<p>The release notes are under constant development. Download the newest version during the Internet test or refer to <tt>http://www.suse.com/relnotes/i386/openSUSE/10.2/RELEASE-NOTES.en.html</tt>. </p>
<p>These release notes cover the following areas:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>General: Information that everybody should read.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Update: Changes that are not mentioned in the Start-Up Manual, Chapter 2.</p></li>
<li><p>Technical: This section contains a number of technical changes and enhancements for the experienced user.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the Start-Up Manual, find information about installation and basic system configuration. In the Reference Guide, the system configuration is explained in detail. Additionally, the most important applications are described in the GNOME and KDE User Guides.</p>
<h2>General</h2>
<h3>Installation Media</h3>
<p>openSUSE 10.2 is available on different media:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>5 CDs</p></li>
<li>
<p>1 Add-On CD with proprietary binary packages (including packages under a non open source license)</p></li>
<li>
<p>1 Add-On CD with certain language packages.</p></li>
<li>
<p>1 DVD containing the contents of the 5 CDs plus the contents of the Add-On with the binary packages plus support for a subset of languages.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>For a default installation (including KDE or GNOME desktop) in one of the following languages, you only need CDs 1-3: Czech, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Chinese.</p>
<p>CDs 4 and 5 and the language Add-On contain further language packages (Polish, Danish, Hungarian, Dutch, Bokmaal, Finnish, and Khmer). For installing these language versions and special packages, use CD 4-5 and the Language Add-On CD. The Language Add-On holds special packages such as more language packages for OpenOffice.org and and KOffice, spell checkers for various languages, specialized fonts, and specialized tools for Korean and other Asian languages.</p>
<h3>Availability of Manuals</h3>
<p>Find the PDF versions of the manuals on the DVD. Find the HTML version of the manuals in the following packages on the DVDs:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>opensuse_manual (Start-Up, Reference, KDE User Guide, AppArmor Administration Guide) and</p></li>
<li><p>opensuse_gnomeuser (GNOME User Guide).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>If you install openSUSE from CDs, the HTML version of the manual packages is not installed by default. In this case, you can install the packages from our FTP tree (see section Adding Extra Installation Sources During Installation). After you have installed the packages, the manuals are also available in the Help Centers of your desktop.</p>
<h3>Adding Extra Installation Sources during Installation</h3>
<p>After setting up the update configuration at the end of the installation, YaST offers to add the following three installation sources, "also called catalogs":</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The "oss" catalog is the complete FTP distribution including more packages than are available on the CDs.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The "non-oss" catalog contains software under a propietary or non-open source license.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The "debug" catalogs contains debuginfo packages usefull for debugging programs and libraries and getting backtraces. If an error occurs, this additional information is handy for writing good bug reports.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The source RPMs for these catalogs can be found nearby. The source RPMs for "oss" are available at <tt>http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/src-oss</tt>, the source RPMs for "non-oss" are available at <tt>http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.2/src-non-oss</tt> . The source RPMs you need are to be downloaded manually.</p>
<h3>New Software Management Tools: zypper and opensuseupdater</h3>
<p>10.2 introduces a new set of lightweight software management tools for use even without the ZENWorks Management Daemon (ZMD) running:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The zypper command line tool is a software management tool. Besides managing updates offered by the update server, it can also install or uninstall regular packages. Find more information in the zypper man page.</p></li>
<li>
<p>opensuseupdater is a desktop applet that helps monitor available software updates and install them easily or automatically, if desired.</p></li>
</ul>
<h3>Changes with Firefox 2</h3>
<p>The switch from Firefox version 1.5 to version 2 is a major update. Find detailed update information in the official release notes at <tt>http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/</tt>. Note the following changes:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Some themes and extensions from Firefox 1.5 do not work with Firefox 2.0 and need to be updated.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The default key bindings are changed. For example, Backspace no longer goes back in the history; it now scrolls up the page. You can change it by opening the location <tt>about:config</tt>. The value of the configuration key <tt>browser.backspace_action</tt> needs to be changed from <tt>1</tt> (default) to <tt>0</tt>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>New wodim Package to Write Optical Disc Media (CD-ROM and DVD)</h3>
<p>The cdrecord package has been dropped from the distribution. The new wodim package can be used to record data or audio CDs on a CD recorder that conforms with the Orange Book standard or to write DVD media on a DVD recorder.</p>
<p>Alternatively use growisofs for writing DVDs. The graphical front-ends handle this transparently.</p>
<h3>The OpenSync Synchronization Framework</h3>
<p>For synchronizing mobile devices, the OpenSync suite replaces multisync. For more information, read the "Mobility" part of the Reference manual.</p>
<h3>Add-On Medium with Additional Languages</h3>
<p>Include the language add-on medium in your list of installation sources if you want better support for one of our tier 2 languages. Tier 2 languages are all those other than the tier 1 languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, simplified and traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Czech). Support for tier 1 languages is available on the standard media set.</p>
<p>You can also achieve better support for additional languages when registering additional installation sources at the end of the installation. Just activate the first item of the list of sources to register.</p>
<h2>Update</h2>
<h3>Configuration of CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System)</h3>
<p>The update of CUPS from version 1.1 to 1.2 includes incompatible changes. It is not possible to convert the printer configuration from the previous CUPS versions automatically. Use the YaST printer setup ("Hardware" -> "Printer") to reconfigure the printing system.</p>
<p>For reference, check the saved configuration files:</p>
<p>
<tt>/etc/cups/classes.conf.rpmsave</tt>
</p>
<p>
<tt>/etc/cups/printers.conf.rpmsave</tt>
</p>
<h2>Technical</h2>
<h3>The Standard Kernel</h3>
<p>The kernel-default package contains the standard kernel for both uniprocessor and multiprocessor systems. The kernel comes with SMP support and runs with only minimal overhead on uniprocessor systems. There is no kernel-smp package anymore.</p>
<h3>The New Default File System: ext3</h3>
<p>The YaST partitioner now defaults to create new file systems using the <tt>ext3</tt> file system, replacing <tt>reiserfs</tt>. The <tt>ext3</tt> file system is known for its backward compatibility with the <tt>ext2</tt> file system.</p>
<p>The high performance directory hashing option is enabled by default. This feature uses hashed b-trees to locate directory entries. By not requiring the entire directory to be read, this accelerates lookups in large directories dramatically. Although it is not recommended, the administrator can disable this feature by removing the "dir_index" option in the YaST partitioner.</p>
<h3>Setting Up LVM and EVMS with YaST</h3>
<p>Experts can now rely on YaST for configuring LVM (Logical Volume Manager) and EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management). Find detailed information in the Reference manual, Chapter "Advanced Disk Setup".</p>
<h3>SMART Disk Monitoring Daemon (smartd)</h3>
<p>The SMART Disk Monitoring Daemon (smartd) now also supports SATA hard disks without the "-d ata" switch. Status notification is given through powersavenotify. smartd is not enabled by default. To enable it, start the YaST runlevel editor ("System" -> "System Services (Runlevel)") and check the <tt>smartd</tt> service.</p>
<p>For more information, see the smartd man page.</p>
<h3>BIOS RAID Supported During Installation</h3>
<p>BIOS RAID is now supported during installation. Activate it in the BIOS and run a default installation.</p>
<h3>Booting Multiple Instances of openSUSE on One System</h3>
<p>If multiple instances of openSUSE 10.2 are installed on one machine and the instance in partition 2 is booted from the GRUB in partition 1, the entry in <tt>menu.lst</tt> in partition 1 for partition 2 should contain the entry:</p>
<p>With this change, it is safe to update the kernel in partition 2 and the system can still be booted from partition 1.</p>
<h3>GRUB or LILO Left Over in the MBR from a Previous Installation</h3>
<p>If you update an older SUSE Linux installation that wrote GRUB or LILO into the master boot record (MBR) of your disk, it is now replaced by a generic MBR automatically if possible.</p>
<p>If the GRUB or LILO in the MBR does not belong to the partition you are reinstalling or if you want to keep the old behavior, change the setting for the boot loader location in YaST (System -> Boot Loader -> Boot Loader Installation -> Boot Loader Location). As a permanent solution for multiple Linux systems on one computer, we suggest using a generic MBR that loads a master GRUB or a similar boot selector, which is able to chain load operating system loaders from various partitions.</p>
<h3>X.Org-Specific Changes for Developers</h3>
<p>The X.Org system is installed in <tt>/usr</tt>. Adjust your programs if needed. If you are referencing fonts by directory names, like XEP, now find the new directories in <tt>/usr/share/fonts</tt>.</p>
<h3>New Power Management Options</h3>
<p>The suspend framework switched from <tt>powersaved</tt> to <tt>pm-utils</tt>. This switch makes many configuration options in <tt>/etc/powersave/sleep</tt> obsolete. Instead, configure suspend in <tt>/etc/pm/config</tt>. For more information, refer to <tt>http://en.opensuse.org/Pm-utils</tt>.</p>
<h3>Booting Systems with HPET Timer Problems</h3>
<p>On some NVIDIA nForce 5 motherboards (in particular from ASUS) or others that do not support a HPET timer proper booting might require the <tt>acpi_use_timer_override</tt> kernel option at the boot prompt.</p>
