Just because the last couple months were quiet doesn’t mean that nothing’s
going on. Case in point, the last month of 2021 saw a ton of updates, though
many of them had been in the works for a long time.
Package Updates
yum
Yum now requires the ibmi-repos
package. This should hopefully mean a smooth transition to the new repos as
users update their installations.
If you have more questions please refer to the
FAQ
or reach out to me.
OpenBLAS
OpenBLAS has been updated to
0.3.19 which brings
optimized code paths for both POWER9 and Power10. In addition, OpenBLAS will
now determine the proper CPU optimizations and number of cores to use at
runtime automatically instead of having to set OPENBLAS_CORETYPE and
OPENBLAS_NUM_THREADS, respectively. Users can still set these values if they
want to override them.
NOTE: This package is only available for IBM i 7.3 and newer.
Python 3.9 packages
Python 3.9 packages for Numpy, Pandas, and other ML packages are now available!
This has been a long-awaited update for many users, especially as Python 3.6 is now
no longer supported.
In addition, many packages have been updated (including some major version changes) and
new dependencies packaged. You’ll definitely want to test your applications.
Full list of packages and versions:
numpy 1.21.4
pandas 1.3.4
scipy 1.7.3
scikit-learn 1.0.1
beniget 0.4.1
gast 0.5.3
joblib 1.1.0
ply 3.11
pybind11 2.8.1
pythran 0.10.0
threadpoolctl 3.0.0
NOTE: These packages are only available for IBM i 7.3 and newer.
CMake
CMake was updated to 3.16.9 and now builds svr4-style libraries when the
VERSION or SOVERSION property is set on a library target. The soname will
reflect the SOVERSION, unless not specified in which case it uses VERSION,
and if that is not specified, it builds an un-versioned shared object.
eg.
add_library(foo SHARED foo.c)
# Creates libfoo.so
add_library(bar SHARED bar.c)
set_target_properties(bar PROPERTIES SOVERSION 1)
# creates libbar.so -> libbar.so.1
add_library(baz SHARED baz.c)
set_target_properties(baz PROPERTIES VERSION 1.2.3)
# creates libbaz.so -> libbaz.so.1.2.3
add_library(bla SHARED bla.c)
set_target_properties(bix PROPERTIES VERSION 1.2.3 SOVERSION 1)
# creates libbla.so -> libbla.so.1
This brings CMake in line with libtool’s –with-aix-soname=svr4 option used
throughout our rpm ecosystem.
gdb
GDB has been rebuilt to use NCURSES instead of the PASE curses libraries. This
fixes errors when using terminals other than “xterm” or “aixterm” (eg.
xterm-256color used by most modern Linux terminals). It also now properly handles
UTF-8 locales when running in TUI mode.
OpenJDK 11
The OpenJDK 11 Early Access rpm has been updated to handle the SVR4-style
libraries we use in our rpm ecosystem when using dynamic linking. This fixes
problems when loading libraries for FreeType, GLib, OpenSSL, CUPS, Fontconfig,
libzip, and more.
libiconv
This package now provides a charset-alias sub-package shipping
/QOpenSys/pkgs/lib/charset.alias, which can be used as an rpm dependency for
other packages which depend on this file.
TK
TK is now built with the open source X.org X11 libraries
instead of the PASE X11 libraries.
p11-kit & ca-certificates
The system PKI trust directories (/QOpenSys/etc/pki/trust and
/QOpenSys/pkgs/share/pki/trust) changed ownership from the p11-kit package to
ca-certificates. Most users will not have the p11-kit package installed in
normal operation, which meant that these directories wouldn’t be either. This
made it more difficult for users to figure out where to put their own CA
certificates (eg. for self-signed certificates). In addition, we’ve added a
README file at /QOpenSys/etc/pki/trust/anchors/README.
Seiden Group
also has a great step-by-step article outlining the steps.
ca-certificates-mozilla
Speaking of CA certificates, the system CA certificate trust store, based on
Mozilla’s trust list, has been updated based on the NSS 3.60.
If you’re interested in all the changes:
NSS 3.45 CA Changes
NSS 3.46 CA Changes
NSS 3.48 CA Changes
NSS 3.54 CA Changes
NSS 3.57 CA Changes
NSS 3.60 CA Changes
Other Updates
python3 was updated to 3.6.15
python39 was updated to 3.9.8
service-commander was updated to 0.7.0 and
0.7.2
libutil has been updated to 0.11.1
nss updated to 3.68.1
nspr updated to 4.32
Closing
Well, that’s it for 2021. What a year!
We had some big new packages and versions:
GCC 10
OpenBLAS
Node.js 16
Python 3.9
ibmi-repos
FreeTDS
We also had quite a lot of smaller updates to packages like bash, curl,
db2util, nginx, R, etc. What was your favorite update this year?
Check back next week for the start of 2022 updates.
