opensource.dyc.edu

In this release, we take the leap from our old toolchain and adopt Gentoo's hardened-dev overlay which includes all of the hardening features of the previous release, but implemented using the compiler specs rather than using make.conf and other unsavory hacks. The current toolchain is comprised of binutils-2.18-r3, glibc-2.9_p20081201-r4, and gcc-4.4.1-r2. The entire system build just fine with the exception of epiphany which still has to be linked using -z,lazy due to its ugly interrelated libraries. Hopefully all of the instabilities surrounding the new toolchain will be ironed out by the next release. In contrast, the kernel was held at the same version as before. It has proven very stable --- a good thing because it gives us time to work on the system binaries.

Approximately 125 packages were updated to sync upstream with Gentoo --- see the change log for full details. Some important core packages were update: bash, coreutils, python, readline and gtk+. Also updated were epiphany and mozilla-firefox.

Finally, we wanted our artwork to reflect the switch, so we've added some blue in with our gray motif. It still keeps that abstract feel without overwhelming the desktop.

Enjoy!