DragonFly BSD

release24

DragonFly Release 2.4

16 September 2009 (2.4.0)

01 October 2009 (2.4.1)

The DragonFly 2.4 release is here!

Three release options are now available: Our bare-bones CD ISO, a DVD ISO which includes a fully operational X environment, and a bare-bones bootable USB disk-key image (1G disk keys recommended).

In addition we will for the first time be shipping a 64-bit ISO. 64-bit support is stable but there will only be limited pkgsrc support in this release. Both the bare-bones CD ISO and a bootable USB disk-key image are available for the 64-bit release.

Availability

The release ISO images should be available on most of the mirrors. If the ISO is not available on a certain mirror, please try another one or download it from the DragonFly FTP server.

Special Note on 2.4.1 mirror availability - Unfortunately one of our primary mirrors, which other mirrors use as a source, had a snafu that probably will not be fixed any time soon. Our second fastest mirror is avalon.dragonflybsd.org, so please use that to obtain the 2.4.1 ISOs and IMGs you desire if you cannot find them on a more local mirror.

MD5 sums

pkgsrc packages

We offer over 6000 pre-built pkgsrc packages for this release. The pkg_radd(1) utility may be used to download pre-built binary packages. By default this script will query the main package site for a random redirect to one of our mirrors. The path can be overridden by setting BINPKG_SITES in /etc/settings.conf.

To get a list of all packages, let pkg_search(1) download the summary file for that release:

# pkg_search -d

We supply a Makefile in /usr to track the pkgsrc tree. We also supply a GIT mirror of the NetBSD pkgsrc CVS repo as well as the pkgsrc/wip (work in progress) repo at git://git.dragonflybsd.org/pkgsrc.git and we recommend that users use it instead of pulling from NetBSD with CVS. Our GIT mirror is updated four times a day.

DragonFly 2.4.x Special Installation and Upgrade Notes

VirtualBox and VMWare users - Unless your virtual hard disk is 50G or larger we recommend doing a UFS install and not the default HAMMER install. We also recommend installing from the CD ISO and not the DVD ISO. The DVD ISO HAMMER install has bugs (see Known Release Issues).

DVD ISO HAMMER install bugs (2.4.0 only) - You will get a 'guard1x fail @...' loader panic. See Known Release Issues on how to fix.

2.4.x is a bigger release than normal. The single most invasive change is the introduction of DEVFS. The /dev filesystem is now mounted by the kernel after it mounts the root filesystem. All major and minor numbers have changed and the old /dev is no longer meaningful. People who use jails or chroots will need to adjust their scripts to either mount_null /dev into their jails and chroots or to make independent DEVFS mounts via mount_devfs into their jails and chroots.

Within DEVFS the entire tty/pty scheme has changed. Users upgrading from 2.2 need to be absolutely sure to upgrade their world and kernel at the same time or fireworks may ensue.

With this release the libc major number has also been bumped from 6 to 7. Applications should remain fairly compatible across the upgrade but we recommend that all applications be recompiled and/or fresh binary packages be loaded from pkgsrc. Certain pty-based applications such as "screen" may require recompiling.

With this release our new native AHCI driver is now standard. If your system is AHCI-capable and AHCI-enabled the new driver will take over from NATA and drives may wind up being renamed due to this. For example, ad6 might become da0. Any legacy ATA ports will continue to be probed by the NATA driver but their drives may be named differently. USB mass storage devices will also be numbered starting at 8, for example da8, to avoid conflicting with lower-numbered da* devices.

DEVFS now probes serial numbers. The serial numbers for all ATA, SATA, and SCSI devices will be recorded by DEVFS in /dev/serno/. USB mass storage devices are more problematic as the on-device controllers typically do not implement serial number reporting. Users are encouraged to use /dev/serno/ paths in their /etc/fstab and /etc/rc.conf, and to even specify the root mount in /boot/loader.conf using a devfs-relative serial number path such as: vfs.root.mountfrom="hammer:serno/AB34394.s1d". The use of serial numbers to specify the location of mass storage devices allows you to attach those devices in virtually any manner without confusing the system. This is particularly important as SATA Port Multiplier enclosures and systems with large numbers of SATA and E-SATA connectors become prevalent.

The installer now installs (and we recommend) a BOOT+HAMMER setup by default. The installer will also reference mount points by serial numbers.

We expect there will be numerous issues with this release and we intend to roll a 2.4.1 out in about a month to address what comes up. Known Release Issues

So upgrading to 2.4.x will certainly be a bit painful for users of 2.2.x or earlier releases. We believe the pain will be well worth the effort.

DragonFly 2.4.0 Release Notes

Release Improvements

Kernel changes

HAMMER changes

Hardware changes (non-networking)

Hardware changes (networking)

Userland changes

amd64 related changes

Removals

Contributed Software

DragonFly 2.4.1 Release Notes

General Improvements

Contributed Software