Red Hat ENTERPRISE LINUX 5.5 - TECHNICAL NOTES Manual page 14

Chapter 1. Package Updates
even when this information is unavailable. Graphical installation on machines attached to KVM
switches therefore continues as if them monitor were connected directly to the graphics adapter.
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(BZ#445486 )
• previously, anaconda expected storage devices to be available immediately when it probed for the
location of a kickstart file. On systems where USB storage might not be available immedately (for
example, IBM BladeCenter systems), anaconda would not find the kickstart file and would prompt
the user for its location. This interaction negated the usefulness of kickstart, since the installation
could not then complete unattended. Anaconda now waits until it has probed five times or for
more than 31 seconds before prompting the user for the location of a kickstart file. This allows USB
storage enough time to respond and for kickstart to proceed unattended.
• previously, some user interface elements in the the Malayalam translation of anaconda overlapped.
The overlapping elements disabled some buttons in the screen where anaconda lets users to
choose a partitioning scheme for the system, and prevented installation from continuing. The text
of the Malayalam translation has been shortened so that the interface elements no longer overlap.
The buttons on the partitioning scheme screen now work correctly and allow installation to continue.
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(BZ#479353 )
• during installation, anaconda automatically examines any storage device that has the label OEMDRV
for driver updates and applies any updates that it finds there. Previously, anaconda searched
for this label on the devices listed in /proc/partitions. However, /proc/partitions does
not identify CD or DVD media, so anaconda overlooked optical disks that had the correct label.
Anaconda now examines the devices listed in /sys/block. Therefore, anaconda correctly
identifies CDs and DVDs labelled OEMDRV as driver discs and automatically applies any driver
updates contained on them.
• previously, if anaconda required network access early in an installation (for example, to retrieve a
kickstart file or driver disk image), it temporarily saved information about the network configuration
while it enabled access to the network. However, if anaconda required network access again for
a separate reason, it would not attempt to configure network access again, but would not be able
to connect to the network either, because it no longer retained the configuration information that it
had already used. Therefore, anaconda could not download both a kickstart file and a driver disk
image over a network. Anaconda now retains the network configuration that it obtains early in the
installation process, and can reuse this information multiple times. Therefore, anaconda can use
more than one resource obtained over a network during installation.
• previously, while upgrading a system, anaconda did not check whether packages marked for
installation as dependencies were already installed on the system. Consequently, many packages
would be reinstalled during an upgrade, wasting time and, in the case of network installations,
bandwidth. Now, when performing an upgrade, anaconda matches the packages to be installed
against the packages that are already installed. Any packages with the same Name, Arch, Epoch,
Version, Release (NAEVR) as a package already on the system are skipped and not reinstalled.
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• previously, anaconda did not specify a value for HOTPLUG when writing the system's networking
configuration files, although it did write a value for ONBOOT. Because HOTPLUG is enabled by
default, the effect of disabling ONBOOT was limited because any interface not activated at boot
time would be enabled anyway whenever probed by the system. Anaconda now writes a value for
HOTPLUG, setting it to the same value as ONBOOT. Therefore, any network interface not meant to be
enabled at boot time will not be automatically enabled by probing either.
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(BZ#485060 )
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(BZ#495042 )
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