[OpenAFS] Fedora 5

[Derek Atkins]

Peter,

"Peter M. Metcalf" <pmetcalf@nd.edu> writes:

> Derek,
> Well, so far I have contacted the list about 3 times and I've yet to come up
> with that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when a "mentor" takes you into his
> confidence and helps you over a problem.

I'm sorry you feel that way.  I've been trying to answer questions as
best as I can.  I admit that many times my answers are terse.  I
studied at MIT where the philosophy is all about learning how to
learn.  I don't give answers -- I try to teach you how to find the
answers yourself.  "Give a man a fish you feed him for a day.  Teach a
man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."  Teach a man how to
install the proper kernel development package and they can do it
themselves when the next update happens.  *shrugs* If you want
personalized, one on one, friendly, thorough tech support contact me
offline and we can discuss my consulting rates.

Basically... Right now there are no RPMS for FC5.  The reasons are
many-fold:

0) FC5 was only released last week
1) There hasn't been an OpenAFS release that actually supports FC5
   kernels, only a release candidate (1.4.1rc10)
2) The default FC5 kernel doesn't work with PAGs (although this is fixed
   in an update kernel that should be out soon)
3) I've been sick
4) It took me a while to get FC5 install media downloaded, considering
   I was out of town when FC5 was released
5) I've been sick
6) It took me a while to get FC5 CDs burned (I'm still testing them now
   as I write this), because I only recently got back in town where
   all my media is located.
7) I've been sick
8) It's taken me time to clean off my VMware hard drive to make space
   to install FC5..  It took me a while to archive the old VMs that I
   want to save but don't feel I need online..  It took me a while to
   verify that the backups succeeded..  And all of this meant I didn't
   have any room to install an FC5 VM.   I /finally/ got that done and
   installed this afternoon.
9) There still isn't any official OpenAFS release that supports FC5.
   I'm working with the OpenAFS people to determine whether I should
   build RPMs of 1.4.1rc10 or rather wait a few more days for an official
   release (I don't know their schedule).

And finally: I've been sick and therefore everything I've been doing
since FC5 was actually released has been through a haze of Nyquil and
sleep deprevation.

> Where I understand how busy you must be there at MIT, we here at ND do little
> side jobs like repair things and solve problems for our Faculty when they are
> busy and stumped with those little things they do to teach.

I'm not a student, staff, or faculty at MIT.  I have a real job that
pays real money, and that real job has nothing to do with OpenAFS.
OpenAFS I do in my spare time.  I try to keep up as best as I can, but
my personal resources are limited.

> So, first thing I want you to know that I have put your 10 year old
> picture on my site so all the world will know the man that made AFS
> work after IBM gave up.  Your the man!  ...  http://ndpete.com

Umm.. Thanks, I think.  Actually, that picture isn't quite 10 years
old.  That one is only about four.

> Today's business with the list was pretty much what everybody else needs help
> with...AFS.  I realize that you don't control RedHat (as far as I know) and
> the Fedora group who by the way has come out with an upgrade.

Nope, I have no control over Red Hat or Fedora..  Only the OpenAFS
RPMs.

> It would seem to me, that since this rpmbuild....and configure
> this...make that...is so second nature to the group that when one of
> us (USERS) who may not spend all of their time writing software ask
> a "dumb" question like....how do I now add AFS to my new FC5
> install, one of you would take the time out of your busy days making
> things better to simply compile, if that is the correct term, the
> necessary SRPM that we all need to move forward in this world of
> AFS.

Except it's not that easy..  There is no OpenAFS release that supports
FC5.  There are release candidates, but those aren't readily
available, are only meant for testing, and last I checked (which was
during the 1.4.0 release candidate series) the RC directory wasn't
linked from anywhere obvious on the OpenAFS site.

So, since I haven't had an FC5 machine available, and I've been sick,
and there isn't an official release -- My answer to "how do I do this"
has been "you can't".  It's a very truthful, honest answer.  Today,
right now, there are no RPMs you can install.  You cannot use the FC4
RPMs.  You cannot rebuild from the FC4 RPMS.  Sorry.  That's just the
way it is.  See the response to the previous paragraph.

> I know after my question this morning that I then spent most of the
> day trying to "build" a version that would plug into my NEW fedora
> core 5 machine.  I have 3 others still running FC4 and they will go
> untouched until I can buy one of you whatever it is you hope to get
> out of this as a reward for being the "good guy" we all hope we will
> know someday before we croak.

Congratulations.

Seriously, tho..  RPMs don't appear by magic.  It takes me several days
of real time to build all the RPMs for all the various Red Hat / Fedora
systems I still support.  It takes a not-insignificant amount of time
to make sure the SPEC file works on all the platforms, and making sure
I have all the right build options and whatnot.  But it also requires
an OpenAFS release..  Which we still don't have.

I'm sorry I haven't taken the time to hand-hold you through the
process.  FC5 is just too new.  It was only released last week, while
I was off at the IETF.  I set up my home machine to download the
inatallation CDs while I was gone, and when I got back I didn't move
for three days and barely got out of bed.  It's only Tuesday; I just
got back Friday.

> You see what a little supper, a cold beer and a laptop can make a guy do that
> has managed to accomplish very little in a day that we here at ND think is a
> brand new "Y2K" weekend coming up for our campus.  You see, we are going to
> celebrate the coming of Daylight Savings Time for the first time in the last
> maybe 30 years.  A busy weekend for our OIT guys as they will be standing by
> on Sunday when the time changes.

Fun fun fun!

On a side note, I'm not ignoring your pleas -- It just takes time.
Please let me have it.

> Surely you wish you could be here this weekend!
> Pete

You wanna fly me out?  ;)

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord@MIT.EDU                        PGP key available