LSB 5.0 Beta 2

The LSB workgroup is happy to announce the availability of LSB 5.0 Beta 2.

Please note that the specification is not yet final and changes are likely to be made before final release.

We are calling for testers to test their applications and distributions against this release. Please try out the beta, and report any bugs to the lsb-discuss mailing list or to our bug tracker.

• lsb-discuss: http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lsb-discuss

. * LSB bug tracker: https://lsbbugs.linuxfoundation.org/

For a complete list of changes from LSB 4.1, please see the LSB Statistics page here:

http://www.linuxbase.org/navigator/browse/status.php

Look for the “5.0” entries.

The specification is here:

http://www.linuxbase.org/betaspecs/

Note that we intend to release both LSB 5.0 and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) 3.0 at the same time, so both specs listed here are relevant.

Downloads for the Application Checker for LSB 5.0 are here:

http://ftp.linuxfoundation.org/pub/lsb/bundles/beta/app-testkit/

The versions with “-local” in the name can be installed and run by non-root users; those without “-local” are intended to be installed at a system level, and require root access. Instructions for using the LSB Application Checker are here:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/lsb/linux-application-checker-getting-started

Downloads for the Distribution Checker for LSB 5.0 are here:

http://ftp.linuxfoundation.org/pub/lsb/bundles/beta/dist-testkit/

To run the LSB 5.0 tests, go to “Custom Tests”, click “Refresh List”, and then select the “Standard” drop-down. LSB 5.0 should be an option in that list. Select the tests you wish to run, and click “Run Selected Tests”.

Note that the Distribution Checker itself has not changed; if you have a current version, you do not need to download the beta from the above link. Simply follow the above directions without reinstalling the Distribution Checker.

To test the SDK, simply download and use the current stable SDK, available from here:

http://ftp.linuxfoundation.org/pub/lsb/bundles/released-4.1.0/sdk/

It contains support (turned off by default) for LSB 5.0. To use it, set the environment variable “LSBCC_LSBVERSION” to “5.0” before building. To revert back to normal usage, unset the environment variable.

There are a number of known bugs in LSB 5.0. For a complete list, see the following rollup bug:

https://lsbbugs.linuxfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3164

Some of the most prominent issues:

• The tests for the S390 and S390X are not built yet; these will be made available as their builds complete.
• The 'libstdcpp-test' test suite (reported in Dist Checker as “Libstdc++ Tests”) is having trouble building on some architectures. Snapshots are available from within Dist Checker, but they may be out of date.
• The portion of the standard covering GTK+ 3 is still preliminary, with a number of issues still to be fixed.