[CentOS-announce] CentOS 4 i386 and x86_64 release of CentOS-4.9

[Johnny Hughes]

The CentOS development team is pleased to announce the release of CentOS
4.9 for i386 and x86_64.

This release corresponds to the upstream vendor 4.9 release.

Also released in the updates repository for CentOS-4.9 are all updates
through March 1st, 2011.

If you are currently using an older CentOS 4 version, using this command
will upgrade you to CentOS-4.9:

yum upgrade

NOTE:  The upstream provider did not respin media for the 4.9 release
and therefore the CentOS project will also not respin our install media.
 Installs moving forward will be off the 4.8 media and an upgrade will
move you from version 4.8 to version 4.9.  We do this to maintain
compatibility with 3rd party kernel drivers which are designed to be
installed as part of the installation process.

This is the last expected set of changes to add new functionality to the
CentOS 4.  We will continue to provide security updates and bug fixes
for CentOS 4 until its End-of-Life scheduled for February 29, 2012.

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Major changes for this version are:

* The kernel-utils package provides microcode_ctl utility code and the
microcode data itself — supplied by Intel — to assist the kernel in
updating the CPU microcode at system boot time. This microcode supports
all current Intel x86- and Intel 64-based CPU models and takes advantage
of the mechanism built-in to Linux that allows microcode to be updated
after system boot. When loaded, the updated microcode corrects the
behavior of various Intel processors, as described in processor
specification updates issued by Intel for those processors. In the
CentOS-4.9 release the kernel-utils package has been updated with the
2010-09-14 version of Intel's microcode.

*  OProfile in CentOS 4.9 now supports Intel Xeon (formerly codenamed
Nehalem) processor performance events.

*  The KornShell (ksh) package in CentOS 4.9 has been upgraded to the
upstream release version ksh93t+.

*  CentOS-4.9 provides an updated coreutils package, containing checksum
utilities for the whole SHA-2 family, allowing a user to easily count or
verify SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512 checksums.

* CentOS-4.9 features version 3.6.13 of the Mozilla Firefox open source
web browser.

*  SystemTap in CentOS-4.9 has been updated to version 1.3. Most
notably, this update provides support for the newer kprobe capabilities.

*  OpenOffice 2.0 is now included in this release as a Technology
Preview. This suite features several improvements, including ODF and PDF
functionalities, support for digital signatures and greater
compatibility with open suites in terms of format and interface. In
addition to this, the OpenOffice 2.0 spreadsheet has enhanced pivot
table support, and can now handle up to 65,000 rows.

For these and other changes, please see the CentOS specific release
notes here:
http://wiki.centos.org/Manuals/ReleaseNotes/CentOS4.9

the detailed upstream release notes here:
http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/4/html/4.9_Release_Notes/index.html

CentOS-4 Documentation is here:
http://www.centos.org/docs/4/
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All previous released CentOS versions are available at:
http://vault.centos.org/

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To stay current with CentOS:

Visit our website at http://www.centos.org/

Join the CentOS mailing list at:
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

HowTos and other items on the wiki:
http://wiki.centos.org/

Join various team members on IRC at irc.freenode.net #centos
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Note: It may take a couple days for some of the external mirrors to
catch up.
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Enjoy,

The CentOS Development Team

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