openSUSE Leap 42.2

Release Notes

openSUSE Leap is a free and Linux-based operating system for your PC, Laptop or
Server. You can surf the web, manage your e-mails and photos, do office work,
play videos or music and have a lot of fun!

Publication Date: 2016-08-23 , Version: 42.2.20160728

1 Installation
2 System Upgrade
3 General
4 More Information and Feedback

This is the initial version of the release notes for the forthcoming openSUSE
42.2.

If you upgrade from an older version to this openSUSE Leap release, see
previous release notes listed here: http://en.opensuse.org/
openSUSE:Release_Notes.

This public beta test is part of the openSUSE project. Information about the
project is available at https://www.opensuse.org.

Report all bugs you encounter using this prerelease of openSUSE 42.2 in the
openSUSE Bugzilla. For more information, see http://en.opensuse.org/
Submitting_Bug_Reports. If you would like to see anything added to the release
notes, file a bug report against the component ?Release Notes?.

1 Installation

This section contains installation-related notes. For detailed upgrade
instructions, see the documentation at https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/
leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/part.basics.html.

1.1 Minimal System Installation

To avoid some big recommended packages from being installed, the pattern for
minimal installations uses another pattern that creates conflicts with
undesired packages. This pattern, patterns-openSUSE-minimal_base-conflicts, can
be removed after installation.

Note that the minimal installation has no firewall by default. If you need one,
install SuSEfirewall2.

1.2 UEFI?Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

Prior to installing openSUSE on a system that boots using UEFI (Unified
Extensible Firmware Interface), you are urgently advised to check for any
firmware updates the hardware vendor recommends and, if available, to install
such an update. A pre-installed Windows 8 is a strong indication that your
system boots using UEFI.

Background: Some UEFI firmware has bugs that cause it to break if too much data
gets written to the UEFI storage area. However, there is no clear data of how
much is ?too much?.

openSUSE minimizes the risk by not writing more than the bare minimum required
to boot the OS. The minimum means telling the UEFI firmware about the location
of the openSUSE boot loader. Upstream Linux kernel features that use the UEFI
storage area for storing boot and crash information (pstore) have been disabled
by default. Nevertheless, it is recommended to install any firmware updates the
hardware vendor recommends.

1.3 UEFI, GPT, and MS-DOS Partitions

Together with the EFI/UEFI specification, a new style of partitioning arrived:
GPT (GUID Partition Table). This new schema uses globally unique identifiers
(128-bit values displayed in 32 hexadecimal digits) to identify devices and
partition types.

Additionally, the UEFI specification also allows legacy MBR (MS-DOS)
partitions. The Linux boot loaders (ELILO or GRUB 2) try to automatically
generate a GUID for those legacy partitions, and write them to the firmware.
Such a GUID can change frequently, causing a rewrite in the firmware. A rewrite
consists of two different operations: Removing the old entry and creating a new
entry that replaces the first one.

Modern firmware has a garbage collector that collects deleted entries and frees
the memory reserved for old entries. A problem arises when faulty firmware does
not collect and free those entries. This can result in a non-bootable system.

To work around this problem, convert the legacy MBR partition to GPT.

2 System Upgrade

This section lists notes related to upgrading the system. For detailed upgrade
instructions, see the documentation at https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/
leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/cha.update.osuse.html.

2.1 Removed and replaced packages

The following packages have been removed or replaced compared to openSUSE Leap
42.1:

  * ungifsicle: replaced by gifsicle

  * psi: replaced by psi+

  * xchat: replaced by hexchat

3 General

This section lists general issues with openSUSE Leap 42.2 that do not match any
other category.

4 More Information and Feedback

  * Read the README documents on the medium.

  * View a detailed changelog information about a particular package from its
    RPM:

    rpm --changelog -qp FILENAME.rpm

    Replace FILENAME with the name of the RPM.

  * Check the ChangeLog file in the top level of the medium for a chronological
    log of all changes made to the updated packages.

  * Find more information in the docu directory on the medium.

  * https://doc.opensuse.org/ contains additional or updated documentation.

  * Visit https://www.opensuse.org for the latest product news from openSUSE.

Copyright � 2016 SUSE LLC

Thank you for using openSUSE.

The openSUSE Team.

� 2016 SUSE