14 DAY TRIAL // Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6, the sixth update to its legacy Red Hat 4.x product line.
This release comes equipped with the following improvements:
- A full set of updated installable CD ISO with OS package updates and install-time support for new hardware. - Updated Extras ISO images with third party package updates. - Samba was upgraded from 3.0.10 to 3.0.25. Because it was rebased, you'll have to manually edit the configuration file. - SB600 IDE devices are now supported, thanks to the libata driver.
The new kernel, 2.6.9-67.EL, brings some enhancements with it:
- On ia64, getcpu system call was added - /proc numa maps support - Infiniband OFED support was updated to version 1.2 - The upper value limit on /proc/sys/vm/max_queue_depth was removed - Added smaps functionality
A large number of drivers were updated to a superior version. Here are some of them:
- megaraid_sas: updated to version 00.00.03.13 so it can support PowerEdge Expandable Raid Controller. - qla2xxx: updated to version 8.01.07.04. This brings a workaround for power management issues for D3 state, fixed some problems with reference counting, and more. - mpt fusion drivers have reached version 3.02.99. The most important changes made are: improved error handling, support for PowerPC and every SAS controller can handle a maximum number of 1024 devices.
Other updates:
- implicit active-active failover (ALUA) using dm-multipath on EMC Clariion storage is now supported - The Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP) username and password are limited to 256 characters each.
Technology Previews
These features are not supported at this moment under RHEL 4.6 subscription service, and are not recommended for production use. They can only be used for testing, in a non-production environment. Here are a few of them:
Systemtap - provides GPLed software infrastructure to simplify the gathering of information about the running Linux system, tool that can be useful for diagnosing a performance or functional problem.
Frysk GUI - This application is an always-on system monitoring and debugging tool that allows developers and system administrators to monitor running processes and threads, the use of locking primitives, gathering data, etc.
Gcc - The GNU Compiler Collection 4.1 is also included in this RHEL 4.6 as a Technology Preview.
More other features for sysadmins and developers can be found in the newest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with improved features and enhancements.
You can download RHEL 4.6 right now from Softpedia.