LCFG on Fedora 12 (and F13) (inf level)

How to Install a Machine

#define INF_FLAVOUR_DICE

#include <dice/os/f13.h>  /* or f13_64.h*/
#include <dice/hw/dell_optiplex_gx745.h>  /* use the appropriate header for your model */
#include <dice/options/devel.h>
#include <dice/options/desktop.h> /* unless it's going to be a headless server */
#include <live/wire_forum.h>

!profile.release	mSET(develop)

dhclient.mac		/* your machine's MAC address */

Hardware Tested

Model	OS	Install	Network	X	VTs	X on?	Sleep	Headphones	Internal speaker	USB	CD
Dell Optiplex GX745	f12					VT1			5
Dell Optiplex GX620	f12					VT7			4
Dell Optiplex 755	f12	3				VT1	6		5
Dell Optiplex 780	f13	3				VT7			5
HP dc7900	f12					VT1
HP dc7100	f12					VT7			4
VirtualBox	f12	7

Notes
3 When first tested, the machine would always hang solidly on the point of rebooting. However that's been worked around so reboots now work normally.
4 The internal speaker works if the "Connector" setting in the "Output" tab of Gnome "Sound preferences" is set to one of the "Analog Output (LFE)" or "Analog Mono Output" choices. The default setting, "Analog Output", silences the speaker.
5 There was no internal speaker on the test machine.
6 After multiple sleeps and wakes X eventually failed to resume. Otherwise the machine seemed fine. For now the sleep component has been disabled on this model.
7 VirtualBox experience varies. Some habitual users of it seem able to install f12 on VMs easily; other users have to struggle for days to get an install to work. See for instance this blog post for a typical tale of woe. Still on the subject of VirtualBox it didn't seem possible to test virtual terminals or sleep on a virtual machine. Audio didn't seem to work.

The following models are most definitely NOT SUPPORTED: Dell Optiplex GX260, Dell Optiplex GX270, HP D530

Local Differences

MIME and Mailcap

Applications using Mailcap to handle MIME types now hand content to the xdg-open application which hands it to the user's desktop's default application for the relevant content type.

We have removed PackageKit

Fedora 13 includes PackageKit, a shared abstraction layer for software installation which among other things provides a way for non-sysadmin users to install software packages. Using this, Fedora 12 users can install missing commands, fonts, codecs and mime content handlers on the fly. However PackageKit has not yet been integrated with updaterpms which manages the software on LCFG-managed Linux machines. Until we reach a resolution between LCFG-controlled and user-controlled package installation we shall disable PackageKit.

ext3 not ext4

ext4 is the default filesystem for Fedora 13 but we shall stick with ext3 for reliability.

Sleep has improved

It seems so far that sleep is far more reliable and significantly quicker under F13 than under SL5, so we may be able to make more widespread use of it.

Upstart and SysVInit

Although Fedora 13 boots using Upstart, we use it as little as possible. See Alastair's blob for more details.

Syslog

Fedora 13 uses the newer rsyslog but for the moment we're using it in syslog compatibility mode so there are no big changes. We hope in time to enhance LCFG to enable it to unlock the new possibilities offered by rsyslog.

Subversion

Subversion has changed the format of its repositories again, so any use of subversion on F13 with existing checkouts will "upgrade" those checkouts and make them unusable from SL5. Either keep separate checkouts for each platform or just use subversion on one platform.

Known Issues

= still an issue, = issue resolved

Bogus warnings from genhdfile

When pkgsubmit is run it runs genhdfile once for each binary RPM package submitted. Each time genhdfile runs it produces a warning of this kind:
warning: Unknown system: (null)
warning: Please contact rpm-maint@lists.rpm.org
Until these messages can be eliminated, please ignore them. LCFG bug 224.

gdm

gdm on F12 is an incomplete rewrite and the configuration is not compatible with lcfg-gdm or our local DICE gdm theme.

64bit

support for the 64 bit platform is incomplete

X login slow

we believe this is because GDM insists on starting lots of extra helper apps. We will look at whether we can configure these out by default.

GDM started even when reboot required

if on boot a component requests a reboot, gdm should not be started. Unfortunately gdm currently starts regardless which means you can login just to find that the machine starts rebooting.

too many reboots at install

it seems that an install involves more reboots than for SL5. Updaterpms asks for a reboot, then hardware (because vbox driver built), then afs (because ThisCell file changed)

no console on tty1

numberpad doesn't work

on at least one machine, the number pad on a Dell SK8125 keyboard doesn't work under F13

installroot delays

on HP dc7900 and Dell 780 the kernel hangs for around 10s just before switching to the highres colour frame buffer device

messages during boot

udevd moans about stuff being removed in a future version

need desktop.h

DICE installs require desktop-forum.h - they shouldn't. Package lists need tidied up, once Iain has finished RAT package building.

inconsistent log file naming

we need to add the "dateext" option to the logrotate configs for lcfg components

moving between runlevels

shifting between run levels is dodgy (eg can't telinit S properly)

grub

due to a deficiency in the stock F12 grub, no background display is displayed for the initial grub prompt. We intend to fix/patch this before shipping to users.

install issues

on the first boot (of the installbase), fsck complained that filesystems were created in the future.

rpmbuild (under F13)

for some reason rpmbuild is deciding to default to building i386 packages rather than i686. Until this is fixed, you will need to run rpmbuild with --target i686 when building packages under 32 bit F13 (apart from for noarch packages, obviously)

reboot hangs

Dell 745s, 755s and 780s hang on reboot

Package Building, Buckets and Locations

There is a 32bit build server buildf13 (pondicherry). There is no 64bit build server yet.

We have rationalised the package buckets for F13:

devel

is for temporary packages, for instance test and devrpm versions of LCFG components in development. From time to time it will be cleared of old packages.

lcfg

is for LCFG components.

world, uoe, inf

are for other packages. As before uoe and inf are intended for packages whose distribution has to be limited, and we expect most locally submitted non-LCFG packages to go in world.

The Fedora packages themselves

are obtained direct from our mirror of the Fedora distribution rather than from package buckets.

Fedora 13 has many many more packages than are actually installed on the system. One handy way to search what's available is yum search. For example yum search twitter shows all available packages with the string twitter in the package details. In particular most CPAN packages you'll probably need will already be provided by Fedora, but may not be installed. If you need to see the actual RPM files they're under /afs/inf.ed.ac.uk/pkgs/sites/f12.

Because there are so many files in our Fedora RPM mirrors we've run up against some AFS directory size limits. To help get round this problem we've moved RPM header files to a subdirectory (relative to where the RPMs themselves are) called hdrs.

Local Links

• LCFG Port to Fedora 12 (inf level) project page
• Fedora 12 blog posts on blob.inf.ed.ac.uk
• The top level tracking bug which links to all LCFG bugs filed as part of the project.

Fedora 12

Fedora is the fast-moving development distro sponsored by Red Hat. The slower-moving and more stable Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases are largely based on particular Fedora releases. Scientific Linux 5, the main LCFG Linux platform for the past few years, is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 which was originally based (more or less) on Fedora Core 6. SL5 has had a lot of application software updates since its release but the underlying technology has not changed much. Fedora 12 is therefore substantially more advanced than SL5 in some areas. Here are a few selected features that have appeared in Fedora releases 7 to 12 since SL5 was released:

Virtualisation

• Fedora 7 integrated Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology with Fedora's graphical virt-manager and command-line virsh tools. KVM provides a hardware accelerated virtualization solution, and users had a choice between KVM and Xen, along with Qemu.
• Secure remote management capability was provided for Xen, KVM, and QEMU in Fedora 8 virtualisation.
• Virtualisation storage provisioning for local and remote connections was then simplified -- http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/VirtStorage
• Virt Improved Console - In Fedora 10 and earlier the virtual guest console was limited to a screen resolution of 800x600. In Fedora 11 the goal was to have the screen default to at least 1024x768 resolution out of the box. New installations of F11 provided the ability to use other interface devices in the virtual guest, such as a USB tablet, which the guest would automatically detect and configure. Among the results was a mouse pointer that tracked the local client pointer one-for-one, and provided expanded capabilities.
• The libguestfs feature let administrators work directly with virtual guest machine disk images without booting those guests.

Devices

• Display devices can be hot plugged and work automatically, thanks to the inclusion of Xorg Server 1.3.
• The kernel has a new FireWire stack for more robust device handling.
• Improved webcam support -- http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/BetterWebcamSupport
• Better support for infrared remote controls makes them easier to connect and work with many applications -- http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/BetterLIRCSupport

Desktop

• Fast user switching is well integrated.

Audio

• PulseAudio is now installed and enabled by default. PulseAudio is an advanced sound server compatible with nearly all existing Linux sound systems. PulseAudio allows for hot-switching audio outputs, individual volume controls for each audio stream, networked audio, and more.
• Glitch free audio and better performance is achieved through a rewrite of the PulseAudio sound server to use timer-based audio scheduling -- http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/GlitchFreeAudio
• Volume Control - Currently, people using Fedora have to go through many levels of mixers in different applications to properly set up sound sources. These are all exposed in the volume control on the desktop, making for a very confusing user experience. PulseAudio allows us to unify the volume controls in one interface that makes setting up sound easier and more pain-free.

Video

• Ogg Theora 1.1 video lets you stream and download Blu-Ray video quality while using 100% free and open software, codecs, and formats.

Efficiency

• There is now improved power management thanks to both a tickless kernel in x86 and x86_64 architectures, and a reduction in unnecessary processor wakeups via powertop.
• The HAL "quirks" feature has been improved, bringing better suspend/resume and multimedia keyboard support.

New versions of key software

• Linux Kernel 2.6.32.9
• OpenOffice 3.1.1
• Fedora now includes TeXLive to replace the older, unmaintained TeTeX distribution.
• Firefox 3.5.8
• gcc 4.4.3
• glibc 2.11.1
• Fedora now includes Perl 5.10.0, which features a smaller memory footprint and other improvements.
• Python 2.6.2
• GNOME 2.28.0
• KDE 4.4.1
• OpenMPI replaces LAM
• etc. - please add to the list.

Fedora Links and Release Notes

• Fedora 13 release notes
• Fedora 12 release notes
• Fedora 11 release notes
• Fedora 10 release notes
• Fedora 9 release notes
• Fedora 8 release notes
• Fedora 7 release notes

-- ChrisCooke - April 2010