[arch-releng] 2009.08 release announcement draft

[Dieter Plaetinck]

Hello Arch community,

We hereby present you the 2009.08 snapshot images

These images are the first fruits of our new arch-releng build environment on the sevenL server.
They are built from a current snapshot of core, including kernel 2.6.30.4-1, udev 141-5 and pacman 3.3.0-2.

Changes compared to 2009.02:
- more up-to-date software (see above)
- usage of new AIF installer, which brings:
  * better disk editor with support for dm_crypt and lvm setups
  * support for automated installations using config files (deprecates quickinst)
  * a framework to build your own installation procedures
  * better date/time setting with ntp support
  * refactored grub installation routines
  * usability improvements
- aufs instead of unionfs
- smarter, faster, better boot device detection (esp. for usb users) <-- can someone phrase this more professionally?
< did i forget anything? i probably did. please think long and hard>
- bugfixes (xfs freeze, mirror setting, clock correctness, network settings, ...)
- and much more...



See <wiki page to release info> for a detailed package list.



A detailed list of closed tickets:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?string=&project=6&due[]=59&due[]=67&due[]=72&status[]

As you can see, just like with 2009.02 there have been some huge changes.
We should be more settled now and hopefully it will be more straightforward to build snapshots in the future.
Time will tell ;-).

As usual, the images come in iso and img flavors, with grub and isolinux for people <insert link to FS ticket here>whose cd-rom drive doesn't work with grub</a>
Due to all mentioned changes, the <a href="http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Arch_Linux_Install_Guide">installation guide</a> has also been overhauled.
The new guide is for now only available in English but We'll add other versions when we receive translated versions.