SUSE Linux Micro is a modern operating system primarily targeted for edge computing. This document provides a high-level overview of its features, capabilities, and limitations.
1 About the release notes #
These Release Notes are identical across all architectures, and the most recent version is always available online at https://www.suse.com/releasenotes.
Entries are only listed once but they can be referenced in several places if they are important and belong to more than one section.
Release notes usually only list changes that happened between two subsequent releases. Certain important entries from the release notes of previous product versions are repeated. To make these entries easier to identify, they contain a note to that effect.
However, repeated entries are provided as a courtesy only. Therefore, if you are skipping one or more service packs, check the release notes of the skipped service packs as well. If you are only reading the release notes of the current release, you could miss important changes.
1.1 Documentation and other information #
For the most up-to-date version of the documentation for SUSE Linux Micro, see:
2 SUSE Linux Micro Version 6.1 #
These release notes apply to SUSE Linux Micro 6.1.
2.1 Changes affecting all architectures #
2.1.1 Minimum hardware requirements #
SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 requires hardware to meet requirements on these architectures:
For AMD64 and Intel* 64 systems: Microarchitecture level x86-64-v2 or higher.
For IBM* Power LE systems: POWER10 or higher (see note below).
For Arm64* systems: Armv8.0-A or higher.
For IBM* Z systems: z14 or higher.
POWER9 systems may work with SL Micro 6.1 but are not supported by IBM, the hardware vendor.
2.1.2 SHA1 to be disabled or mark unapproved #
Due to FIPS 140-3 certification requirements, the SHA1 cryptographic algorithm will be disabled or marked unapproved when running in FIPS mode.
2.1.3 Installation media #
On top of the images described above with SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 we are adding PXE boot images (network boot .tar) for all architectures except ppc64le.
2.1.4 Supported Architectures #
SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 adds general support for the IBM Power platform (ppc64le) to the product. It requires at least IBM Power9. IBM Power8 is not supported.
2.1.5 Upgrade Path #
An online migration of existing SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.5 or SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 installations to SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 is possible and is fully supported.
2.1.6 Release numbering change #
In SUSE Linux Micro 6.1, the package release numbers start with slfo.1.1, while there was no such prefix in SUSE Linux Micro 6.0.
Due to this, the release numbers of SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 are lower than the ones on SUSE Linux Micro 6.0 (as the above translates to 0.1.1).
This is a known issue and will not happen in future releases.
The standard migration tooling will handle this correctly.
2.1.7 Password-based remote root login not allowed #
For enhanced security, new installations of SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 do not allow password-based remote root login anymore, which also affects Cockpit.
The login to Cockpit now requires to create and use an unprivileged user and to optionally set up 2-factor authentication with one-time passwords.
The firstboot-installer as well as ignition and the online tool fuel-ignition support this setup.
For more information about the procedure and other options see https://documentation.suse.com/sle-micro/6.1/html/Micro-cockpit/index.html#cockpit-authentication-basics.
2.1.8 Soft-Reboot support #
Ability to activate SW changes without the need to reboot. Support for soft-reboot is fully integrated in transactional-update and rebootmgr. It only reboots the userland, not the hardware or kernel. This reduces the downtime of SUSE Linux Micro dramatically, if the changes don’t contain an updated kernel or bootloader, as you don’t have to go through the full boot cycle to enable the new root subvolume. The behavior of reboot depends on the configuration and changes performed to the system. If soft-reboot is enabled, only the user space may be restarted without rebooting the hardware and kernel. To enable and configure soft-reboot functionality please refer to the documentation.
2.1.9 RAM Compressor (Z-RAM) #
ZRAM allows users to both compress main memory and therefore gain more compute resources on smaller systems, but also allows users to use a compressed area of main memory as a swap device, with the added option to back that by a block device. That allows the system to support more complex setups with limited resources available. Key benefits of zram are fast I/O operations and memory savings.
2.1.10 Active Directory #
SUSE Linux Micro supports integration with Active Directory environments based on sssd since SUSE Linux Micro 6.0.
2.1.11 Build Host and Build Date Metadata #
The RPM packages that SUSE Linux Micro uses are built with reproducible builds in mind. This is also reflected in the package metadata. For example, Build Host is now unified, and the package’s Build Date corresponds to the latest change in the package sources. In contrast, regular packages’s Build Date refers to the date when the package was built instead.
2.1.12 Helm has been added #
Helm has been added to SUSE Linux Micro 6.1.
2.1.13 podmansh added #
The podmansh package has been added.
It provides a confined login and user shell with access to volumes and capabilities specified in user quadlets.
2.1.14 LTTng is deprecated #
SUSE Linux Micro 6.1 provides support for LTTng (Linux Trace Toolkit: next generation). Support for LTTng will however be removed in a later SUSE Linux Micro version in favor of alternative solutions for tracing like bpftrace.
2.1.15 Extras channel #
A new channel called "SUSE Linux Micro Extras" has been added. It includes testing, development and certifications packages and components that are not normally included with the OS itself. These packages are not supported.
2.2 Arm 64-bit-specific features and fixes (AArch64) #
2.2.1 System-on-Chip driver enablement #
SL Micro 6.1 includes driver enablement for the following System-on-Chip (SoC) chipsets:
Ampere* X-Gene*, eMAG*, Altra*, Altra Max, AmpereOne*
AWS* Graviton, Graviton2, Graviton3
Broadcom* BCM2837/BCM2710, BCM2711
Fujitsu* A64FX
Huawei* Kunpeng* 916, Kunpeng 920
Marvell* ThunderX*, ThunderX2*; OCTEON TX*; Armada* 7040, Armada 8040
NVIDIA* Grace; Tegra* X1, Tegra X2, Xavier*, Orin; BlueField*, BlueField-2, BlueField-3
NXP* i.MX 8M, 8M Mini; Layerscape* LS1012A, LS1027A/LS1017A, LS1028A/LS1018A, LS1043A, LS1046A, LS1088A, LS2080A/LS2040A, LS2088A, LX2160A
Rockchip RK3399
Socionext* SynQuacer* SC2A11
Xilinx* Zynq* UltraScale*+ MPSoC
Driver enablement is done as far as available and requested. Refer to the following sections for any known limitations.
Some systems might need additional drivers for external chips, such as a Power Management Integrated Chip (PMIC), which may differ between systems with the same SoC chipset.
For booting, systems need to fulfill either the Server Base Boot Requirements (SBBR)
or the Embedded Base Boot Requirements (EBBR),
that is, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) either
implementing the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) or
providing a Flat Device Tree (FDT) table. If both are implemented, the kernel
will default to the Device Tree; the kernel command line argument acpi=force can
override this default behavior.
Check for SUSE YES! certified systems, which have undergone compatibility testing.
2.2.2 NVIDIA Orin minimum firmware requirements #
SLES 15 SP5 and SLE Micro 6.0 added initial enablement for the NVIDIA Orin* SoC (T234), which is found on Jetson* AGX Orin, Jetson Orin NX and Jetson Orin Nano System-on-Modules (SoM) as well as NVIDIA IGX Orin based systems.
NVIDIA JetPack* 6.1 boot firmware and Linux kernel 6.5 changed the Application Binary Interface (ABI) for numbering General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins — specifically the main GPIO ports X, Y, Z, AC, AD, AE, AF and AG — referenced in the machine-specific vendor Device Tree (DT) binary for NVIDIA Orin based systems.
SL Micro 6.1 adopts the behavior of the latest kernels and requires NVIDIA JetPack 6.1 or later boot firmware to be flashed on any NVIDIA Orin based platforms.
Refer to your system vendor’s documentation for how to enter Recovery Mode and
to flash the boot firmware.
For example: sudo ./flash.sh device-identifier-and-boot-medium external
2.3 Removed and deprecated features and packages #
This section lists features and packages that were removed from SUSE Linux Micro or will be removed in upcoming versions.
2.3.1 Removed features and packages #
busyboxsalt-masterk3scriunerdctl
3 Obtaining source code #
This SUSE product includes materials licensed to SUSE under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires SUSE to provide the source code that corresponds to the GPL-licensed material. The source code is available for download at https://www.suse.com/download/sle-micro/ on Medium 2. For up to three years after distribution of the SUSE product, upon request, SUSE will mail a copy of the source code. Send requests by e-mail to sle_source_request@suse.com. SUSE may charge a reasonable fee to recover distribution costs.
4 Legal notices #
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