[Netboot-general] New netboot version 0.10

[Gero K. <ge...@gk...>]

Hello,

after more than two years of work I'm pleased to announce the release of
netboot version 0.10. This release has been tested on many different
host
systems and with various different network cards to improve
compatibility.
However, the most important change has been the move from the old bin86
tools towards using GNU development tools. It is now possible to compile
all client code using GNU tools, even on non-x86 systems by using a
cross
compiler. Therefore, most changes in this release are not directly
visible
to the user. Among the new noticeable features are:

	General:
		- support for different backends to access the systems
		  database: plain text database files and Berkeley DB
		  are currently supported, ODBC and LDAP are planned
		- support for writing into the systems database with all
		  utility programs
		- support for writing log files with all utility programs
		- better support for different character sets
		- libtool support: it is now possible to compile a
		  shared library for all the utility support routines
		- completely removed support for pre-386 processors, so
		  everything is 32-bits now

	Bootrom:
		- support for multicast TFTP transfers (still untested)
		- full support for DHCP with netboot extensions
		- full support for PXE API
		- support for generic network drivers

	Makerom:
		- makerom is now able to install new network drivers into
		  the proper place thus eliminating the need to manually
		  copy and edit anything in order for a network driver to
		  appear in the menu
		- saving bootrom definitions into the systems database
		  without editing any database files manually
		- supports writing a bootrom image which can be included
		  into a system BIOS (however, this requires additional tools
		  which are not part of the netboot package)
		- many changes to the user interface, including the display
		  of help texts

	mknbi-dos:
		- support for using a compressed ramdisk in order to reduce
		  download time of DOS netboot images

	mknbi-linux:
		- support for Linux kernel 2.6.x

	mknbi-mgl:
		- support for multiple image loaders: mknbi-mgl now contains
		  a new image loader which allows an MGL boot image to get
		  downloaded using a commercial PXE bootrom. This way it is
		  possible to use such commercial PXE bootroms with other
		  netboot boot images generated with mknbi-linux or mknbi-dos
		- various MGL syntax cleanups and improvements like some
		  missing programming constructs and pointer types
		- support for MGL include files
		- lots of bug fixes in the MGL runtime code

The only thing which is still missing is a comprehensive documentation.
Even
though I have updated the existing documentation (especially the man
pages)
to reflect all changes, a user's manual which puts all pieces together
is still
missing. This is planned for one of the next releases.

Until then, have fun with netboot, and please let me know if you find
any bugs
or have any ideas for improvements.

My sincere thanks go to all the many people who have helped me with
improving
this release, and who are too numerous to mention here.

gero.

--=20
Gero Kuhlmann                                      Groote Gracht 33
ge...@gk...                                26723 Emden
ge...@gk...                                    Tel.: 04921/997561