they have a long way to go in terms of general Linux distributions support. Officially supported options include the xf86-video-ati and the xf86-video-radeonhd drivers. Both are discussed in the Arch Linux Wiki (search for ATI). Both drivers are high quality, and are constantly improving. I suggest the xf86-video-ati driver as it has been updated more frequently than xf86-video-radeonhd. The catalyst and catalyst-utils packages now reside in AUR, where they have been adopted by user “draje”. He has updated the package to the 9.4 version that was given to Ubuntu for the release of xorg-server 1.6. These drivers therefore explicitly depend on xorg-server 1.6 from [testing] -- it will soon be transferred to [extra]. Sorry for any inconveniences this may cause you. We do not want to hold xorg-server 1.6 in testing any longer solely because of a closed source driver. URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/439/

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[arch-announce] Bug Day - Saturday 21st March
by Recent News Updates 10 Mar '09

10 Mar '09

On Saturday the 21st of March we will be holding a bug day to combat the ever increasing number of reports in our bug tracker. We will clear outdated reports, fix/implement those that already have patches provided or are trivial to fix/implement and discuss the pros and cons of implementing some feature requests. A rough TODO list that you can add to is on the <a href="http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bug_Day_TODO">wiki</a> Please join us in #archlinux-bugs on irc.freenode.net during the 21st of March. We live in many different timezones, so hopefully a dev will be present at all times during the day. URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/438/

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[arch-announce] Newsletter for March, 2009
by Recent News Updates 06 Mar '09

06 Mar '09

The Arch Linux Newsletter team is proud to announce the <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/static/newsletters/newsletter-2009-mar.html">Newsletter for February 2009</a>. To discuss this newsletter, <a href="http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=510237">click here</a>. To read past issues of the Arch Linux Newsletter, <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/static/newsletters/">here they are</a>. URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/437/

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[arch-announce] xorg-server 1.6.0 in testing
by Recent News Updates 02 Mar '09

02 Mar '09

The upcoming version of xorg-server will have a lot of workarounds and patches removed. Doing so, the package becomes easier to understand, as even its maintainer has no idea what is happening anymore. When upgrading to xorg-server-1.6, you will see these file conflicts on most systems: error: failed to prepare transaction (conflicting files) xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libdri.so exists in filesystem xorg-server: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so exists in filesystem It's safe and advised to overwrite these files. The symlinks were previously created from post_install by the xorg-server and nvidia-utils packages. It is advised to install xorg-server first by using "pacman -Sf xorg-server", after which you can upgrade the rest of your system. This release of xorg-server requires a rebuild of all video and input drivers. Older drivers will fail to load with an ABI mismatch. Drivers in our repositories will receive an update to match the xorg-server ABI. Nvidia has updated their latest drivers with support for this version of xorg-server. AMD does not support xorg-server-1.6 yet in their Catalyst drivers. AMD users are advised to switch to the xf86-video-ati or xf86-video-radeonhd drivers instead, or keep any X.Org related updates on hold via IgnorePkg in pacman.conf. This can be done by putting xorg-server in IgnorePkg in pacman.conf. All other updates should have conflicts set, so it will be clear which additional packages should be added to the IgnorePkg list on your system. Note that there will be no support for older versions of xorg-server when this version moves to extra. URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/436/

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[arch-announce] 2009.02 ISO Release Update
by Recent News Updates 18 Feb '09

18 Feb '09

The original archlinux-2009.02-ftp-i686.img USB image was broken, a new image (archlinux-2009.02-2-ftp-i686.img) has been uploaded. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. With one image broken, we also had to create new torrents: We now use a single torrent per file again and added more mirrors to the webseeds. All seeders should stop seeding the old torrent and get the new ones. URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/435/

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[arch-announce] 2009.02 ISO Release
by Recent News Updates 17 Feb '09

17 Feb '09

We proudly announce the release of the new Arch Linux installation images, version 2009.02. It took us quite a while, but we think the result is worth it: we added some cool new things and ironed out some long-lasting imperfections. 2009.02 comes with the following features: - Kernel 2.6.28 - Ext4 support. Installation can be done on a ext4 root partition. - Rescue and maintenance capabilities for Ext4 root partitions - Fallback ISOs with the ISOLINUX bootloader, for those that have trouble booting Grub-based images - Several bugfixes in the installer - Brought the included documentation up-to-date - Inclusion of AIF (Arch Linux Installation Framework), the next generation installer, currently under development. If you encounter any problems, you can check for bug reports (or file a new one) under the <a href="http://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?project=6">"Release Engineering" project</a> For more info about the releng team and how to get in touch with us, see <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/news/430/">the announcement</a> What's next? ------------ Our goal is to bring coordinated releases following the rhythm of kernel releases, in order to provide optimal hardware support. The roadmap (and current open bugs) of the next release (which will be based on 2.6.29) can be found on <a href="http://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?do=index&tasks=&project=6&due=59">the bug tracker</a> <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/download/">Download the new release</a> URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/434/

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[arch-announce] Newsletter for February, 2009
by Recent News Updates 14 Feb '09

14 Feb '09

The Arch Linux Newsletter team is proud to announce the <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/static/newsletters/newsletter-2009-feb.html">Newsletter for February 2009</a>. To discuss this newsletter, <a href="http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=498404">click here</a>. To read past issues of the Arch Linux Newsletter, <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/static/newsletters/">here they are</a>. URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/433/

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[arch-announce] KDE 4.2 is out and we are ready!
by Recent News Updates 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Today, on January 27th, the KDE team announces the stable version of KDE 4.2.0, so we have moved all kde-packages from [testing] to [extra]. We suggest that you exit from KDE before you update, backup your ~/.kde4 configuration dir and start with a clean config. Take a look at old plasmoids, they might not work with the new Plasma. You can find the ChangeLog on: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.2/ For problems (we hope there aren't) please use the bugtracker or the arch-general mailing list as usual. URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/431/

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[arch-announce] Release Engineering Team
by Recent News Updates 22 Jan '09

22 Jan '09

I'd like to announce a newly formed team made to manage our ISO releases. The intent here is to provide you with up to date installation tools and release ISOs based on the kernel's release schedule. Current Team Members: Aaron Griffin (that's me!) Gerhard Brauer (GerBra - ISO and installer) Dieter Plaetinck (Dieter@be - installer/AIF) If you're interested in ISO and installer related happenings, feel free to join the ML below. <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch-releng">Mailing List</a> <a href="http://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?project=6">Bug Tracker Project</a> URL: http://www.archlinux.org/news/430/

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