Amahi Forums

First off, I'd like to commend the Amahi team for choosing Fedora as a base for Amahi (even with port efforts to Ubuntu). Fedora really is a great platform that is capable of anything.

Aside from that, RHEL 6 has been released a little while back now, which means that sooner or later CentOS 6 will appear as well (although the beta still isn't out yet). Some people might prefer to have Amahi run over a CentOS system instead of a Fedora system since support goes on for up to 10 years, and not 13 months (1 month after release X+2 is out). So, considering the package version similarities between F12 and RHEL/CentOS 6, would it be possible to have that as a supported system in the future?

I know I would switch my production PDC to Centos in a day if it was available.

I have been running Centos systems here since 3.somehting. My current DNS server is on 5.5 and will move to 6 when available so I can implement DNSSEC.

I'd also like that idea. It seems such a waste of time for "the small team" to develop Amahi for such a fast moving target.

Having said that, there is probably a reason they choose Fedora in the first place. Maybe something to to with the applications that Amahi use, like mediaservers, beeing supported better on a 'desktop OS' (Fedora) than on a 'business server OS' (CentOS) ?

Richard

Redhat had been significantly behind the Fedora development until late.

5.5 is based on Fedora 11, and 6.0 in part on 12 and part on 13. Its BIND is SUPPOSEDLY the same as in 14.

So using Centos for some advaced things requited too much replacement until recently.

The move from (or added tree to) FCxx to CentOS 5.x/6 has been a suggestion for more than a year now. I know I've been requesting it for a very long time with my view of the advantages. RHEL 6 being based on a very current FC release would make a transition feasible is the vibe I got from cpg.

Of course we'll have to wait until CentOS 6 is out and the extra repos (especially the rpmfusion ones) have caught up before real development can take place.

For the ones that just want to try and see what fails and debug: you can get a 30-day "testdrive" license for RHEL 6 for free. The CentOS repos should be up by the time it expires and you should be able to update from the CentOS mirrors if you don't want to reinstall.

Regarding Enterprise Linux 5 ...

First off, I think some of the details on "Enterprise Linux" (which I'll collectively refer to as "EL" hereafter) are assumptions that are not quite correct.

Release 5 (EL5) is based on Fedora Core 6 (FC6), right down to its kernel, GlibC, GCC, etc... By default, every package is going to get a backport. This does not change with Updates -- e.g., Release 5 Update 6 (EL5.6) is still based on FC6.

However, there can be "concurrent enhancement" of newer packages as well as straight-up "rebases." E.g., in EL5.6:
[RHEA-2011-0035] http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2011-0035.html
- Per Request for Enhancement (RFE, bz#570611), "bind97" (with "97" as part of the name, not the version -- e.g., "bind97-9.7.0-*" is the package name with version) is a "concurrent enhancement" which adds a new BIND 9.7 release with all modern DNSSEC. The existing "bind" package is still based on BIND 9.3, and uses the existing configuration file, so existing systems are not affected if they do not use the new "bind97" package. This was done because BIND 9.7's configuration file is not backward/forward compatible with BIND 9.3's configuration file.
[RHEA-2011-0039] http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHEA-2011-0039.html
- Per Request for Enhancement (RFE, bz#521900), "subversion" was rebased on 1.6.x, from 1.4.x, replacing the version (aka "rebase"). This could be done because the subversion 1.6 server and client are compatible with older versions. Features are just missing from earlier server or client versions when interfacing with the other, but they are compatible.

Regarding Enterprise Linux 6 ...

Secondly, I know a lot of people missed the fact that Red Hat still has an unsupported, sub-$100/year RHN subscription option for "development" purposes. Red Hat has basically maintained such over the past decade, despite common rhetoric, including after the end of the Red Hat Linux (RHL) line. E.g., prior to the RHL ending in 2003, Red Hat offered a $72/year RHN option for Red Hat Linux (RHL). When the RHL line was ended after version 9 ("SLA" Enterprise Linux started years earlier, first RHL 6.2 "EE" and then Advanced Server / Enterprise Linux 2.1 based on RHL7 from years earlier), Red Hat gave out Enterprise Linux entitlements to existing RHN subscribers of RHL (while the RHL, Fedora Legacy -- continued updates for RHL -- and Fedora, etc... YUM servers were just opened and now free to all -- now managed by the "Fedora Infrastructure Team" today).

One of the continuing, hidden gems of this is still the "Developer" RHN subscription. It is also still under $100/year with RHN access. Today it exists as the "kitchen sink" known as JBoss Developer Studio, Portfolio Edition. I.e., Red Hat makes its middleware (e.g., JBoss) and platform (e.g., Enterprise Linux) available via this subscription. If you must think of it in Microsoft terms, think of it as Red Hat's "MSDN Universal."

JBoss Developer Studio, Portfolio Edition ($99/year):
https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/devel ... tudio.html

Again, although I cannot speak for anyone, I've recommended this solution exactly for "community developer" projects like this. So they can target Enterprise Linux, regardless of the status of any community rebuilds. Furthermore, it's also great for sync'ing both upstream Enterprise Linux and community rebuilds, so they are on the same page. And it gives you full access to the Red Hat Customer Portal and other information. It would be beneficial for a project like this to not only target CentOS, but also say, "yes, we run atop of upstream Enterprise Linux too, if you want a paid support subscription for the platform software."

There are "supported" Red Hat developer subscriptions as well, but they are in the standard ballpark that runs all the way back to Red Hat's Cygnus foundation of the late '80s (e.g., $3-5K/developer, typical price in the industry, as support isn't free). This is just the unsupported subscription, but it includes a RHN subscription and a platform entitlement (platform = Enterprise Linux).

-- Bryan

P.S. I don't speak for anyone but myself, as a community member, pointing out information that may be helpful.