[conspire] Re: Fedora Core 3 for a Celeron Dell desktop box

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from wood eddie <ewood111 at yahoo.com> -----

Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 08:30:35 -0800 (PST)
From: wood eddie <ewood111 at yahoo.com>
To: installers at linuxmafia.com
Subject: Dec 10 CABAL 4pm at Menlo Park(Linux install Fest)

Thanks.  Perhaps some background would be of help:
Legacy code from 2-3 years ago(2002 era) runs fine on
pre-existing Dell Optiplex GX110. This runs Redhat
Linux 7.3. Now need another workstation to continue
this work. Legacy code consists of some 'C'/C++, Java,
and some 'packages', some open source some
proprietary.  Somehow when time to get a new
workstation, a Dell Optiplex GX520 was purchased. 
Initial attempt to run RHL 7.3 did not bode well due
to X.11 and USB mouse anomaly, network adapter support
seems to be missing as well.  First attempt was done
at SVLUG Mt. View last month(Nov 2005) where
recommendation was to go to a supported Rehat release
hence FC1, FC3, FC4.  Also, some testing on FC3(but
not FC4) with legacy code which seems to work OK
initially, based on limited testing. 

Bottom line: it would fit purchase if can make RHL 7.3
to run on GX520.  Barring this, might have to run say
FC3/4, then VMWare on top, so can support RHL 7.3. 
Thats all I have.  So whats the recommendated
suggestion ? BTW, believe VMWare had version that
supports RHL 7.3 and Redhat Enterprise but not FC. So
the present effort on FC may not be the way to go
afterall, unless can make VMware to run on top of
FC3/4. Hope I am making sense here. Thx, Eddie


- Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

[snip Eddie's upside-down quoting]

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----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 10:49:09 -0800
To: wood eddie <ewood111 at yahoo.com>
Cc: installers at linuxmafia.com
Subject: Re: Dec 10 CABAL 4pm at Menlo Park(Linux install Fest)
Reply-To: installers at linuxmafia.com
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>

Quoting wood eddie (ewood111 at yahoo.com):

> Thanks.  Perhaps some background would be of help: Legacy code from
> 2-3 years ago(2002 era) runs fine on pre-existing Dell Optiplex GX110.
> This runs Redhat Linux 7.3. Now need another workstation to continue
> this work. Legacy code consists of some 'C'/C++, Java, and some
> 'packages', some open source some proprietary.  Somehow when time to
> get a new workstation, a Dell Optiplex GX520 was purchased.  Initial
> attempt to run RHL 7.3 did not bode well due to X.11 and USB mouse
> anomaly, network adapter support seems to be missing as well.  First
> attempt was done at SVLUG Mt. View last month(Nov 2005) where
> recommendation was to go to a supported Rehat release hence FC1, FC3,
> FC4.  Also, some testing on FC3(but not FC4) with legacy code which
> seems to work OK initially, based on limited testing. 
> 
> Bottom line: it would fit purchase if can make RHL 7.3 to run on
> GX520.  Barring this, might have to run say FC3/4, then VMWare on top,
> so can support RHL 7.3.  Thats all I have.  So whats the recommendated
> suggestion ? BTW, believe VMWare had version that supports RHL 7.3 and
> Redhat Enterprise but not FC. So the present effort on FC may not be
> the way to go afterall, unless can make VMware to run on top of FC3/4.
> Hope I am making sense here. 

Eddie --

Thanks for giving us a more-precise understanding of your situation.

How would you feel about installing CentOS in place of FC4?  CentOS is
(in my view) the best of the community "rebuilds" of Red Hat Enterprise
Linux, providing _precisely_ the same software contents as (at present)
RHEL4 Update 2 or RHE3 Update 6 (your choice of two development
branches), with the bare minimum of changes performed to replace Red
Hat, Inc.'s trademark-encumbered images, names, and stylings.  Thus, but
for trademark-based branding, it _is_ RHEL.

I would strongly discourage installing RH 7.3 at this extremely late
date:  It is no longer a reasonable option on both security and
hardware-support grounds.  Just to make sure I didn't succumb to
temptations to install it for someone in a moment of weakness, I long
ago threw away my installation media.  ;->

You would know better than I what the system-compatiblity needs of your 
legacy C, C++, Java, and sundry-binary software is, but key version
numbers (e.g., libraries, kernels) are shown on DistroWatch's pages for 
CentOS, among other places:

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=centos

We have i386 CDs for CentOS 4.2 (equivalent of RHEL4 Update 2).  I don't
think we currently have CentOS 3.6 (equivalent of RHEL3 Update 6), but 
could fetch those if you expected to need them.

I would speculate that your code might be tripping up on FC4's v 2.6.11
kernel and possibly its v. 2.3.5 glibc.  You'll notice that CentOS 3.6 
has kernel 2.4.21 and glibc 2.3.2 (as opposed to CentOS 4.2's kernel
v. 2.6.9 and glibc v. 2.3.4).

Over the longer term, you're going to have to deal with RH 7.3
dependency being a _big_ problem:

If you see "RH Releases" on http://linuxmafia.com/kb/RedHat/ , you'll
see that the RH 7.x architecture is absolutely dead, dead, dead:  The
last release using that architecture was RHAS (now called RHEL) v. 2.1
in 2002.  Red Hat is committed in theory to supporting _commercial_ RHAS 
2.1 customers through 2007, which in practice will almost certainly mean 
just the bare minimum of security fixes required to limp those customers
along until the support contracts expirt -- and nothing _at all_ for 
RH 7.x itself.  Third-party support efforts for 7.x are thin, and
haven't been working very well.  (It's a bit of a thankless task.)

Again, referring to my "RH Releases" page, you'll see that the
severely-aging-but-not-yet-dead RHEL3 architecture is a retread of RH9.
This is corporate America's current gold standard for Linux (though the
smarter ones are migrating to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9).  FC1, but 
not later Fedora Core releases, recycles that architeture.  It uses RH's 
heavily patched 2.4.21 kernel and the reasonably stable v. 2.3.2 glibc.  
For now, that would be fine for a Celeron system.  (For x86-64, by
contrast, RHEL3 and kin are dysfunctional, which is one reason why that
architecture's a dead-end.)

And, of course, the newer RHEL4 (CentOS 4.2) architecture, like
Novell/SUSE's SLES9 release, radically departs from that to use very
modern 2.3.x glibc versions and 2.6 kernels.

Your legacy code, like a lot of people's is going to get clobbered in
that transition:  Your challenge for 2005-6 will be to find something
functional _and maintainable_ to run it.  I suspect that CentOS 3.6
will be your correct answer.

Apologies for length, but I expect the above will help you understand
the current RH-compatible landscape better.

-- 
Cheers,             
Rick Moen                 "Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor."
rick at linuxmafia.com                                   -- Elizabeth Tudor

----- End forwarded message -----