Red Hat Linux Technology Preview
--------------------------------
Included in this directory are preview packages of new and exciting
Linux software. These packages are not necessarily 'ready for prime
time', and come with absolutely no warranty or support. They may
fix your toast and do your laundry, and they may cause your drives
to leak strange blue fluids. If they break, you get to keep all the
pieces.
Included in this directory are:
- The 2.4.test Linux kernel
This is a snapshot of the soon-to-be-released 2.4 Linux kernel.
It is based on 2.4.0test6. This kernel includes many enhancements
over 2.2, including:
- greatly increased networking scalability
- support for up to 64GB of memory on ix86 processors
- experimental snapshot of the TUX threaded kernel web server (*)
- Kernel ISAPnP support
- Logical volume manager
- many new and updated drivers
(*) Included as a patch in the source RPM; uncomment the line that
applies the patch and rebuild the kernel24 source RPM to use.
Please see the notes in the 2.4 kernel spec file for additional
instructions; you will also need the 'tux' package installed.
- glibc optimized for the 2.4 Linux kernel
If you're going to be running the 2.4 kernel full time, you can
install this glibc package. It is optimized by the removal of older
kernel compatibility code; it will also keep the thread self pointer
in a hardware segment register on i686 and greater processors, which
allows for speed improvements as well as arbitary stack sizes in
threaded programs.
Note: You MUST install this package AFTER you have booted a 2.4.0
or later kernel, otherwise you will be unable to run any dynamically
linked programs. If you later plan to boot a 2.2 kernel, you must
install the normal glibc package before rebooting, for similar
reasons.
- KDE 2.0 Preview
This is a snapshot of the KDE 2.0 Desktop Environment. KDE 2.0,
when released, will contain many enhancements over KDE 1.1, such
as:
- many usability improvements
- the Konqueror web browser and file manager
- the KOffice office suite, which includes a word processor,
spreadsheet, image editor, presentation program, and
chart program
- drag and drop interoperabilty with GNOME
- uses Qt 2.x, has better internationalization support
- Glide libraries and 3Dfx DRI driver
This allows for accelerated hardware GL support for 3Dfx
Voodoo cards. This is designed to work with the Mesa libraries
included in Red Hat Linux 7.0; no additional GL libraries
are needed.
- Mozilla
Mozilla is an open-source web browser, designed for standards
compliance, performance and portability. This is milestone
build 17 (aka M17), a preview release.