Re: pii pc uprage??

From: Christian Holm Christensen (cholm@hehi03.nbi.dk)
Date: Thu Oct 04 2001 - 10:09:01 EDT

  • Next message: Hironori Ito: "Re: pii pc uprage??"

    Hi Hiro, 
    
    On Wed, 3 Oct 2001 16:57:26 -0500 (CDT)
    Hironori Ito <hito@students.phsx.ukans.edu> wrote
    concerning "pii pc uprage??":
    > 	Hello.  Since I do not know where to post this message, I will 
    > post it here.  
    
    This list or brahms-soft-l I believe are the right forums for this
    kinda stuff. 
    
    > We need inputs from the users of pii machines (mostly people at BNL,
    > but also almost everyone in the group since everyone at some points
    > uses these PCs).  
    
    Well, what ever happens at BNL, in terms of software, affects
    _everyone_ in the collaboration, so we really need to put things like
    this out for general comments, as you did - thanks. 
    
    > We are getting new 6 PCs.  
    
    Cool! 
    
    > In 5 PCs, the RedHat7.1 will be install since 2 of them is
    > pre-installed with  RH7.1.  
    
    Nifty. 
    
    > (One is WIN2001 for general use)  
    
    What?  Why _anyone_ would _ever_ use a @#%$*(@#$_*#!@$&!@# OS like M$
    Windoze is really beyond me.  
    
    I don't believe there's anything called Windoze2001 by the way - did
    you mean the very _insecure_, screwed up Windoze XP?  I guess the
    (paranoid) RCF people will not be too happy with that. 
    
    Install Ximian GNOME, and KDE 2.1 and you have Office packages, and
    other cool stuff. With XFree86 4.0.3 you like 3D hardware
    acceleration, so you can install some Loki Games Demos like SOF,
    Civilisation, and others (no reason to get bored while you are on
    shift, is there?).  Honestly, throw windoze 'helluva far' (quoting
    Mr. T of the A-Team). 
    
    > Now the question is whether we want to upgrade the rest of pii
    > machines (currently RH6.2).  As it is pointed out by someone, RH7.1
    > use RedHat special gcc which does not produce the binary compatible
    > executable to RH6.2.  
    
    On Wed, 3 Oct 2001 15:38:36 -0700
    Konstantin Olchanski <olchansk@sam.triumf.ca> wrote
    concerning "Re: pii pc uprage??":
    > 
    > Here is the situation with compilers for redhat 7.1:
    > 
    > 1) the default redhat-7.1 compiler is gcc-2.96-RH. It is supported by ROOT
    >    and appears to work okey. (Christian's claims to the contrary
    >    not withstanding).
    
    No no, that's not what I meant (I may have been vague on that point).
    What I meant was, that the binaries produced by 'GCC 2.96' [1] are not
    compatible with other Linux distributions [2,3,4], like SuSE, Mandrake, 
    Debian, Slackware (yeah, it's still alive - but not really kicking),
    and others that choose to have a proper GCC compiler suit.  Reading
    [4], I actually got the impression that 'GCC 2.96-redhat' is not even
    compatible with GCC 2.91.66 - so the plot thickens and Konstatin may
    be wrong. 
    
    I think the keyword in Konstatins message is 'appears'! 
    
    > This means that you can not copy compiled program between
    > rcas(RH6.1) and pii if we upgrade pii to RH7.1.  If we do not
    > upgrade the rest of them, we have a big pain such that a program
    > compiled in one pii do not work in the other pii.  
    
    And the problem is even worsned by the fact that the current 7.1 pii
    machines (like pii3) identifies themselves as 'i386_redhat61' on AFS,
    so there is no way for us to support Redhat 7.1 installations on AFS
    without breaking the installations for the rcas, rcrs, and the other
    pii's.  Who can do something about that? 
    
    > We could install the official gcc (3.0.1), but this probably does
    > not help compatibility issues.  
    
    I haven't checked recently, but does ROOT compile with GCC-3? 
    
    > Anyway, here is the list of options 
    > I can think.  (Only realistic options, not like never use RH)
    
    I know I'm a Debian biggot, but I also know that to switch to Debian
    would require that the same switch was made at rcrs, rcas, and so on;
    and since the RCF are rather clumpersome dancing partners, I do not
    expect that to happen.  So the situation is, that  we're basically
    stuck with Redhat (for ... no not better ... or for worse).  
     
    > 1.  Just upgrade all linux to RH7.1.
    > 	Advatage --- It is easy and straight forward.
    > 	Disadvantage --- You can not copy the compiled code between rcas
    > and pii.  (There is a rumor rcas will be RH7.1  after the current
    > run.)
    
    This will mean that a whole slew of software has to be compiled
    specifically for the pii's.  I will not do it, but if someone is
    willing to do that, this is my favorite choice, since we probably need
    to upgrade at some point anyway.  
    
    The 'policy' here at NBI - dictated by our BOFH - is that we wait for
    x.2 version, since x.0 and x.1 always has loads of security flaws,
    bugs, and so on.  Redhat 7.2 should be out really really soon. 
    
    > 2.  Don't upgrade the rest of pii.
    > 	Advantage --- Whatever working now will work tomorrow.
    > 	Disadvantage --- not compatible between the new and old pii
    
    This would be my second priority, as this means we can use the AFS
    installations rather than having to compile again and again and again
    and ... 
     
    > 3.  We should stick with RH6.2
    > 	Advantage --- Whatever working now will work tomorrow.
    > 	Disadvantage --- The default RH6.2 does not work with new
    > PCs.  (I mean this will require the effort by someone to make it
    > work. eg.  new XFree, new kernel, etc...) 
    
    What?  Where's the incompatiblity?  The graphics cards or what?
    Anyway, this is a poor solution, since some pii's already runs 7.1. 
    
    > Also, are we sure all the things we use work with RH7.1???  At least,
    > brat, brop and brag are working with RH7.1 as much as I know.  
    
    I believe you're right. 
     
    > Anyway, we need the inputs from people.  Otherwise, you could be crying
    > after the fact.  
    
    Exactly why we need to put things like this to the full
    collaboration.   Thanks for your patience Hiro. 
    
    On Wed, 3 Oct 2001 15:38:36 -0700
    Konstantin Olchanski <olchansk@sam.triumf.ca> wrote
    concerning "Re: pii pc uprage??":
    > 
    > 2) egcs-1.1.2 (redhat-6.2 compiler) is installed (by default?) and can be
    >    accessed by using "gcc -V egcs-2.91.66". I did not test it
    >    extensively, but it should work the same as on redhat-6.2.
    >    (the "compat-egcs-*" rpms).
    > 
    > 3) gcc-3.0.1. There now are gcc3 rpms in redhat-rawhide (redhat beta).
    >    I did not test them yet, but presumably they work. (the "gcc3-*" rpms).
    > 
    > All of these compilers can be installed and used at the same time.
    
    Which I think is a really good idea by the way.  Gives you a chance of
    testing various compilers.  
    
    > To summarize- with redhat-7.1, the old compilers are still available,
    > plus there are two new ones (so use the compiler that works the best).
    
    The best compiler?  Defently not 'GCC-2.96-redhat'.  Obviously it's
    GCC-3 - no doubt about it. 
    
    > I would suggest this- get one redhat-7.1 machine, compile, run and
    > test your software, and if everything works, upgrade. But do keep
    > one redhat 6.2 machine around, just in case.
    
    I second that, assuming someone is willing to maintain ROOT, BRAT,
    BROP, BREG, and so on these machines.  In fact, it should be possible
    to set up CRON scripts to do nightly builds, since klog can read a
    password from a file (should have mode 0600 ofcourse).  I have no
    experience with CRON, so I can not make those scripts - sorry - any
    volunteers? I'd really like to see those scripts, so that we can use
    it here at NBI too :-) 
    
    Finally, after bashing at Redhat and in particular 7.1, I'm (semi)
    happy to announce the avalibility of Redhat 7.1 rpms of ROOT.  Get 'em
    while they are hot:
    
      http://cholm.home.cern.ch/cholm/root 
    
    or 
    
      rcf:~brahmlib/rpms 
    
    More info on the above web-page.  A mail to roottalk is pending.
    Hiro, maybe you wanna use those packages for the new pii's? 
    
    Yours,
    
    Christian Holm Christensen -------------------------------------------
    Address: Sankt Hansgade 23, 1. th.           Phone:  (+45) 35 35 96 91 
             DK-2200 Copenhagen N                Cell:   (+45) 28 82 16 23
             Denmark                             Office: (+45) 353  25 305 
    Email:   cholm@nbi.dk                        Web:    www.nbi.dk/~cholm
    
    [1] http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-announce/2000/msg00003.html
    [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-news/debian-news-2001/msg00033.html 
        7'th paragraph. 
    [3] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/debian-devel-200108/msg00982.html
    [4] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/debian-devel-200108/msg00996.html
    



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