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===== 2008-07-21: SL5.2 Update, firefox3, pine -> alpine =====

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Tonight, all SL5 farm nodes will be updated to SL5.2, with SL5 desktop PCs following two days later. With this update, the pine e-mail application will finally be superseded by alpine. And finally, firefox will be updated to version 3 tonight. 

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Here's a copy of the announcement sent to the computing list today:

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Dear Colleagues,

we'd like to inform you about a few imminent changes:

== SL5 Update to 5.2 ==

This is a regular "minor update", and we do not expect any problems for
users. Farm nodes will be updated tonight, with desktop PCs and workgroup
servers following in the night from wednsesday to thursday.

If you'd like to test SL5.2 before, you can do so on host lx64.ifh.de.
If you'd like to have selected systems updated earlier, please let us know.

== Firefox 3 ==

Tonight, we will roll out the update to firefox 3 on all SL5 systems. We
hope that this will bring en end to the stability problems many users
observed. We are aware of these changes that might affect users:

 * Your bookmarks, history, and some other items are stored in a different
 format. The conversion happens the first time you start the new firefox.
 Afterwards, new bookmarks will not show up should you ever revert to firefox
 1.5 or 2.0.

 * This new format may require significantly more space (up to 50 MB) in your
 ~/.mozilla

 * The way mailto: URLs are handled has changed. Firefox will now use
 whatever is specified as the preferred application in the user's GNOME
 environment. GNOME users find the "Preferred Applications" item in the Menu
 "System" -> "Preferences" -> "More Preferences". Users of different desktop
 environments can launch "gnome-default-applications-properties" instead. An
 example setting for pine/alpine users is shown here:

 {{attachment:SL5_User_Information/Bildschirmfoto-Preferred-Applications.png}}

== pine superseded by alpine ==

With the 5.2 update, alpine will finally supersede pine. You should think of
alpine as a new version of pine, with the name reflecting the more liberal
license of alpine (the pine one was a bit cumbersome).

Former pine users should have no problem using alpine.

Compatibility symlinks like pine -> alpine are provided for the time being.


With Best Regards,

        Your Linux Admins