Syllable Server change log ========================== Kaj de Vos 30 August 2008 http://syllable.org 0.3, 30 August 2008 =================== This release focuses on making the system usable for running a number of standard servers, and several innovative REBOL servers. The development files of the system, program headers, static libraries and development documentation, were moved to a separate area in /system/development/ and are now shipped in a separate package. If you want to compile software on Syllable Server, you need to install and register this package. The development files need to match the system: you can't use a package of any other Syllable version. (You will also need to install the Developer's Delight package collection and possibly other packages.) User directories were moved from /home/ to /users/. Resource packages are in the process of moving from /usr/ to /resources/. /resources/ is currently a symbolic link to /usr/ so that resource packages will work from both places during the migration. Many fixes were made, including more fixes for the CUPS print server and GhostScript. Creation of extra user accounts is possible now. Many packages were updated, including the Linux kernel, IPTables, the GCC libraries, OpenSSH, SDL and QEmu. DirectFB was not upgraded due to incompatibility with Links2. CDRTools were included for burning CDs, and the NetCat networking tool and the Transmission BitTorrent client were added. In addition to the Syllable-specific early initialisation scripts (in the early-init subdirectory of packages), the late initialisation scripts (in the init subdirectory of packages) are now also executed. Several more initialisation scripts from Linux From Scratch were also added. Some servers can be started with the LFS scripts, others with the Syllable scripts (this will be unified in later releases). The OpenSSH server was configured and now runs by default. At the first system start, security keys are generated that identify the server. A collection of well-known root certificates from Certification Authorities was added to allow OpenSSL-based programs (such as OpenSSH) to establish the identity of destination points for network connections. A MIME-types database was added in /etc/mime.types that is used by many programs, such as web servers, to identify the MIME types of files based on their file name extensions. Several REBOL software stacks were added: - The REBOL/Services Service Oriented Architecture. - The UniServe network server framework. - The Cheyenne Apache-class web server. - A CAPTCHA library. - A MySQL network protocol. - The QuarterMaster web programming framework, based on a Model-View-Controller architecture. By default, it's configured to run on Cheyenne. - The TINY library for parsing text, abstracting data access and building templates of generic text formats (including HTML). This library is an original creation and targets both ORCA and REBOL. Configurations, including initialisation scripts, were added for the OpenSSH remote access server, the CUPS print server, the BIND domain name server, the Apache web server, the RSync file synchronisation server, the SaMBa Windows-compatible file server, the INetUtils FTP server and the VSFTP FTP server. Several of these are not included in the system, but need to be installed separately (the system is prepared for them). The sshd, cupsd and initd servers are started by default. S3Cmd/S3Sync was included, a tool for accessing the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) and synchronising files with it. As a demo, the Genode operating system framework, its Nitpicker windowing server (built on SDL) and its demonstration programs were included. 0.2, 14 December 2007 ===================== A number of fixes were made. Most notably, terminal initialisation and printing were fixed. GhostScript is included now. Some of the Syllable-specific initialisation scripts are executed now. Many packages were updated, including GLibC, CoreUtils, BASh, ORCA and the printing packages. Several new packages were added. IPTables is included, so Syllable Server can be used to build a firewall. The Wireless Tools are included for configuring wireless networks. The ALSA userspace library and tools were added to provide full access to the audio system, instead of relying on OSS emulation. Organisation of packages in the system is greatly restructured. A new package pool was split off from the one in /usr/ and introduced under /system/resources/. The former pool retains its structure, but packages in the new system pool are versioned. This formalises the method of Syllable Desktop to ship older versions of libraries to retain compatibility with existing binary software, so we can also do this on Syllable Server in the future. Except for libraries, the versioned pool is not meant for installing multiple versions of the same package. As a note about software management on Syllable: all separate binary packages for Server 0.1 are still valid on Server 0.2. Despite the heavy restructuring and upgrades to the base system, there are no known cases of binary packages failing due to the upgrade. On Syllable, both Desktop and Server, binary compatibility is maintained as much as possible, and the restructuring itself improves our ability to keep this up in the future. 0.1, 6 October 2007 =================== Initial public release. This version has been a year in the making, all in all, and was already based on the build system of Syllable Desktop. It is a basic Linux system, enough to get it running plus the extra packages that are also included in Syllable Desktop, but without the native Syllable graphical environment. In addition, some goodies are included to make it a system that is already usable for some tasks. These include DirectFB and SDL subsystems for running some graphical applications, and QEmu and its accelerator kernel module for running other systems under virtualisation and emulation. Syllable Server itself is also a good target for running virtualised, due to its small size and complexity.