openSUSE 10.3 Alpha 3 has been released:

I'm glad to announce the third public alpha release of openSUSE 10.3.

Important Changes Since Alpha2
==============================

The following are some highlights of Alpha3 compared to Alpha2:

* On x86-64: Firefox is now a 64-bit package and uses nspluginwrapper to handle 32-bit i386 plugins if needed.

* AppArmor uses now a new parser. The kernel patches have been reworked completely. Please do test AppArmor extensively (see below).

* GNOME 2.18 mostly integrated.

* Update to Kernel 2.6.21 RC5

* New opensuse-updater running natively under GNOME

* Further fixes for using libata by default for IDE devices

* New yast2-ftp-server module.

* The package manager handles more than one CD/DVD drive.

A more detailed list of changes is available via
http://en.opensuse.org/Factory/News

Most Annoying Bugs
==================
So far the following critical bugs have been found, please read before you install:

* Java applications are not working due to implementation errors in SUN Java. Bug 252510 Workaround here and also adding "LIBXCB_ALLOW_SLOPPY_LOCK=1" to the environment.

* The installation of vim-normal might fail, just ignore it Bug 262706

* Branding and translations are still at the 10.2 level Bug 240598

* The Radeon driver is broken and crashes the X server Bug 263199. Workaround: Disable the MergedFB option (see bugreport).

* Installation with several CD-ROMs might crash at some point Bug 263207

* gnome-main-menu might crash in some installations. bug 263294. Fix: Reinstall gnome-main-menu with --force (you might want to install a new control-center2 package without the duplicated libslab, it's available from the ftp server under 10.3-Alpha3/Extra-RPMs).

The list of annoying bugs is found here as well, please update it if you find more:

http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs_10.3-dev


Call for Testing
================

* libata for IDE devices

We're using the libata stack now also for IDE controllers. Please do test that an update works and all files are changed automatically (libata uses /dev/sda for the first harddisk instead of /dev/hda). Disks with more than 15 partitions are not handled right now, we're still evaluating whether there is a good solution. to use the old scheme, boot with "hwprobe=-modules.pata".

* Kiwi scripts for LiveDVD

We release the Kiwi tool together with a configuration for creating a LiveDVD of openSUSE 10.3. It can be created by anyone, you just need to call one simple script. Please find detailed instructions and a list of known issues here: http://en.opensuse.org/LiveDVD

* AppArmor

- Behavior Changes:

New rules to distinguish directories from files:

The previous behavior made no explicit handling for directories. The new kernel module makes access to directories explicit and distinguished by the addition of a trailing '/' to a rule that identifies it as a directory.

Old Behavior:

/path/to/somewhere r, # Gives read access to the path
# whether a file or directory

/path/to/somewhere/* r, # Read access to all files and directories
# in /path/to/somewhere

/path/to/somewhere/** r, # Read access to all files and directories
# under /path/to/somewhere


New Behavior:

/path/to/somewhere/* r, # Gives read access to files in the directory

/path/to/somewhere/ r, # Gives read access to the directory
# element only

/path/**/ r, # Gives read access to all directory entries
# under /path


/path/to/somewhere/** r, # Gives access to files and directories under
# /path/to/somewhere


- Included Profiles:

The current apparmor-profiles package only ships with the abstractions and a profile for ping. We are working to update the existing profiles and they will be included in the next alpha release.


- Testing:

Testers and profile developers should focus testing efforts on profile deveopment with the tools (in YaST or at the console).


Media and Download
==================

openSUSE 10.3 Alpha1 for i386, x86-64 and ppc comes as different media
sets:
* 5 CDs
* 1 AddOn CD with only NonOSS packages on it
* 1 AddOn CD with language packages that are used for extra languages (the 5 CDs contain support for english, french, italian, spanish, german, chinese, japanese, czech, danish, norwegian, khmer, hungarian, polish) (the 5 CDs have support for installation in all languages, just extra packages are only on this extra media)
* 1 DVD containing the contents of the 5 CDs and the NonOSS AddOn CD
* CDs/DVDs containing the sources corresponding to the media

We have created Delta ISOs from openSUSE 10.3 Alpha2. Please use them for download.

The DVDs and the source media are only available via bittorrent.

Please report all bugs you find on in our bugzilla as explained in http://bugs.opensuse.org, discussion is most appropriate on the opensuse-factory@xxxxxxxxxxxx mailing list.

To download media, please use the links provided at:
http://en.opensuse.org/Development_Version#Downloads

Andreas