[cAos-devel] My recent spate of commits

[Michael Jennings]

On Wednesday, 14 February 2007, at 14:32:41 (-0500),
Tim Leger wrote:

> Speaking of which and out of curiosity, is there a newer
> installation/cinch version of cAos 2 planned for the foreseeable
> future

Yes, a new install CD is forthcoming due to the libxml2 core update
and the newer kernels available.

> I've been using and administering Linux setups for the past 5+
> years, but finding the time to track down the plethora of
> dependencies some applications take can be hard to do :) .

If you could provide details on what you're wanting, we might be able
to help.  Or you may want to try building packages from the caos2 tree
on caos3; I've had some success there.

> I was temporarily able to get around this by borrowing a controller
> card, but even with that out of the way, nothing else on the
> motherboard like the ethernet port would work with version 2.2b.  I
> even tried upgrading the kernel to a much newer one, and though the
> system would then start to boot from the onboard SATA port, it ran
> into some other issues that Michael told me were related to the
> cinch installer.

Actually I believe they were due to the kernel having issues with
SATA.  2.6.19.2-109.caos should work better.

> Granted version 2.2b was released at the end of October last year,
> but the kernel in the release is almost a year old.

Now let's be fair.  2.6.17.11-103.caos is the kernel on the 2.2b
install image, and 2.6.17.11 was not released until August 23rd of
last year.  So "almost a year old" is a 6-month exaggeration. :)

> That said, the 430 MCP chipset has been on the market for more than
> a year.  That's why I was so surprised the the cAos 3 (beta 3) was
> able to detect and use everything on the motherboard without any
> issues first time.

Perhaps Greg has been making updates to sidekick/detect which need to
be backported to caos2....  :)

> I have not seen a newer version for cAos 2 than 2.2b on any of the
> mirror websites.  Is there another version being hosted somewhere
> else?

Only if you count my hard drive. ;-)  As I said, I've been waiting for
the libxml2 update which Martyn so graciously provided; now that it's
been pushed into the core, new ISO's will be forthcoming.

> For me personally, a package called systemimager is a must.  Under
> cAos 2.2b I was able to just use the RPM's available for it and
> everything worked fine.

We do have a systemimager package in our repository as I was the
original packager for SI back when Brian and I worked at VA together.
My involvement died out when VA laid us off as I no longer had the
equipment to handle SI any longer.

If you'd like to take a look at the failures and maybe help get them
resolved, the autobuilder log is here:

http://mirror.caosity.org/cAos-2/ext/autobuilder/i386/00_LOGS/cluster/systemimager/systemimager.log.broken

> I'll have to get you a report on this (what I tried and what went
> wrong), maybe you can figure it out or possibly even work in
> conjunction with the systemimager folk, just my 2 cents.

Mention my name to Brian Finley and/or CC me in on your conversations;
we've worked together numerous times before to resolve SI packaging
issues.





On Thursday, 15 February 2007, at 16:51:56 (+0000),
Martyn wrote:

> I ran into similar issues with 2.2b the other day and grabbed our
> latest kernel from -testing (2.6.19.2 if I recall correctly) and
> "fudged" a new cinch.  Unfortunately that didn't seem to help as
> mkinitrd doesn't seem to like mirrored (md, linsoftraid) sata disks.

I've had no trouble with mirrored SATA disks.  We have several
machines using them now, in fact, which were installed with 2.2b
(albeit the older kernel).

> Greg, there's a README on the cd on how to create a later cinch, but
> nowhere can I find the scripts it refers to, any news on where
> they've gone?

They're in CVS.  I'll try to remember to document the process in the
wiki next time I spin new ISO's.

> I'm starting to worry about things being brought into ports that
> could just as easily (and in my view more neatly) be just dealt with
> by the autobuilder.

There's a lot that Mezz can do with CVS repo packages that people
don't know about or don't give it credit for.  But some people seem to
like doing it their own way, so more power to 'em.

> One of the great things I tell people when they say "errr but
> there's no documentation for cAos..." is "It's very similar to
> redhat, fedora etc. just grab a guide that doesn't use the
> redhat-specific tools".  If we end up more akin to gentoo/bsd, we
> loose that genericness which I feel is a selling point for cAos.

The Ports system was never intended to replace our build system or the
autobuilder.

> Of course, c3 having no yum, blows my argument out of the water
> anyway, but I'm still hoping someone with more packaging experience
> than me can do something about that.

It's true that cAos 3 lacks yum.  But I've never considered the
omission of a broken, unreliable, fundamentally flawed piece of
software a weakness.  :-)

"ln -s grab /usr/bin/yum" isn't the most horrible solution to that
"problem" either...just sayin'.

Michael

-- 
Michael Jennings (a.k.a. KainX)  http://www.kainx.org/  <mej at kainx.org>
n + 1, Inc., http://www.nplus1.net/       Author, Eterm (www.eterm.org)
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 "The breakup was mutual, but it was more mutual on my part."
                                                        -- Beth O'Hara