[owl-users] new ISOs and OpenVZ templates

Hi,

New ISO images and pre-created OpenVZ container templates of Owl-current
for i686 and x86-64 are available on our FTP mirrors.  The ISOs are also
available via direct download links on the Owl homepage:

http://www.openwall.com/Owl/

lftp mirrors.kernel.org:/openwall/Owl/current> ls iso vztemplate | fgrep 0729
-rw-r--r--         455M  2010-07-29 02:53  Owl-current-20100729-i686.iso.gz
-rw-r--r--         460M  2010-07-29 03:37  Owl-current-20100729-x86_64.iso.gz
-rw-r--r--         110M  2010-07-29 05:06  owl-current-20100729-i686.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--         112M  2010-07-29 04:43  owl-current-20100729-x86_64.tar.gz

We have once again updated Owl to use OpenVZ's latest kernel from their
"rhel5" branch, and we've switched to using RPM-packaged kernels, but in
a way allowing for easy non-packaged builds as well (there are only two
cumulative patch files to apply).

At the same time, we've introduced support for the ext4 filesystem (in
fact, it is now offered by default for new installs), and we've improved
CD bootup and the installer ("settle") in numerous ways.

The packages of passwdqc, strace, lftp, tcb, JtR, and Postfix have been
updated to new versions, and changes have been made to several other
packages.  Please refer to the Owl-current change log for more
information on some of the changes:

http://www.openwall.com/Owl/CHANGES-current.shtml

If you installed Owl off CD previously, one of the changes you'll notice
is CD/DVD drive device autodetection - you no longer have to specify
where your CD/DVD drive is connected to.  Unfortunately, there's a bug
in that code, which we've learned about after the ISOs were generated:
the case when the CD/DVD drive is an IDE slave (/dev/hdb or /dev/hdd) is
not handled correctly.  If this affects you, boot the CD with "normal
root=/dev/hdb rootdelay=0" or "normal root=/dev/hdd rootdelay=0" as
appropriate.  We'll fix the bug for the next set of ISO updates.

Most people can just boot with "normal", though (just hit Enter at the
boot menu), which works for IDE masters (on any IDE channel), SATA, and
USB CD/DVD drives, and more (e.g., also tested with a DVD drive on a
PATA port on Marvell SATA/PATA controller).

Alexander