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2. What has changed...

2.1 ...since version 2.x ?

To say it frankly, almost everything. The underlying concepts are the same, but the software part has been completly redesigned to overcome the limitations of previous versions and to make it easier to use. An highlight of the new features :

Is there a program for converting old archives to the new format ?

No, because the internal format is radically different. But you can easily do the conversion by yourself:

  1. Boot an old image (unzip it to your disk)
  2. Remove calls to the old unzipreg utility and replace them by the adequate patch commands (it is very easy, see the detailed instructions below)
  3. Run the new mrzip program to create a new-style disk image

2.2 ...since version 3.0 ?

Version 3.0 was the beta-release. A dozen of sites around the world have tested it during a month and given much of their time to help us finding bugs and to suggest enhancements. Thanks to all of them for their patience, and in particular to Maciek Uhlig, Dick Velders and Jeff Teeters.

A few minor features have been added since 3.01, such as support for diskless Linux boot (by disabling the cache).

Version 3.10 introduced compatibility with Intel's Wired for Management 1.1a NetPC standard. The tools now work with any PXE-compliant boot ROM (as are most on-board boot ROMs) available today. Thanks to InCom GmbH for giving us the PXE bootprom that permitted this developpment. We also succesfully tested the tools with the PXE Boot ROM that I found incidentally in my Dell computer with onboard network card (called LanDesk Service Agent).

Version 3.11 to 3.12 added UNIX server-side tools (a PXE Proxy DHCP server for Solaris and Linux, and an enhanced TFTP server for Linux), as well as detailled informations on server-side setup and the PXE booting process.

Version 3.13 added Advanced Power Management support (PowerOff command).

Version 3.14 added minor enhancements and some corrections. We fixed a problem with the terminal under RedHat 5.1, and another problem in the syntax of the "if" command. We added some features suggested by the Laboratori de Càlcul de la Facultat d'Informàtica de Barcelona (LCFIB) :

Version 3.15 added full VESA support. BpBatch now support several video modes, to accomodate old computers not being able to display 800x600 graphics. A new parameter has been added to InitGraph to specify the video mode, and a list of detected video mode can be retrieved from the new VESA-Modes variable.

Version 3.16 fixes the following bugs:

Version 3.17 adds some minor features and fixes bugs:

Version 3.18 fixes a bug with the IncrUnzip function. Thanks to Gary Pike for its collaboration.

Version 3.19 fixed a bug in the error handling of the delete command on ext2fs, as well as the inappropriate handling of names starting with A: under Linux. The following new features were also added:

Thanks to Ruben Schattevoy for its help and contributions to this release.


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