Hello. >> The only added value of SL (comparing to CentOS) as >> I see it now is: >> >> 1). Adding to anaconda the 'sites' functionality >> 2). Adding AFS client (plus few more packages). >> >> (well, there are few more customizations but these are >> minor I would say) >> > > The one other added value I see is our "tweaks" or SL rpm's. They might > be considered minor, but those minor things save alot of work. Right: but this can be easily solved via an add-on repo. > Connie and I have tested out a couple repository variations. While we > haven't tried what you said, the new anaconda has shown itself to be > very flexible and I believe what you said it quite possible. Well, my knowledge comes from looking at Fedora Core 6 plus some anaconda sources: I believe that we could use it 'as-is' .. but this is to be tested of course (hence again: *now* is the right time..) > >> Adopting the above would permit us to spend more >> time on something which was supposed to be one >> of our main goals ... and what is not really >> achieved: adding 'scientific' packages to the >> distribution... >> > > As one of the people pushing for this, I agree with this statement. That > was one of the reasons I had mentioned this to Connie. CentOS already > has someone taking Fedora Extra's and packaging it for CentOS. Many > scientific programs are already in this extra's repository, and it would > be better for me to throw my efforts in with that repositories > maintainer that do it on my own. I see we agree on that ! > >> What is you opinion about re-basing on CentOS ? >> >> Pros ? Cons ? >> [..] > > - They also have a much better bugzilla. Indeed. What we have is not really used, is it ? > > - Not having as large a control over the base OS. But that is really a > Pro also, because that also means not having as large a responsibility > over the base OS. Well: Since the goal for base CentOS is just recompilation of RHEL (which is also the main goal of SL) ... I do not see as a big problem.. As for the updates coming at 'random times': I believe labs update their users from their own (mirrored) distribution servers rather than from central ones: so the control over that would still be there ... > > - CentOS doesn't like to let users "sit on a release". Now this might > be changing since RedHat is finally letting users do that. But that > might be a concern that several scientists have. You know, as well as > I, that despite all explanations and reasoning, they don't want > *anything* to change (and at the same time must have all the latest > bleeding edge stuff). No they don't, but we at CERN do not give them the choice: Once SLC X.Y+1 is released, yum repositories change from X.Y to new one.. and everyone is updated immediately (ie: once per week). (exception being computer center batch farms where we target to have an update once every 3-4 weeks only in the future) .. surprisingly enough: We haven;t heard any complaints about that in last 2.5 years .. > This is one point I think we'll have a hard time with when talking to > some of the user communities. We'll have to come up with some > reasonable solution. Question: Is it *really* necessary ? ~ 9000 systems updating for SLC3/4 from linuxsoft.cern.ch (half of these are outside CERN) ... - and no complaints/requests about it ... - If the answer is yes for a given user community: this community could just pick what they want from update stream for their own update repository ... Thanks for replying Cheers Jarek __ ------------------------------------------------------- _ Jaroslaw_Polok ___________________ CERN - IT/FIO/LA _ _ http://home.cern.ch/~jpolok ___ tel_+41_22_767_1834 _ _____________________________________ +41_78_792_0795 _