Boston University Linux

Zodiac going from 4.5s to 4.8
Written by Administrator   
Monday, 31 August 2009

CentOS has finally released their version 4.8 update.  We are porting and
testing the new packages for Zodiac.  There are about 160 updated packages,
about 25 of which have specific modifications for BU Linux 4.5s.

We will be releasing batches of these packages over the next two weeks.
You should note that there is a new kernel (and corresponding openafs)
package in this distribution.  I expect we will be releasing the kernel
for general distribution next week.  If you are interested in testing
the new kernel early, the new openafs packages will be in:

/afs/bu.edu/software/linux-pkgs/dropbox/Zodiac-kernel

 

Last Updated ( Monday, 31 August 2009 )
 
BU Linux 5.3 available now
Written by Administrator   
Friday, 14 August 2009

The BU Linux 5.3 release has been installed  automatically and transparently on all BU Linux 5.X machines that have enabled  'autoupdate'.  Machines are now running the equivalent of Red Hat Enterprise 5.3, the latest stable RHEL release!

The new installer is available as an ftp download or you can pick up a copy of the media from the Front Office of Information Services & Technology.  Now that the new installer is released, any new installation or installer update to Monde will require it; the old installer will no longer work.

Previously, we had announced that Zodiac and Monde would be maintained until 2010.  This was based on Red Hat's statement that they would maintain RHEL4 and RHEL5 that long.  Since then, Red Hat has announced that they are extending support for RHEL5 past 2010.  This allows us to extend support of Monde.

The RHEL4 distro will still be end-of-life'd in 2010 and Zodiac will be obsoleted at that time.  We would like to point out the Monde is a fine and stable distribution and it can be used on server systems.  We encourage our user community to upgrade to Monde as soon as they can and consider installing Monde directly for any new systems.

Last Updated ( Monday, 31 August 2009 )
 
Why BU Linux
Written by Administrator   
Monday, 09 February 2009

The base number of packages for BU Linux is over 1200, the number that are specifically modified for the BU environment is over 500. (Note: this number includes packages requested by users ported from Fedora distributions.)  Each major update contains about 300 updated packages from CentOS and of these, about 50 need to be updated for BU modifications.

BU Linux 5 (Monde) is based on the CentOS 5 distribution (which is itself based on Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition 5 (RHEL 5)).  About every six months, Red Hat releases on major update to RHEL 5 which includes security and bug fixes along with some new features.  CentOS takes the Red Hat source code and compiles it as the basis for a similar CentOS 5 update.  When this is released, we take that and port any BU modified packages to the distribution, and release an upgraded BU Linux version to the BU community via AFS and FTP.
 

Last Updated ( Friday, 21 August 2009 )
 
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