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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8) is now available on all eRacks Systems.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8) is now available on all eRacks Systems with lots of developer-friendly capabilities.
Red Hat Inc. announced the official release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 on May 7, 2019.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8) comes with new features and improvements as compared to the predecessor – RHEL 7. Some of the new features of RHEL 8 are as described below.
Kernel & OS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 is based on Fedora 28 and upstream kernel 4.18. This provides users with a secure, stable and consistent foundation across hybrid cloud and Data Center deployments with tools needed to support all levels of workloads.
Storage and File systems
Stratis is the new local storage manager for RHEL 8. It provides managed file systems on top of pools of storage with additional features to the user. Stratis provides ZFS/Btrfs-style features by integrating layers Linux’s device mapper subsystem, and the XFS filesystem.
Stratis supports LUKSv2 disk encryption and Network-Bound Disk Encryption (NBDE) for more robust data security.
- With Stratis, you can easily perform storage tasks such as:
- Maintain file systems
- Manage snapshots and thin provisioning
- Automatically grow file system sizes as needed
Pools are created from one or more storage devices, and volumes are created from a pool. The file system is created on top of a volume, hence resizing a volume automatically resize FS as well. The default file system used by Stratis is XFS.
Other notable Storage features are:
- The XFS file system now supports shared copy-on-write data extent functionality. This enables two or more files to share a common set of data blocks. Creating shared copies does not utilize disk I/O nor consume additional disk space. The files sharing common blocks act like regular files.
- The shared copy-on-write data extents are now enabled by default when creating an XFS file system, starting with the xfsprogs package version 4.17.0-2.el8.
- Support for Virtual Data Optimizer (VDO) on all of the architectures supported by RHEL 8.
- LUKS2 is now the default format for encrypting volumes. This replaces the legacy LUKS (LUKS1) format distributed in RHEL 7. LUKS2 provides encrypted volumes with metadata auto-recovery and redundancy if partial metadata corruption is encountered.
Virtualization
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is distributed with qemu-kvm 2.12 with – Q35 guest machine type support, UEFI guest boot support, vCPU hot plug and hot unplug, NUMA tuning and pinning in the guest and guest I/O threading
- The QEMU emulator introduces the sandboxing feature. QEMU sandboxing provides configurable limitations to what systems calls QEMU can perform, and thus makes virtual machines more secure
- KVM virtualization now supports the User-Mode Instruction Prevention (UMIP) feature, which can help prevent user-space applications from accessing to system-wide settings
- KVM virtualization now supports the 5-level paging feature, which significantly increases the physical and virtual address space that the host and guest systems can use.
- NVIDIA vGPU is now compatible with the VNC console
- Ceph storage is supported by KVM virtualization on all CPU architectures supported by Red Hat
- Q35, a more modern PCI Express-based machine type is supported by RHEL 8 Virtualization. All virtual machines created in RHEL 8 are set to use Q35 PC machine type by default
Networking
Below are the new changes in the Networking Level:
- RHEL 8 is distributed with TCP networking stack version 4.16, which provides higher performances, better scalability, and more stability.
- The networking stack upgraded to upstream version 4.18
- Iptables has been replaced by the nftablesframework as the default network packet filtering facility.
- The nftables framework is the designated successor to the iptables, ip6tables, arptables, and ebtables tools. This provides a single framework for both the IPv4 and IPv6 protocols
- The firewalld daemon now uses nftables as its default backend.
- Support for IPVLAN virtual network drivers that enable the network connectivity for multiple containers.
- Network Manager now supports single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) virtual functions (VF). Network Manager allows configuring some attributes of the VFs, such as the MAC address, VLAN, the spoof checking the setting and allowed bitrate
Content Distribution
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 has two modes of Content distribution and will only need two repositories enabled.
- BaseOS repository – The BaseOS repository provides the underlying core OS content in the form of traditional RPM packages. BaseOS components have a life cycle identical to that of content in previous Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases.
- AppStream repository – The Application Stream repository provides all the applications you might want to run in a given userspace. Other software that has special licensing are available on a Supplemental repository.
Web servers, Web Tools, Web Management – Cockpit, Compilers, Languages & Databases, Software Management
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 includes Application Streams of multiple versions of databases, languages, compilers, and other tools available for your use.
RHEL 8 comes with Cockpit automatically installed and firewall ports required by Cockpit are automatically opened. Cockpit interface can be used to apply Policy-Based Decryption (PBD) rules to disks on managed systems.
RHEL 8 YUM package manager is now based on the DNF technology and it provides support for modular content, increased performance, and a well-designed stable API for integration with tooling. The version of RPM is 4.14.2 and it validates the whole package contents before it starts the installation.
Desktop Environment
RHEL default Desktop Environment is GNOME. The GNOME Project is supported by the GNOME Foundation. Gnome version 3.28 shipped in RHEL 8 which has automatic downloading of operating systems in Boxes. Other new features include:
- New on-screen keyboard
- New GNOME Boxes features
- Extended devices support, most significantly integration for the Thunderbolt 3 interface
- Improvements for GNOME Software, dconf-editor and GNOME Terminal
- GNOME Software utility, which enables you to install and update applications and gnome-shell extensions.
- GNOME Display Manager (GDM) use Wayland as their default display server instead of the X.org server
Features of Wayland display server
-
- Stronger security model
- Improved multi-monitor handling
- Improved user interface (UI) scaling
- The desktop can control window handling directly.
Security
RHEL 8 comes with support for OpenSSL 1.1.1 and TLS 1.3. This enables you to secure customer’s data with the latest standards for cryptographic protection.
RHEL 8 comes with System-wide Cryptographic Policies which helps you with the management of cryptographic compliance. No need to modify and tune specific applications.
OpenSSH has been rebased to version 7.8p1– with no support for SSH version 1 protocol, Blowfish/CAST/RC4 ciphers, hmac-ripemd160 message authentication code.
Red Hat Developer Subscriptions
Red Hat Developer members have been enjoying no-cost developer subscriptions for 3+ years now, and RHEL 8 is now automatically part of that. If your company wants developer support, there are several Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Subscriptions options with Red Hat support, too.
For more detail please contact eRacks Systems or visit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 official Page.
Asif Raihan May 12th, 2019
Posted In: Linux, New products, News, Open Source, Operating Systems, virtualization
Tags: Cloud Computing, linux, New products, Open Source, operating system, Red Hat
Fedora 30 is now available
Fedora 30 is now available on all eRacks systems.
Fedora is a community-driven Linux distro that’s sponsored by the open source giant Red Hat. As Fedora is the upstream source of the company’s commercial RHEL distro, it’s also used as a testing ground for RHEL. As Linux enthusiasts might already know, Fedora is known as an innovative Linux distro that doesn’t hesitate when it comes to testing new technologies and helping other distros by making changes upstream for all distros. Shipping with many useful open source software, it’s known for providing a GNOME-based fluid desktop experience.
Fedora community recently released Fedora 30 just after about the 6 months from the version release as Fedora 29. On Fedora magazine they wrote about the early release of Fedora 30.
“It seems like it was just six months ago that we announced Fedora 29, and here we are again. Today, we announce our next operating system release. Even though it went so quickly, a lot has happened in the last half year, and you’ll see the results in Fedora 30.”
Many desktop users love Red Hat’s community Linux Fedora. They have good reason. Fedora is a great Linux desktop. But Fedora’s far more than just a desktop. It comes in three major versions: One for the workstation, another for containers, and still another that works as a server both on your server hardware and on the cloud.
About many changes, “Matthew Miller”, the Fedora Project Leader, explained in a statement:
“Computing scenarios don’t remain static and neither does Fedora. With the updates around Fedora 30, we’re providing an evolving spectrum of operating system editions to better meet diverse IT challenges. From containerized developer workspaces with Flatpak and Silverblue to expanded server and container infrastructure options in Fedora 30 Cloud and Fedora CoreOS, the Fedora Project remains focused on Linux innovation.“
Get your Own eRacks/FLASH10 Server Pre-configured with With Fedora 30 Server or Workstation Edition.
New features in Fedora 30
The biggest change in Fedora 30 is the new GNOME 3.32 desktop environment. Over the course of past few releases, GNOME desktop has made many changes to reduce its memory consumption; GNOME 3.32 takes things further and makes things more fluid and snappier by making enhancements in the core GNOME libraries.
On the visual front, the desktop environment adds a refreshed visual style that makes the overall look more polished. Moreover, the application icons, user icons, buttons, switches, etc., are also redesigned.
Talking about different packages that are included in the distro, you get the latest GCC 9, PHP 7.3, Bash 5.0, Ruby 2.6, and other apps.
This release is powered by the latest Linux 5.0, which brings better hardware support and display performance. You also get new features like support for energy-aware scheduling, Btrfs swap file, AMDGPU FreeSync, etc.
With the Fedora 30 release, the cloud and server releases are being combined into the Fedora Server Edition. Also, Fedora CoreOS is replacing Fedora Atomic Host as the container-focused offering. There are other variants as well, including Fedora Spins and Labs.
Fedora 30 Workstation
Fedora 30 Workstation includes the latest version of the GNOME interface, GNOME 3.32. Fedora also supports the other major Linux desktop environments, including Cinnamon, KDE, LXDE, MATE, and Xfce. It also includes fractional scaling, a refreshed visual style, animation improvements, and new icons. The net effect is to make a more visually pleasing desktop, which works well on high-end monitors.
Fedora Workstation now uses the “flicker-free boot” system, so the display does not turn on and off during the boot process.
You can also now run the Fedora desktop as a containerized desktop, Fedora Silverblue, with rpm-ostree at its heart. This replaces the traditional RPM package management with atomic upgrade/rollback. In this model, Fedora provides ready-made base operating system image. When you install a program, using either rpm-ostree or Flatpak, it creates essentially a restore point. These are then tracked, and if something goes wrong, you can reset to your restore point with minimal harm done.
Fedora 30 Server
Fedora 30, released April 30, 2019, has the following new and improved features:
The product definitions for Fedora’s “Editions” have been revamped. Fedora Cloud and Fedora Server editions are now a single product, simply called Fedora Server. Fedora Atomic Host has been replaced with Fedora CoreOS, in the wake of Red Hat’s acquisition of that container-based Linux distribution. Fedora Workstation remains mostly the same.
Fedora Server now supports Linux System Roles, created by Ansible to provide consistent ways to configure common Linux subsystems such as the network, the email system (Postfix), SELinux, and a few others. The list of roles is constantly being expanded.
Almost all Python 2 packages have been removed from the system, as part of Fedora’s switch from Python 2 to Python 3.
MongoDB has been removed from Fedora, as its licensing (the Server-Side Public License v1) is not believed to be compatible with other free software licenses.
Support for many deprecated cryptography standards is being removed: DES, 3DES, CRC32, and MD4. RC4 and MD5 are being marked as deprecated.
As with each edition of Fedora, many individual software components have been upgraded:
- Bash 5.0
- Boost 1.69
- Erlang 21
- FreeIPA 4.8 (which now uses Python 3.6)
- GCC 9
- glibc 2.29
- Golang 1.12
- GNOME 3.32
- Haskell GHC 8.4
- java-openjdk JDK12
- PHP 7.3
- Ruby 2.6
- Vagrant 2.2
For more details please visit the official Fedora Releases/30/ChangeSet.
To upgrade your existing Fedora 29 installation to Fedora 30, you need to run the following commands in terminal one by one:
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot
You can also perform a clean installation of the Fedora 30 by visiting its download page and download the ISO file. Or click the link below:
If you feel like doing so, do give it a try or ask for the help from eRacks Systems’ experts.
Asif Raihan May 4th, 2019
Posted In: Fedora, Linux, New products, News, Open Source, Operating Systems, Upgrades
Tags: fedora, linux, New products, Open Source, Red Hat
Ubuntu 18.10 “Cosmic Cuttlefish” is available.
Ubuntu 18.10, aka ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’, is available now on all eRacks systems.
Ubuntu 18.10 ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’ supported with 9 months of security updates, bug fixes and select app upgrades. Users of it will be able to upgrade to Ubuntu 19.04 when it’s released in April, 2019.
When the release of a new version as Ubuntu 18.10 ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’, the first question arrives in mind, “What are updated comparing with the current Ubuntu 18.04 LTS version?”
The most important update in ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’ is, it has updated Linux Kernel. Ubuntu 18.10 has Linux Kernel 4.18. This Kernel version has some improvements for AMD and Nvidia GPU, USB Type-C and Thunderbolt, and performance optimizations in CPUfreq among several other features.
Another important thing is having faster installation and boot with new compression algorithms. Working with new compression algorithms like LZ4 and ztsd, ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’ is supposed to have around 10% faster boot. The installation will be slightly faster as well. Which is definitely the good news for all Ubuntu users.
As always Ubuntu 18.10 will have this new GNOME version. Most of the visual and under the hood changes in GNOME 3.30 will be seen in Ubuntu 18.10 as well.
Taking cue from Fedora 28, Canonical is also working to improve battery life for laptops. Linux kernel has options to switch HDD controllers, USB controllers and other such devices to a low power state when not in use. This lowers the overall power consumption and thus improves the battery life.
Ubuntu 18.04 was supposed to have a new look with the community developed Community theme. This theme could not be completed in time for the 18.04 release. But Ubuntu 18.10 has it. The ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’ has the Yaru Community theme installed by default, giving it a ravishing fresh look.
Some other changes in the Ubuntu 18.10 ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’ are as follows:
- Support for fingerprint scanner.
- Startup time boost and XDG Portals support for Snap applications.
- 32-Bit support diminishing from flavors.
- UI and UX improvements to GNOME Software (possibility).
- DLNA support for connecting Ubuntu with DLNA supported Smart TVs, tablets and other devices.
- A new and improved installer (less likely to be completed before 18.10 release).
- Ubuntu Software removes dependencies while uninstalling software.
- Ubuntu Software will show a green verified tick for Snap applications developed by the owner of the brand. The same can be found on the recently redesigned Snap store website.
Ubuntu 18.10 ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’ is a modest update compared to 18.04. The vast majority of notable improvements are tucked away out of sight, ‘under the hood’. Ubuntu 18.10 feels faster than 18.04, But you can’t “see” the changes that shape Ubuntu 18.10 ‘Cosmic Cuttlefish’, you almost certainly will feel them.
Asif Raihan October 24th, 2018
Posted In: Linux, New products, News, Open Source, Operating Systems, ubuntu
Tags: linux, New products, News, Open Source, operating system, ubuntu
Fedora 28 Released!
Fedora 28 is now available on all eRacks systems.
“Choose Freedom. Choose Fedora.”
Surprised! Well this tag line is directly from the Fedora 28 official website, a complete Linux based Operating System. Fedora released their ‘Fedora 28 Final version‘ on ‘2018-05-01‘. It is very well known that ‘Fedora’ is always free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. It is built and used by people across the globe who work together as a community known as ‘The Fedora Project’. Under the tagline Fedora offers,
“Less setup, more innovation. Choose a flavor of Fedora
streamlined for your needs and get to work right away.”
Fedora 28 provides software to suit a wide variety of applications. The storage, memory and processing requirements vary depending on usage. For example, a high traffic database server requires much more memory and storage than a business desktop, which in turn has higher requirements than a single-purpose virtual machine.
Fedora 28
Fedora 28 is offered in 3 different streamlined flavors as,
As flavor Fedora Workstation is a polished, easy to use operating system for laptop and desktop computers, with a complete set of tools for developers and makers of all kinds.
Fedora Server is a powerful, flexible operating system that includes the best and latest datacenter technologies. It puts you in control of all your infrastructure and services.
And Fedora Atomic provides the best platform for your Linux-Docker-Kubernetes (LDK) application stack.
What’s New in Fedora 28!
It’s a great thing that Fedora 28 Accepted System Wide Changes Proposals and these changes have been made by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee for the Fedora 28 Release as System Wide Changes.
Fedora 28 Boost 1.66 upgrade
This change brings ‘Boost 1.66.0’ to Fedora 28. This will mean F28 ships with a recent upstream Boost release.
The aim is to synchronize Fedora with the most recent Boost release. Because ABI stability is one of explicit Boost non-goals, this entails rebuilding of all dependent packages. This has also always entailed yours truly assisting maintainers of client packages in decoding cryptic boost-ese seen in output from g++. Such care is to be expected this time around as well.
AArch64 Server Promotion
Fedora community promoted Aarch64 server technologies to Primary Architecture status. This would include the Server installer, the DVD installer ISOs, the Cloud (qcow2 images) and Docker base images to the same status as other primary Server architectures. This would NOT currently include other components such as Workstation images/installs, any of the various spins, or Fedora Atomic components.
Though Fedora developers are looking to promote their AArch64 / ARM64 / ARMv8 server offerings to being a “primary architecture” for this next Fedora release but The Fedora AArch64 server installer, Cloud images, and Docker base images would be the same status then as the other primary server architectures like x86_64.
This promotion wouldn’t affect Fedora Workstation 28 with 64-bit ARM not being a primary architecture on that front for the time being. Additionally, it wouldn’t affect Fedora Atomic either.
The Red Hat / Fedora developers are confident in their AArch64 support now and believe on the server front it’s ready to be a primary architecture.
Among the supported AArch64 platforms by Fedora include the 96Boards HiKey, 96Boards Dragonboard, ARM Juno, Rapberry Pi 3, Pine64, and others.
GNOME 3.28
Fedora 28 will also feature the latest version of GNOME desktop environment, GNOME 3.28. GNOME 3.28 has some improvements to the Calendar, Contacts and Clock apps. The default Cantarell font has been updated as well. Default video and music players of GNOME now support more media formats.
GNOME 3.28
A new Usage application has been introduced in GNOME 3.28 for examining CPU and memory consumption.
You can find the new features in GNOME 3.28 on its official website.
Anaconda modularization
Anaconda installer splits into several modules those communicate over DBus using stable API.
Anaconda Modularization
When talking about the Fedora/RedHat Anaconda installer it still brings back bad memories from the Anaconda fallout a few years ago when they went through some painful transitions that also led to release delays. In 2018, Fedora/RedHat developers are taking up the initiative of modularizing the Anaconda installer.
For the Fedora 28 release due out this spring, the plan is to split the Anaconda installer into several modules that in turn will communicate with eachother using a DBus API. The modularization effort sounds nice as long as it goes smoothly and doesn’t lead to any fallout like with past Anaconda overhaul initiatives (though admittedly Anaconda has been playing nicely the past number of releases and no complaints on my end currently).
Annotated Binaries
This change causes extra information to be stored in binary files compiled by gcc. This information can be used by scripts to check on various features of the file, such as the hardening options used or potential ABI conflicts.
A new feature being considered for Fedora 28 is Annobin as a new GCC plugin that would implant extra information into generated binaries.
The GCC Annobin plugin would store extra information within binary files. Among the possibilities are storing ABI details, hardening options, or other build information into binaries that in turn could be picked up by used by other scripts for e.g. detecting potential ABI conflicts or embedding unit test results.
Annobin stores information in Fedora’s toolchain watermark format and currently this plugin is just for GCC.
The proposal for incorporating Annobin by default in Fedora 28 is outlined on the Fedora Wiki while this change more broadly outlines their toolchain watermark work.
Already this proposal has received some criticism, namely that embedded extra information into binaries will increase the file size but this embedded information isn’t relevant to all users, so perhaps it may be better kept into the debug-type builds.
Cloud-base and Container images for s390x
This change is to bring s390x architecture closer to other Fedora architectures by adding widely used Fedora variants. This includes container images and Cloud-base images (qcow2 and raw format).
Deprecate TCP wrappers
TCP wrappers is a simple tool to block incoming connection on application level. This was very useful 20 years ago, when there were no firewalls in Linux. This is not the case for today and connection filtering should be done in network level or completely in application scope if it makes sense. After recent discussions I believe it is time to go for this package, if not completely, then at least as a dependency of modern daemons in system by default.
Add-On Modularity
Beginning in Fedora 28, Fedora will provide a new set of repositories for software and updates with alternative versions from those shipped in the default release.
Improved Laptop Battery Life
No more manual tweaks! Fedora 28 will deploy several tweaks on its own to provide improved battery life. Improve Fedora (Workstation) Battery Life by enabling various hardware power-saving features by default.
Improved Laptop Battery Life
Fedora 28 will have the following power management tweaks:
- Enabling auto-suspend for Intel HDA codecs saves around 0.4 W.
- Enabling SATA ALPM by default saves up to 1.5 W.
- Enabling i915 Panel Self Refresh by default saves around 0.5 W.
With these tweaks in place, some laptop models will see up to 30% of battery life improvements. While ‘power users’ can do these tweaks manually and achieve the same result, the idea is to provide an out of the box experience to every Fedora user. Indeed, a good thinking there.
Drop TCP wrappers support, OpenLDAP defaults to use only Shared System Certificates
TCP wrappers are being deprecated in Fedora. Also, upstream discourages its usage in favour of other means of protection (e.g. firewall). After this change OpenLDAP will no longer be affected by TCP wrappers configuration.
In order to go forward with adoption of SharedSystemCertificates after this change OpenLDAP clients and server will default to use only the system-wide certificates store.
Switch OpenLDAP from NSS to OpenSSL
Currently, OpenLDAP in Fedora is compiled with NSS (aka MozNSS) for crypto. OpenLDAP is going to be compiled with OpenSSL, instead.
Reduce Initial Setup Redundancy
Currently there is a high level of redundancy between the Anaconda installer and gnome-initial-setup. This change aims to eliminate these redundancies and streamline the initial user experience in Fedora Workstation.
To make Fedora more beginner friendly, Fedora 28 Workstation will have fewer ‘questions’ to answer at the install time. There will be no root password anymore and the user password itself will be sufficient for the root actions, same as Ubuntu.
There will be some more code changes to reduce the redundancy between Anaconda installer and gnome-initial-setup.
Ruby 2.5
Ruby 2.5.0 is the latest stable version of Ruby. Many new features and improvements are included for the increasingly diverse and expanding demands for Ruby. With this major update from Ruby 2.4 in Fedora 26 to Ruby 2.5 in Fedora 28, Fedora becomes the superior Ruby development platform.
Ruby 2.5.0
Packaging Rust applications/libraries
Added required tools/instructions for packaging applications/libraries written in Rust. Rust is a systems programming language that runs blazingly fast, prevents segfaults, and guarantees thread safety.
Enabling Python Generators
This change enables the ability to choose to use the Python module dependency generator for packages that provide Python Egg/Wheel metadata.
Django 2.0
This change is about upgrading python-django to version 2.0. The latest Django release drops support for Python 2, but a few Django apps packaged in Fedora do not yet support Python 3. A compatibility package will be provided for those.
Python 3.6 + Django2.0 on Fedora 28
Kerberos in Python modernization
Replace usage of python-krbV and pykerberos with python-gssapi in all Fedora packages to enable their removal from Fedora. rharwood will author all necessary code changes; no new code from maintainers is required.
VirtualBox Guest Integration
VirtualBox is popular, easy to use virtual-machine software. The purpose of this change is to ship the VirtualBox guest-drivers and -tools by default in the Fedora workstation product.
Fedora 28 will see the addition of guest-drivers to the Fedora kernel package, packaging the userspace-tools (VirtualBox Guest Additions) and adding the VirtualBox Guest Additions package to the default package list for the Workstation product.
This means using Fedora in VirtualBox will have a better experience.
Stratis Storage
Add initial support for Stratis, a local storage management solution. This will allow initial testing and user feedback that will guide Stratis’s development and stabilization.
VA-API 1.0.0
This change is about upgrading libva and others to version 2.x. This change affects several multimedia players as there are both API and ABI changes. This will allow some VA-API backends to be updated, improving support for recent hardware.
librealsense2
A new version of librealsense has been released, which does not support older camera versions. Bump librealsense to the new release and add the old library as librealsense1.
java-openjdk 10 – rolling release for Short Term Support releases of OpenJDK
OpenJDK have release cadence of 6 months. but 3/4 of them are Short Term Supported for 6 months only. This package is designed to harbore them. Currently it is built on openJDK 10. LTSs (next is 11) will go as separate packages.
PHP 7.2
Update the PHP stack in Fedora to latest version 7.2.x.
Including these Engineering Steering Committee also made others important change as
- GCC8
- GHC 8.2
- The GNU C Library version 2.27
- Glibc collation update and sync with cldr
- Hardening Flags Updates for Fedora 28
- IBus Unicode Typing
- Switch libidn-using applications to IDNA2008
- NIS switching to new libnsl to support IPv6
- NSS Default File Format SQL
- Rename “nobody” user
- Replace glibc’s libcrypt with libxcrypt
- Strong crypto settings: phase 1
- Removal of Sun RPC Interfaces From glibc
- Golang 1.10
- Switch libcurl to use libssh instead of libssh2
- A new time tool version 1.8 has changed output format.
- Make authselect default tool instead of authconfig
- Binutils version 2.29.1
- Update Erlang/OTP to version 20.
- Update fontconfig package to Fontconfig 2.13 as latest version.
- Update the giflib package to the latest giflib-5.x version (currently 5.1.4).
- Update Sugar to the new upstream 0.112 stable feature release.
- Enabled Thunderbolt 3 peripherals in a secure way hardware out of the box.
eRacks/NAS6
Get your Systems as per-configured with Fedora 28 or with any other Open Source Operating System from eRacks Store.
Minimum System Configuration for Fedora 28
The figures below are a recommended minimum for the default installation. Your requirements may differ, and most applications will benefit from more than the minimum resources.
- 1GHz or faster processor
- 1GB System Memory
- 10GB unallocated drive space
Low memory installations
Fedora 28 can be installed and used on systems with limited resources for some applications. Text, VNC, or kickstart installations are advised over graphical installation for systems with very low memory. Larger package sets require more memory during installation, so users with less than 768MB of system memory may have better results preforming a minimal install and adding to it afterward.
Installation Fedora 28
Note:For best results on systems with less than 1GB of memory, use the DVD installation image.
Display resolution
Graphical Installation requires 800×600 resolution or higher
Graphical installation of Fedora requires a minimum screen resolution of 800×600. Owners of devices with lower resolution, such as some netbooks, should use text or VNC installation.
Once installed, Fedora will support these lower resolution devices. The minimum resolution requirement applies only to graphical installation.
Minimum Hardware for Accelerated Desktops
Fedora 28 supports most display adapters. Modern, feature-rich desktop environments like GNOME3 and KDE Plasma Workspaces use video devices to provide 3D-accelerated desktops. Older graphics hardware may not support acceleration:
- Intel prior to GMA9xx
- NVIDIA prior to NV30 (GeForce FX5xxx series)
- Radeon prior to R300 (Radeon 9500)
- CPU Accelerated Graphics
Systems with older or no graphics acceleration devices can have accelerated desktop environments using LLVMpipe technology, which uses the CPU to render graphics. LLVMpipe requires a processor with SSE2 extensions. The extensions supported by your processor are listed in the flags: section of /proc/cpuinfo
Choosing a Desktop Environment for your hardware
Fedora 28’s default desktop environment, GNOME3, functions best with hardware acceleration. Alternative desktops are recommended for users with older graphics hardware or those seeing insufficient performance with LLVMpipe.
Desktop environments can be added to an existing installation and selected at login. To list the available desktops, use the dnf grouplist command:
Install the desired group:
Or, use the short group name to install:
Get Fedora 28
If you want to have your system pre-configured with Fedora 28, simply choose as your Fedora Linux 28 Workstation / Server or Atomic for your “Operating System’ option with eRacks/FLASH10 or with any other system from eRacks Store. You Could call or email us for the configuration details. We do cover your requirements with our systems.
eRacks/FLASH10
Or, Fedora 28 is available to download in ISO format from here. It is available in various flavors mainly Fedora 28 Workstation for desktops, Fedora 28 Server for servers and Fedora 28 Atomic for containers.
Asif Raihan May 8th, 2018
Posted In: New products, News, Open Source, Operating Systems
Tags: fedora, linux, Open Source, operating system
TrueOS Now Available
The former PC-BSD Desktop offering from ixSystems has now morphed into TrueOS Desktop –
It’s a rolling-release BSD Distro based on FreeBSD-CURRENT with many improvements, changes, and enhancements including security, LibreSSL, drivers, and more – Read about it, here: https://www.trueos.org/
We’re currently doing an eRacks/HUMBOLDT for a customer with it – Exciting!
j
joe November 1st, 2016
Posted In: Development, FreeBSD, New products, Operating Systems
Tags: BSD, freebsd, HUMBOLDT, LibreSSL, Rolling Release, TrueOS
Why we Have to Say we Use Only New Components
Many of you may know this already, but:
- We build all our systems to order, and
- We only use factory fresh, new components in our new systems.
This may seem like an obvious thing to say, but it still needs to be said.
Why?
About 4-5 times a week, we get emails like the one at the end of this page –
Offering “Clean pull” components for low prices in large lots – At best, these would be considered “Refurb” components, but are really just plain used. They have a much shorter (or no) warranty period than new components – they’re also often factory seconds or grey market parts, sold sideways to dodgy suppliers so that they can build systems cheaper.
We do not use these suppliers.
So again, we always use 100% new and factory-fresh components in our new-system builds – (on occasion we sell our B-Stock systems, which are clearly marked as such, and what they are – reconditioned, etc).
Some of the additional ways it is possible to cut corners on building and assembling IT equipment, in addition to used or refurbished parts, is to use factory lot-ends, factory seconds, factory defects with a “Workaroundable” defect – this is how Dell got their start – they would buy large lots of, say, NIC cards (This was before motherboards came with them onboard!), with a known defect, and write (and pre-install) the Windows driver for it – almost always unbeknownst to the end-user, or disclaimed in fine print in the EULA that the customer is forced to accept.
In this market, with plenty of storage servers, with large numbers of 3.5″ hard disk drives, this is especially tempting for some box-builders to use components such as these – again, we do not do this, and *always* purchase new parts only, from reputable, nationally-known suppliers of components and computer parts for our servers, especially such as hard disks, etc.
We consistently see product out there in the marketplace which is built with these dodgy components, and have many times been asked by our new customers to help them bring these products up to spec with new parts, and re-test and burn-in to ensure reliability and a fighting chance at a full product lifetime.
Best,
Joe
Joseph Wolff
Founder and CTO
eRacks Open Source Systems
Here is the example email:
Clean Pull HDD offer ( Lot# ST4815) 90 days warranty Payment Bank wire only EXW- CA USA Seagate ST3120025ACE 120GB IDE 3.5" Qty 820 pcs take all deal @ 5.00 each Seagate ST3120026AS 120GB 7200RPM SATA 3.5" Qty 1700 pcs MOQ 500 pcs + @ $ 9.00 each Seagate ST3320310CS 320GB SATA 3.5" Qty 2400 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 13.50 each Seagate ST3320311CS 320GB SATA 3.5" Qty 1400 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 13.50 each WD WD2500AAVS 250GB SATA 3.5" Qty 4000 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 12.00 each WD WD3200AAJS 320GB SATA 3.5" Qty 4500 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 14.00 each WD WD2500AAVS 250GB SATA 3.5" Qty 4700 pcs MOQ 1000 pcs + @ $ 12.00 each Axxxxx Global XXX Enterprises,INC909-360-9993email: axxxx@xxxenterprises.net email: xxxenterprisesusa@gmail.com Walnut, CA 91789 USA www.enterprises.net Call/Email to us for large qty discount . AGS WTS /WTB : We carry a wide range of products. Please contact us for your other requirements........ Hard drive ( Pull/refurb/New) , CPU ( Pull/New), Laptop/Tablets ( Refurbished/New) Memory, Monitors,Keyborad , Mice ,Networking Products ,Printer, ETC
joe November 15th, 2015
Posted In: Backups, New products, servers, Storage
Tags: Archive Drives, HDD, New products
eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD With Open Source: Powerful And Elegant
Introducing eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD 4D resolution, high power Ultrabook with Linux or BSD operating system
We wanted to start the month in style. So, we thought what better way there is than introducing a great looking Ultrabook with powerful specification? Then the light bulb went on: “eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD”.
This really stylish and elegant eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD laptop that comes with a screen resolution of 3840 by 2160 — four times FHD (full high-definition) resolution – really started looking mighty good.
This Ultrabook by Asus can be delivered by eRacks with up to 24 Gigabytes of RAM and up to 1 or even 2 Terabytes of SSD hard disk space. With its 15.6 inch 4K Ultra High Definition IPS screen and a view angle of about 170 degrees, eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD is really a great looking and powerful Ultrabook.
As with all eRacks Systems products, this elegant looking Ultrabook will be delivered with your choice of Open Source operating system & software pre-installed and pre-configured. The operating system can be any flavor of Linux or BSD (We can even do other OSes like Haiku, etc on request). We will install and configure the OS fully before packaging your Ultrabook and sending it off your way.
In fact, you can be sure that with your Ultrabook ordered through us, you will receive a powerful open source system, configured to the highest specifications according to your requirements. And you can also be sure that no one else can or will offer anything close to the laptop you will get from us.
So, why not expand your laptop computing power to the next level with us. Contact us and ask about eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD. We’ll be happy to hear from you.
info@eracks.com
Ron October 8th, 2015
Posted In: FreeBSD, Laptop cookbooks, New products, News, Products, Upgrades, Zenbook
Tags: 4K, BSD, FLOSS, laptop, linux, Open Source Computing, Powerbook, UHD, Ultrabook, Zenbook
Heads-Up for Half Petabyte Cloud-Ready Storage Servers
eRacks/NAS50 Half Petabytes of Data Storage Server / Cloud Storage
We were extremely excited to announce the forthcoming release of 500 Terabyte (half Petabyte) storage space upgrade on our flagship product eRacks/NAS50 cloud data storage servers last week. The new model, to be released shortly, will incorporate 50 HGST 10 Terabyte HelioSeal™ hard drives. While the new model is not released yet, we are accepting pre-orders from customers. The current capacity, now available, of the eRacks/NAS50 is 400Terabytes in total, with currently-available 8Terabyte drives.
The new unit is rackmount and holds 50 removable drive bays. The 9U unit is suitable for any cloud storage application as well as NAS/Local LAN. eRacks/NAS50™ is also a great solution for media libraries and other applications which require massive amounts of data storage capacity.
Our new servers are truly a remarkable Petascale solution. The HGST 10 Terabyte HelioSeal™ drives that come with eRacks/NAS50 use two technologies that greatly add to the value that this server carries with it, including other server services from sites as https://www.servermania.com/kb/articles/what-are-the-requirements-for-ubuntu-server/ for ubuntu projects.
The first is referred to as the HelioSeal™ technology. The HGST hard drives using this technology replace the air inside of the drive with helium. This would make the drive much lighter as well as allowing the disks to be much thinner. Due to the helium inside, the thinness of disks will not cause any disruptive turbulence effects. This will allow us to have more disks inside each drive which in turn means more data space. Additionally, helium drives have much lower power consumption, as much as 27%, making our NAS50 models truly a green product.
The new drives in the eRacks/NAS50 servers also make use of a technology called SMR. That is short for Shingled Magnetic Recording. This technology by itself adds another 25 to 100 percent storage capacity to HGST hard drives.
We are proud of our new eRacks/NAS50 and are ready to take pre-orders. We are prepared to customize the unit per your instructions with all Open-Source software necessary so your order will reach you completely pre-installed.
Please contact us for pre-orders or any questions you may have.
eRacks Open Source Systems
Phone: (714) 758-5423
Fax: (631) 392-9842
http://www.eRacks.com
eMail: info@eracks.com
Ron September 12th, 2015
Posted In: NAS50, New products, News, Open Source, servers, Upgrades
Tags: 500TB-class, 8TB, Archive Drives, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage Server, HDD, HelioSeal. HGST, Hybrid Cloud, Internet, linux, NAS50, Open Source, Private Cloud, Rackmount, seagate, SMR, Storage Server
eRacks NAS36 Servers Store More Data At Lower Cost
eRacks Systems NAS36 8TB Seagate Archive Drive upgrade
We can’t help it with our innovations. Our NAS36 servers offered almost 200 Terabytes of data space already. That is considered quite high for a mid-range data storage server. But we just decided to jump even higher and exchange the standard 6-terabyte disks into 8-terabyte ones. That mean our NAS36 model storage servers are now able to hold 288 terabytes of data in total.
The new NAS36 model with higher data capacity brings even more value to our customers not just because of the storage space it provides but also for its price. Yes, we have decided to slash the prices down below $25,000. That is going to bring considerable saving to our customers. [UPDATE Sep 2015: current price for maxed-out 288TB config with Seagate Archive 8TB drives is just under $22,000]
We are proud to announce this latest upgrade as we continue to provide petascale data storage servers at affordable prices.
We remain dedicated to open-source systems. We also remain committed to delivering pre-installed, pre-configured systems to our customers.
The NAS36 servers are rack-mount servers. We designed the 4U unit specially to hold large number of drives in a very limited space. That leaves ample amount of space for other necessary accessories inside your data center rack.
The 36 drives in the unit are all Seagate Archive Drives, mounted on a single backplane and controlled by a RAID controller. The unit holds 24 drives in front and 12 in the back making the unit case quite compact.
eRacks Systems is a leading provider of high-capacity, petascale data storage server solutions to companies and enterprises requiring massive amounts of storage data.
Our servers are suitable for Cloud Storage application as well as Near-Line Storage. They are also configurable for NAS (Network Attached Storage) applications.
For a great storage solution at a considerable low price, contact us. We are available through email, phone and our website.
Ron August 19th, 2015
Posted In: NAS36, New products, Open Source, servers, Upgrades
Tags: 288TB-class, 8TB, Archive Drives, Cloud Computing, Cloud Storage Server, HDD, Hybrid Cloud, Internet, linux, NAS36, Open Source, Private Cloud, Rackmount, seagate, Storage Server
UEFI and the eRacks/ZENBOOK13
Minty Zenbook
I am typing this on a nifty new eRacks/ZENBOOK13, with Linux Mint15 installed.
This is a slightly newer rev of the very pretty Asus Zenbook line, with twin 128GB SSD modules installed in a small carrier which screws into the standard 2.5″ HD space (it could also be replaced or upgraded with one of our standard HD/SSD choices, here: http://eracks.com/products/laptops/ZENBOOK13/)
This post will walk you through what we had to do for the installation, with the details.
Installation Cookbook
- Boot to an Ubuntu 13.04 install disk. (13.10 should work, or Ubuntustudio works too, that’s what I used). For some reason, the Mint installer doesn’t install the default EFI boot choice properly, so you have to start with Ubuntu, then replace it with Mint. Read on.
- Using gparted (fdisk could work, too), delete the partition tables on /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, and replace the GPT-based partition tables with with msdos-type partition tables.
- Install Ubuntu on the 1st of the two SSDs. Don’t worry about the 2nd disk (_yet_). Be sure to check the “Install with LVM” box after you select the default “Erase and install…”.
- Reboot into Ubuntu, and note the partitions cerated.
- Boot into a Mint 15 Install disk.
- Install Mint15 into the same partition structure – in other words, do NOT select the default “erase and install…” , but rather the “Something else” choice, and tell it to put the root partition on the same partition you noted in step 4.
- Install rEFInd (http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/) from a rEFInd install disk, that you downloaded and burned from there. (I used v0.74). Be sure to install it in the /boot/efi partition (typically /dev/sda2) created earlier. The reason to install rEFInd, is it’s an invaluable tool to use to boot from any EFI-capable location on your computer, and will be used later on. I put mine in EFI\refind\refind_x64.efi
- Be sure to also copy shell64.efi into /boot/efi/EFI/tools/, so rEFInd can find it, and show you the EFI Shell choice & icon.
- Boot from rEFInd.
- Choose the EFI shell.
- Using the bcfg command, (help -v bcfg is your friend!), list the boot choices, and verify that “ubuntu” is there.
- Add “mint” as a boot choice, pointing to EFI\linuxmint\grub64.efi – mimic the way the “ubuntu” boot choice is done.
- Reboot into the boot menu (hold Esc down during the Asus logo) and verify that “mint” and “rEFInd” are there.
- Test them both out – rEFInd should also give other interesting choices you can try out.
- You should be able to launch Mint from either the “Mint” choice in the Asus boot (holding Esc), or from the Mint choice in rEFInd.
- Optionally, you can add the 2nd SSD (mentioned in step 3) to the main volume using LVM, to use the full 256GB.
That’s it!
Wrap and Beverage
I must say, this is a BEAUTIFUL machine – I want one myself!
Between the FullHD display, and being roughly the same thickness and sizeas the magazines I often carry into any given bar / restaurant here in Los Gatos, this is a joy compared to my regular 1920×1080 Asus laptop..
…And it beats the heck out of a tablet..
…And the battery life seems great, it barely made a dent in the hour or so I spent surfing with it while drinking my beverage of choice at one of the local establishments here.
…And did I mention it’s screaming fast, with the i7 CPU and 10GB RAM?!
Bon Appetit,
j
joe October 20th, 2013
Posted In: How-To, Laptop cookbooks, New products, News, Open Source, Products, ubuntu
Tags: Dual-boot, EFI, FHD, FullHD, Mint, rEFInd, rEFIt, ubuntu, UEFI