RHEL 5.3 is out
January 20th, 2009 Posted in LinuxWell, as most of you may already know, Red Hat has released RHEL version 5 update 3 today, and they appear to have been quite hard at work. So what can you all expect in CentOS 5.3? Here’s a brief rundown of cool stuff to look forward to:
Networking
- NetWorkManager and wpa_supplicant updates mean better wireless security support. NetworkManager has a whole host of updates listed, so loads of good things have been happening there.
- Updated driver support for a number of broadcom, forcedeth, ralink, and realtek cards made it into the kernel, so those of you in irc complaining that your nic wasn’t recognized should be happier after this.
- There are also a few improvements for intel networking, both wired and wireless, so that should give the intel crowd their feel-good too.
Storage
This is where things get interesting, so hang on.
- ext4 support is now included, so you can feel free to play with it. All accounts have it being pretty interesting.
- encrypted block devices are now supported in anaconda for direct install. Anyone with a laptop should be interested in this one. (This one is my personal favorite. A die-hard suse fan always rubs on this when we debate)
- There’s added support for IBM’s DS4xxx series disk systems in the dm_multipath package now. In theory this should rid us of the rdac driver update reboot hell. I’ll be testing this feature out tomorrow.
- 3ware and megaraid_sas also made the cut for driver updates. These two should have a fair bit of performance improvements to them.
One thing I’m still waiting to see sorted out is the httpd fiasco on x86_64. In previous releases, you could install both, but it would cause conflicts when run. RH says they fixed this by removing the x86_64 version of httpd from the x86_64 distro. I’m really hoping they mean that they’ve removed the x86 version from the x86_64 distro, and that the release notes just have a nice little heart-stopping typo. Anyone dealing with multi-arch issues might want to keep an eye on this one between visits to the therapist.
Update: Seems the httpd issue was for ppc, though the arch was not clearly spelled out in the release notes. Have a look at http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhelv5-list/2009-January/msg00098.html for information.
You can get the full reading on what’s coming from this url: http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/Release_Notes/index.html
What features are you looking forward to the most with the new release? I’m curious to see which features people are most interested in using. Let me know in the comments below.
17 Responses to “RHEL 5.3 is out”
By Nathan Powell on Jan 20, 2009
So it would appear that virtio will be avalable in RHEL5.3? (http://www.heise-online.co.uk/open/What-s-new-in-Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux-5-3–/news/112451)
That is what I am most excited about. I am an Ubuntu admin, but I really need/want Virtio to be ready yesterday. If Cent gets that out the door soonish I would be all over that.
By John Moylan on Jan 21, 2009
I wish they would update squid, apache,python and the mysql python drivers. 2010 is a long to have to wait for RHEL6
By ngm on Jan 21, 2009
I was waiting for the stable release of gfs2. Can’t wait to download CentOS 5.3 when it’s ready.
By Nobody Important on Jan 21, 2009
The network manager and drivers sound good, and the ext4 support sounds better. Can’t wait for Cent 5.3!
By ajay on Jan 22, 2009
the new 3ware driver. hopefully it will solve my crappy write performance…
By Sam on Jan 23, 2009
I am very very interested in IBM DS4XXX support in dm-multipath. I want a server to get storage from an IBM DS8100 and 4800 simultaneously without rdac crashing into dm-multipath.
By Georger on Jan 24, 2009
The re-based Samba and CUPS packages. These should fix several interoperability issues we’ve had lately with Windows Vista and 64-bit Windows clients.
By cheguaka on Jan 26, 2009
iwl3945
Yes. I use CentOS at my laptop.
By Shankar on Jan 26, 2009
Unfortunately, they didn’t refresh unixODBC in this release. The current one (2.2.11) doesn’t allow Oracle’s 10.2.0.4 and 11.0 ODBC drivers to be loaded, because they depend on a new symbol that’s only in 2.2.12.
Sigh!
By Jacques on Jan 29, 2009
Well, unfortunately the IBM DS4800 support seems to be broken…. We have upstream vendor support, and I’ve tried doing a “linux mpath” install using a blade connected to a DS4800, and the installer breaks before even getting to the disk partitioning, sometimes it gets there, sometimes it ever tries to install some packages, but it always breaks, saying the disk is read-only.
I’ve logged a call with the upstream vendor, waiting for feedback still.
By Jim Perrin on Jan 30, 2009
Interesting. I’m seeing a different problem from our DS4700. while I’m not installing directly to the san, configuring the multipath bits after install has led to some interesting issues. Using the multipath defaults config for the 1815, modified for the 1814 ds4700 value, Everything appears normal unless disk i/o is called for. For whatever reason, the i/o takes place on the wrong path every time. As soon as the i/o operation is finished, the storage manager java client shows the ds4700 as healthy again. Every IO operation causes it to generate an error state and show that the drive is no longer on the preferred path. Our upstream ticket with redhat has so far yielded nothing beyond a ‘not all ds4xxx chassis are supported’. The ticket is still open, and I plan on escalating it as far as I can.
By Justin on Jan 31, 2009
I understand that there’s no hard and fast date on which CentOS follows a RH release, but what’s the typical timeframe? Weeks? Months? I need to rebuild a box with 5.2 on it, and I’m wondering whether I should wait for 5.3 to drop.
By Jim Perrin on Feb 2, 2009
It’s usually between 2 weeks and a month. The rebuild process takes a while, then QA gets it and works on it for a while. Then it gets seeded to the primary mirrors. Once enough mirrors have the release it gets announced.
By Vygantas on Feb 2, 2009
ext4 for sure
By Ed on Feb 4, 2009
No updates to packages that SOOO badly need it (php and apache come to mind, amongst piles of others)
The fun of adding ext4 (sorry ext4dev!) but still no xfs?
upgrading our rhel 5.2->5.3 left it not booting. grub didn’t get the new kernel name added.
a number of small depsolves every day since.
On the plus side Oracle runs even better now than before.
By Luigi Rosa on Feb 11, 2009
PHP 5.2
I really miss it.
By ngm on Feb 18, 2009
If you really need the latest php/apache version, you can download and rebuild the srpm from fedora.