CentOS LiveCD 5.6 Release Notes

1. Translations

Translations of these release notes are available for the following languages :

• Simplified Chinese (简体中文)

• Traditional Chinese (繁體中文)

• French (Français)

• Romanian (Romana)

2. Introduction

The CentOS Development team is pleased to announce the availability of the CentOS LiveCD 5.6 for both i386 and x86_64 architectures. These LiveCD are based on our CentOS-5.6 i386 and x86_64 distributions.

You can get the CentOS LiveCD 5.6 from the CentOS mirrors:

• i386: http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/5/isos/i386/

• Filename: CentOS-5.6-i386-LiveCD.iso
• Size: 693MB
• MD5Sum: 02f1199de0e5a982af53e65fd6d69b00

• SHA1Sum: bfa3146fecbe5dd6820f8261851baa4951b80cb6
  
  

• x86_64: http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/5/isos/x86_64/

• Filename: CentOS-5.6-x86_64-LiveCD.iso
• Size: 700MB
• MD5Sum: 7449589dc0769d4e027832bfe3f6bfba
• SHA1Sum: 1770511af5791256f9d87fb8f76bb02cd2bccd9c

We used the tools from the Fedora livecd-tools project to create the CentOS LiveCD 5.6 image. This toolset offers numerous advantages:

• all directories are writable
• a simpler LiveCD creation process

• easily transfer the LiveCD image to a USB drive

3. Packages and Applications

The LiveCD can be used as a Workstation, with the following software:

• openoffice.org 3.1.1
• firefox 3.6.13
• thunderbird 2.0.0.24
• pidgin 2.6.6
• gftp 2.0.18

It can also be used as a rescue CD with the following tools:

• memtest86+-1.65
• Full set of LVM and RAID command line tools
• Nmap and NMapFE
• traceroute
• samba-3.0.33 with cifs kernel support to connect to Windows file shares
• System Log Viewer
• GUI Hardware Device Manager

You cannot start an installation from the LiveCD, either download CD1 and look at the CentOS 5 FAQ or download a DVD or the netinstall iso for installation over the network.

4. New features

4.1. Network installation has been removed

The option to proceed with a CentOS network installation directly from the LiveCD has been removed.

4.2. nodiskmount option

You can prevent the LiveCD to automatically mount your system partitions at boot time with the 'nodiskmount' boot option.

• At boot time, when presented with the boot options, press [Tab] to edit the menu entries
• Edit the first menu entry
• Add 'nodiskmount' at the end of the line

4.3. Persistence feature

The persistence feature is available since the 5.5 release of the LiveCD. With livecd-tools 014-7 and later, it is possible to create a LiveUSB media featuring a persistent overlay. An overlay of a fixed size is appended to the standard filesystem. This overlay is a dynamically growing set of blocks that have been modified on the original LiveCD root filesystem. It is used to store data and configuration changes. The size of the overlay should be no more than 2048MB on a VFAT Flash drive. If you use an ext3 Flash drive, the size of the overlay should be no more than the size of the root filesystem of the LiveCD. This value is defined on the "part / <size in MB>" line of the LiveCD kickstart file. The official CentOS 5 LiveCD has a 4096MB root filesystem.

Using a smaller overlay than the root filesystem can produce errors as the space available on the overlay is filled up. In this case, the LiveCD root filesystem will act as if there still was space available on the overlay while in fact it is fully allocated. However, there are many advantages at using a smaller overlay than the root filesystem on smaller Flash drive (4GB and less) even if it can be filled up eventually. To erase the content of the overlay and return to the original state of the LiveCD, add the reset_overlay kernel parameter at boot time. This will effectively reset the overlay.

4.4. Improved wireless network adapter driver

The iwlwifi driver is included which result in better support for Intel Wireless devices. You will need to install manually the Intel microcode image corresponding to your hardware in /lib/firmware to activate your wireless adapter. The microcode images are available from the Intel webpage: http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/?n=downloads

4.5. ext4 support

The ext4 partitions of your system should be automatically detected by the LiveCD.

5. Known Issues

• The boot option called Boot from local drive may not work on your system.

• Booting in text mode may cause your system to hang unless you remove the "quiet" option (confirmed bug under VMware WS).
• At boot time, the following harmless informative message will be displayed:

  • memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) not within permissible range

• Resuming after entering suspend mode may leave you system in an unstable state.

• If you encounter video issues, you can force the use of a different video driver at boot time. Add the 'xdriver=<driver>' string on the menu entry to force the use of <driver>. Here is an example:

  • At boot time, when presented with the boot options, press [Tab] to edit the menu entries
  • Edit the first menu entry
  • Add 'xdriver=i810' at the end of the line to force the use of the i810 video driver

6. Community Involvement

As a CentOS user there are various ways you can help out with the CentOS community. Take a look at our Contribute page for further information on how to get involved.

6.1. CentOS LiveCD project

The CentOS LiveCD project is where the development of the CentOS LiveCD takes place. Various topics are covered:

• Getting the LiveCD creation toolset
• Creating a LiveCD image
• Transfering a LiveCD image to a Flash drive
• Boot a LiveCD image through PXE
• Customizing your own LiveCD

6.2. Mailing lists and Fora

Another way you can help others in the community is by joining one of the mailing lists or the fora and actively resolve user problems & discuss solutions with others.

7. Thanks

We thank everyone involved for helping us produce this release.

Copyright (C) 2011 The CentOS Project

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