Table Of Contents; Installation - Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5.5 - RELEASE NOTES 2010 Release Note

Release Notes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux minor releases are an aggregation of individual enhancement, security and
bug fix errata. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 Release Notes documents the major changes made
to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system and its accompanying applications for this minor
release. Detailed notes on all changes in this minor release are available in the Technical Notes.
Highlights of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 release include hardware enablement for the Intel
Boxboro-EX platform, AMD Magny-Cours processor and IBM Power 7 processor. Virtualization is
improved, with support for multiple 10 GigE SR-IOV cards, and automatic usage of hugepages for
virtual guest memory when enabled on the system. Interoperability improvements include updates to
OpenOffice for Microsoft Office 2007 filters, Samba for Windows 7 compatibility and boot support for
virtual machines using Microsoft based PXE services.
1. Installation .............................................................................................................................. 2
2. Virtualization ........................................................................................................................... 3
3. Kernel .................................................................................................................................... 4
3.1. Kernel Platform Enablement ......................................................................................... 4
3.2. Kernel Generic Features ............................................................................................... 5
4. Device Drivers ........................................................................................................................ 5
4.1. Network Device Drivers ................................................................................................ 6
4.2. Storage Device Drivers ................................................................................................. 7
5. Filesystem/Storage Management ............................................................................................. 9
6. Tools ...................................................................................................................................... 9
6.1. GNU Project debugger (GDB) ....................................................................................... 9
6.2. SystemTap ................................................................................................................. 10
6.3. Valgrind ..................................................................................................................... 10
7. Desktop Updates .................................................................................................................. 11
8. New Packages ...................................................................................................................... 11
A. Revision History

1. Installation

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 introduces many bugfixes and enhancements to the system installer
(anaconda).
The interactive installer has been enhanced, adding the abilty to specify additional Network File
System (NFS) mount options when installing from an NFS source
sources (e.g. kickstart files) located on password protected File Transport Protocol (FTP) servers can
now be retrieved during installation
Kickstart
Kickstart provides a way for users to automate a Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation. Using kickstart,
a system administrator can create a single file containing the answers to all the questions that would
normally be asked during a typical installation.
Kickstart debugging and error reporting has been improved. The installer now retains kickstart
scriptlets during debugging, logs standard output (stdout) and standard error (stderr) streams, and
logs error messages to anaconda.log
1
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=493052
2
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=505424
3
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=510636
2
Abstract
2
(BZ#505424 ).
3
(BZ#510636 ).
1
(BZ#493052 ). Additionally, install
12