The Release Candidate version is now available for testing

Apr 4, 2015 01:56 GMT  ·  By

The Scientific Linux development team, through Pat Riehecky, has announced a couple of days ago that the first Release Candidate (RC) version of the upcoming Scientific Linux 7.1 computer operating system is available for download and testing.

Scientific Linux 7.1 RC1 is an important milestone in the development cycle of Scientific Linux 7.1, which is currently based on the upstream Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1 operating system. This release includes a great number of improvements and many updated or new packages.

Noteworthy changes since the last stable release of the distribution, Scientific Linux 7.0, include easy access to the ZFS on Linux project via YUM repositories, and OpenAFS 1.6.11. The distribution now uses 7.1 release repositories, centers the GRUB boot splash, introduces IPA customizations, and makes the version of the epel-release package to match that of EPEL.

UEFI Secure Boot support works but requires user interaction

While booting with Secure Boot enabled on UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) system works in Scientific Linux 7.1 Release Candidate 1, users are required to manually specify the Scientific Linux signing certificate using the "mokutil" command, in order to enroll it into the MOK (Machine Owner Key) database.

“Booting SL7 with Secure Boot enabled works but requires a manual step,” says Pat Riehecky. This is because the “shim” has not been signed by the UEFI CA. As seen in the above Secure Boot requirements, the UEFI CA is not the only certificate that can be used to validate the “shim.” The SL signing certificate can also be used.

Download Scientific Linux 7.1 Release Candidate 1 right now from Softpedia. However, please keep in mind that this is an unstable operating system and we don’t recommend installing it on production manchines where stability is extremely important.

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