The ThinLinc development team is proud to present ThinLinc 1.4.0. This
release is a major step forward in terms of functionality, reliability
and compatibility. More than 180 enhancements have been applied since
the previous release.

Together with ThinLinc 1.4.0, we are announcing a new product: The
ThinLinc LiveCD. By booting the entire operating system off a CD, the
LiveCD provides a fully secure environment for the ThinLinc client,
immune to viruses, spyware and other types of malicious code present
on the PCs hard drive. The ThinLinc LiveCD is ideal for users
connecting to the organization remotely. It is based on the
award-winning KNOPPIX software.


General

o ThinLinc 1.4.0 is based on the fourth generation VNC technology,
which gives better performance and enhanced functionality compared
to previous versions.

o One Time Passwords (OTPs) are now supported. The OTP support has
been developed in cooperation with NordicEdge AB. We have tested
One Time Passwords with the NordicEdge One Time Password Server,
which has built-in support for ThinLinc.

o The limit on the number of concurrent sessions per server has been
raised from 99 to 2000. Note: Updated ThinLinc clients are
required when using more than 99 users per server.

o CodeWeavers CrossOver Office Professional has been certified for
ThinLinc.


Client

o The performance of the Windows client has been greatly improved.

o The client automatically selects the best encoding for transfer of
graphic data, based on the available bandwidth.

o The client now reports the language of the client OS to the
server. This means that it is now possible to have the ThinLinc
session automatically use the same language as the client.

o Client packages for additional Fujitsu-Siemens Futro terminals are
included. All terminals using the UC_GEODE_P1, UC_VIA, and
UC_TRANSMETA containers are supported. This includes the Futro
B100, B2xx, and S2XX terminals. Note: eLux (R) NG is
required. Terminals using the older eLux (R) 1.1 software are no
longer supported.

o The UNIX (R) clients now supports confirmation of changed server
host keys. Earlier, it was necessary to manually edit or remove
the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file if the server host key was changed.

o It is no longer necessary to confirm the SSH host keys of each
terminal server. It is sufficient to confirm the host key of the
VSM server host. This is convenient for the users, but is also
good from a security perspective: It frees the user from the
responsibility of correctly verifying the host key of new VSM
Agent hosts, leaving this important task to the system itself.

o The Swedish translation of the UNIX (R) client now works correctly
in UTF8 environments.

o The password input field in the client is now cleared after an
unsuccessful login.


Server

o The X Server is now based on the X.Org X11R6.8.2 release. Several
modern extensions are supported:

o The RENDER extension brings anti-aliased alpha blended text and
graphics to the X Window System.

o The GLX extension provides OpenGL (R) support.

o The DAMAGE extension allows applications to be notified whenever
something is drawn to a window.

o The XFIXES extension is a collection of improvements for
deficiencies in the core protocol.

Together, these extensions enhances the performance and appearance
of modern desktop environments and applications.

o ThinLinc 1.4.0 features a new High Availability (HA)
implementation, with many advantages:

o HA is now supported on Solaris.

o No extra kernel modules are required.

o The implementation is simpler and more reliable.

o Less configuration is required.

o A serial (null modem) connection between the HA nodes is no
longer required.

o This release has been tested on the following platforms:

o Red Hat (R) Linux 7.3

o Red Hat (R) Enterprise Linux 4

o SUSE (R) LINUX Enterprise Server 9

o Sun Solaris (R) 8

o A new logging system is used. It is now possible to log to a
"syslog" server, as well as select what events to log with greater
flexibility.

o Improved load balancing: The system is now updating the cluster
status more rapidly. The system also adapts to broken servers in a
much better way compared to the previous release, leading to
higher availability of the ThinLinc cluster.

o A new utility, tl-clean-sessiondir, has been added. It can be used
to purge the directory tree /var/opt/thinlinc/sessions
automatically. This utility is enabled by default, but can be
disabled easily.

o It is now possible to display a progress bar during the session
startup.

o The initialization of the users' groups is faster, especially when
using LDAP directory servers. This results in faster session
startup on systems with many users and groups.

o It is now possible to redirect users in certain groups to specific
servers in the cluster, instead of having the load balancer select
the server with the lightest load. This is useful in many
scenarious, such as when testing out software upgrades or defining
template desktops.

o When shadowing takes place, the user can (optionally) be
notified. Shadowing notification is not activated by default.

o The utility tl-upload-terminfo has been removed.

o Tools translated to Swedish now works correctly in UTF8
environments.

o The Clipboard support has been enhanced. Copy and paste between
the client and X11 applications running on the ThinLinc server
works, and it is not longer necessary to use the "autocutsel"
utility.

o The Webmin administration module is now easier to work with,
especially when many printers and terminals are used.


TLCOS

o The Kickstart configuration file has been divided into several,
smaller parts. This makes configuration easier, and also makes it
possible to use the same ks.cfg with several different versions of
TLCOS, including future versions.


Novell NetWare (R) Integration

o A new tool, tl-nds-posixgroup, is able to automatically assign the
required attributes to Novell eDirectory groups, so that the group
can be used in a POSIX environment. This utility is similiar to
tl-nds-posixuser.


Windows (R) Integration

o ThinLinc 1.4.0 includes a new load balancing mechanism for Windows
(R) Terminal Services. The new implementation is based on the
nrpe_nt project, and has several advantages. The Remote Registry
service is no longer required. The new mechanism also works better
in Novell NetWare (R) environments, with Dynamic Local Users.

The old NSClient software is no longer necessary, but can co-exist
with the new ThinLinc Load Agent.

o Please note: ThinLinc 1.4.0 has not been tested with Windows
Server 2003 Service Pack 1.


Documentation

o A troubleshooting guide is now included. It aims to help system
administrators to track down and resolve problems with the
ThinLinc system.

o The documentation now includes a chapter which explains how
ThinLinc can be integrated in different network environments, such
as Novell and Microsoft environments.

o The complete documentation is included on the client CD.



OpenGL (R) is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Windows (R) is a registered trademark of Microsoft, Inc.
NetWare (R) is a registered trademark of Novell, Inc.
SUSE (R) is a registered trademark of SuSE AG
Solaris (R) is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Red Hat (R) is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc.
Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
UNIX (R) is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
eLux (R) is a registered trademark of UniCon Software GmbH in Germany.