This is FreeMiNT 1.15.12, official release
==========================================

Fourth release of FreeMiNT 1.15
-------------------------------

This is an improved and bugfixed version of the 1.15.5 release.

Thanks to all betatesters who tested intensivly the beta versions
and helped me and all other FreeMiNT contributors with suggestions
and constructive critic or interesting discussions.

This FreeMiNT version is dedicated to the MiNT community. Without the
contributions of the community members there would be nothing todo.

The most important changes:

- new system calls: Pvalidate()/Maccess()/Ptrace()/Psysctl()/Fpoll()/
  Fseek64()/emulation()
- improvements in the memory management
- improvements in the module handling and kernel interface
- bugfixes of some bad bugs
- finalized cvs integration of all kernel modules
- updates and enhancements of the kernel modules

Very important:

The kernel modules are no longer maintained seperatly!
This implies too that there are no seperate packages for each of the
modules. If you ever maintained/packed/shipped 10 modules and the FreeMiNT
kernel and lot of kernel related tools you understand that this is a pure
waste of time. With CVS it's possible to reduce this overhead dramatically.
I'm sure you understand this. The archives are a little bit bigger but
all modules are consistent to the kernel version.

See in ChangeLog.#1.15.12 for more details.


Contributors:

  - Thomas Binder <gryf@hrzpub.tu-darmstadt.de>
  - Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz <draco@mi.com.pl>
  - Guido Flohr <guido@freemint.de>
  - Michael Schwingen <rincewind@tubul.dascon.de>
  - Ralph Lowinski <ralph@aquaplan.de>
  - Jens Heitmann <jheitmann@debitel.net>
  - Odd Skancke <oskancke@online.no>
  - and me


Frank Naumann
<fnaumann@freemint.de>

2000-07-31, Magdeburg

==============================================================================
******************************************************************************
==============================================================================


This is FreeMiNT 1.15.5, official release
=========================================

Third public release of the new FreeMiNT 1.15
---------------------------------------------

This is an improved and bugfixed version of the 1.15.1 release.

Thanks to all betatesters who tested intensivly the beta versions
and helped me and all other FreeMiNT contributors with suggestions
and constructive critic or interesting discussions.

This FreeMiNT version is dedicated to the MiNT community. Without the
contributions of the community members there would be nothing todo.

The most important changes:

- new system calls: Ffchown(), Ffchmod(), Dchroot(), Fstat64()
- optional native UTC mode for filesystems
- better shutdown, FreeMiNT never returns to TOS now
- new INITIALMEM configuration option (config file/run time)
- support MagiC style shared libraries
- support program header flag F_SMALLTPA (introduced by MagiC)
- and lot of bugfixes and other improvements

See in ChangeLog.#1.13-1.15.9 for more details.


Contributors:

  - Thomas Binder <gryf@hrzpub.tu-darmstadt.de>
  - Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz <draco@mi.com.pl>
  - Guido Flohr <guido@freemint.de>
  - Andreas Baer <asbaer@asrael.franken.de>
  - Michael Schwingen <rincewind@tubul.dascon.de>
  - Ralph Lowinski <ralph@aquaplan.de>
  - Joerg Westheide <Joerg_Westheide@su.maus.de>
  - and I


Frank Naumann
<fnaumann@freemint.de>

Magdeburg, 16.11.1999

==============================================================================
******************************************************************************
==============================================================================


This is FreeMiNT 1.15.1, official release
=========================================

Second public release of the new FreeMiNT 1.15.
----------------------------------------------

This is mostly a bugfixed and speed optimized version of the 1.15.0 release.

Thanks to all betatesters who tested intensivly the beta versions
and helped me and all other FreeMiNT contributors with suggestions
and constructive critic or interesting discussions.

This FreeMiNT version is dedicated to the MiNT community. Without the
contributions of the community members there would be nothing todo.

The most important changes:

- 040/060 MMU (memory protection) support
- fix bug in 030 memory protection code (working now)
- complete new and much faster kernel internal memory management
  - efficient 3 way algorithm
- new Ssystem information and configuration options
  - processor cache information & handling
  - extended kernel informations
  - extended debug settings
- new Dcntl supported (DP_VOLNAMEMAX)
- fixes and improvements in the NEWFATFS:
  - software configurable writeprotect mode on filesystem level
  - more sanity checks and verifications
  - enhanced FAT32 support
  - better shell support, x-bit emulation
  - complete working lookup
  - fix some other minor bugs related to directory handling,
  - fix floppy disk bug
  - pseudo permission support
- fixes and improvements in the buffer cache:
  - resident caching (interface enhancement)
  - remove redundant code
  - large read caching
  - writeback optimziation
  - signed - unsigned bugfixes
  - bugfixes in mapping routines
- rewritten syscall entry strategie
- lot of speed optimizations in periodically tasks
- complete new enhanced CNF parser
- rewritten Psigintr(), working now much better
- own processor detection
- automatic cpush adaption
- updates for the TOSFS
- fix 14 partition problem
- fix for CENTEK II users (TOS version detection)
- better Milan support
- and lot of other minor fixes and cleanups

See in ChangeLog.#1.13-1.15.9 for more details.


Contributors:

  - Thomas Binder <gryf@hrzpub.tu-darmstadt.de>
  - Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz <draco@mi.com.pl>
  - Guido Flohr <guido@freemint.de>
  - Michael Schwingen <rincewind@tubul.dascon.de>
  - Julian F. Reschke <fjr010@email.mot.com>
  - Ralph Lowinski <ralph@aquaplan.de>
  - Katherine L. Ellis <kellis@primenet.com>
  - Christian Felsch <felsch@tu-harburg.de>
  - Rainer Seitel <Rainer_Seitel@ka.maus.de>
  - and I


Frank Naumann
<fnaumann@freemint.de>

Magdeburg, 08.05.1999

==============================================================================
******************************************************************************
==============================================================================


This is FreeMiNT 1.15.0, official release
=========================================

First public release of the new FreeMiNT 1.15.
----------------------------------------------

Thanks to all the people who've helped me, all betatesters and
all who've send patches, bug reports or suggestions.

Special thanks to Katherine L. Ellis for her great
MiNT-Setter and the permission to include this program
in the distribution. It's freeware, copyright by Kellis.
Also Katherine L. Ellis checked my english documentation.

Special thanks to Christian Felsch for his great
FSetter and the permission to include this program
also in the distribution. Also freeware, copyright by Christian.

Thanks to Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz, Rainer Seitel, Thomas Binder,
Julian F. Reschke, Mikko Larjava, Daniel Petersson, Petr Strehlik
and Jo Even Jarkstein for betatests, suggestions and patches.

Thanks to all betatesters that I'm not mentionning here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a list of extensions relative to FreeMiNT 1.14.7:

1) new FAT filesystem has been added. You can activate it for selected
   disks using MINT.CNF command NEWFATFS followed by a list of drives. For
   example:

   NEWFATFS=D,E,F,H

   will activate the new FAT filesystem on drives D:, E:, F and H:
   respectively. The rest of FAT filesystems will be handled by the old
   TOS filesystem.

   NOTICE: it is planned for the future to remove the old TOS FS from the
   MiNT kernel; all FAT drives will be handled by the MiNT FAT filesystem
   driver. This time the keyword NEWFATFS will also be removed as it won't
   be necessary anymore.

   The new filesystem features VFAT extension supporting long filenames.
   The FAT extension may be activated using VFAT cnf keyword:

   VFAT=D,F,H

   will activate VFAT extension for drives D:, F: and H: respectively. It
   is NOT recommended to use VFAT extension for your BOOT drive.

The new FAT/FAT32/VFAT filesystem makes now possible to have long
filenames and large partitions under MultiTOS without the Minix filesystem
driver (MINIX.XFS). However, we still recommend using Minix XFS to run
multiuser environments and Unix software.

There are no limits in the new FAT/FAT32/VFAT filesystem. It can handle
large DOS partitions and GEM/BGM partitions of any size. For FAT32 you need at
least HDDriver 7.55 (older version doesn't handle the different partition ID).
The new partition ID 'F32' (like GEM, BGM) is for ATARI compatible
partitions reserved and also featured by HDDriver 7.55.

A tool to create FAT32 partitions has been created (mkfatfs 0.2 beta). It's
included in this distribution in util\.

2) filesystem caching is now handled internally by the kernel. The size of
   the cache may be controlled using CACHE keyword in MINT.CNF, for
   example:

   CACHE=500

   allocates 500 kilobytes for disk caches.

   The cache supports the write-back feature that can be enabled or disabled for
   each drive. The write-back feature is disabled on all drives as default.
   On startup you can enable it using WB_ENABLE keyword in the MINT.CNF file:

   WB_ENABLE=D,E,F,H

   enables the write-back cache for drives D:, E:, F and H: respectively.

With the nice tool MiNTSetter by Katherine L. Ellis <kellis@primenet.com> you
can change a lot of options from 1) and 2) on the fly.
The latest version of MiNTSetter is on: http://www.primenet.com/~kellis/

With FSetter from Christian Felsch <felsch@tu-harburg.de> you can
control all settings of NEWFATFS on the fly.
The latest version from FSetter is on: http://www.tu-harburg.de/~smcf1605/

3) fastload mode can be now forced for all programs using FASTLOAD=YES
   command in the CNF file.

4) VM extension has been disabled.

5) The kernel has now a new time package. Please refer to the file
   doc/minttime.doc and doc/timezone.doc for details and use.

6) The XBIOS is now fully protected from an unprivileged access. All XBIOS
   functions need root euid at SECURELEVEL > 0. Supexec() needs root euid
   at SECURELEVEL > 1. Only Random() and Cursconf() are accessible for
   users at any security level.

7) Behaviour of the protection code is changed once more (I hope this was
   the last time). When a program calls what it should not, the call is
   ignored and EACCDN (-36) is returned. For Super() and Supexec() this
   means that the calling program will most likely die very soon due to
   bus error or privilege violation. Id est: no kills are made when a
   program is calling a protected function, but it is expected that
   the forbidden action will later raise a signal, that will most probably
   kill the faulty program.

   If the returned value (-36) confused the calling application (because
   it expected a pointer as a response, for example), it can go
   vegetables. In this case the usual hardware protection as well as the
   memory protection mechanism should prevent it from destroying the
   system.

   NOTICE: the protection means, that you probably will not be able to
   run common GEM software or GEM itself without root privileges at
   SECURELEVEL > 0 !

8) DSP related XBIOS functions on Falcon should work OK now. It mainly
   refers to the Dsp_LodToBinary() and Dsp_LoadProg().

9) add some provisional MILAN support

10) new MiNT.CNF keyword 'HIDE_B=' to disable completly drive B:


Contributors:

- the new time keeping functions have been developed and applied, as well
  as a bunch of doc files, manpages and other supplementary files have
  been written, and collected by Guido Flohr <gufl0000@stud.uni-sb.de>.

- ST ESCC support has been developed by Harald Denker
  <harry@hal.westfalen.de> and applied to the kernel with all necessary
  modifications by Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz <draco@mi.com.pl>

- new FAT/FAT32/VFAT filesystem and new global buffer cache management
  by me.

- other changes, bugfixes and supplementary programs have been contributed by:
  - Thomas Binder <gryf@hrzpub.tu-darmstadt.de>
  - Katherine L. Ellis <kellis@primenet.com>
  - Christian Felsch <felsch@tu-harburg.de>
  - Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz <draco@mi.com.pl>
  - Mikko Larjava <mitala@nic.funet.fi>, 68060 cache patch (once more)
  - Daniel Petersson <tam@dataphone.se>
  - Julian F. Reschke <fjr010@email.mot.com>
  - Rainer Seitel <Rainer_Seitel@ka.maus.de>

Refer to the ChangeLog.#1.13-1.15.9 for the detailed list of changes.


Frank Naumann
<fnaumann@freemint.de>

Magdeburg, 08.10.1998
