Package building and alternate kernels (Re: Why is this list so quiet)

Michel Salim michel.salim at gmail.com
Tue Jul 20 03:43:01 UTC 2004


Reading a recent post in fedora-test-list on the lack of testers for
FC3t1 reminded me of a wishlist I had had ever since I tried using
Fink <fink.sf.net> on Mac OS X.

What we are missing at the moment in Fedora is an easier way to
rebuild packages from source. Not advocating an optimize-like-hell
approach like Gentoo's, but more the approach of Fink or the *BSDs;
i.e. being able to issue a command like 'yum build foo' which will
check all the build requirements of package foo, and for those not
found, download the source packages, rebuild them, and install them
automagically behind the scenes.*

(* I believe Debian does that also, but I can't remember)

With Fedora Core releases happening every six months, people with a
lot of non-Core packages installed would appreciate being able to
quickly rebuild their packages to check for errors, IMHO. Mach might
be able to do this, but unfortunately I'm on a metered connection
right now and could not try it until next month. Which sadly rules me
out of the test periods, so apologies if I introduce suggestions that
have already been implemented or seem naive.

Another thing is to provide alternate kernel images. Not just various
recompiles of the same kernel versions as FC currently does, but older
kernels as well for compatibility reasons. It would be especially nice
if this could be integrated into Anaconda but really, people who need
older kernels could dig up the RPM from the installation media unless
the standard kernel is unbootable.

In my case, for example, the last kernel to support my external
Firewire/USB drive is
kernel-2.6.3-2.1.253.2.1 from FC2t2 (IIRC).

Just my 2 cents,

- Michel





More information about the fedora-test-list mailing list