[Fedora-music-list] Kernel & Repo questions

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 10:48 -0500, Wade Nelson wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 05:18 -0700, Anthony Green wrote:
> > On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 00:24 -0500, Wade Nelson wrote:
> > > I just found out about this project, very cool... I'm currently running
> > > FC5+PlanetCCRMA on my desktop workstation.
> > > 
> > > 1) is there a repository for fedora-music project yet or will it become
> > > available as it is merged into extras?
> > 
> > We're just putting things that make sense into Extras.  Help is
> > appreciated.
> 
> ...
> 
> > > 1b) on a production system should I stick with CCRMA for now?
> > 
> > Fedora Extras only provides a fraction of the total CCRMA repo, and it's
> > unlikely it will ever contain everything in that repository (kernel
> > packages, for instance).
> > 
> > In places where there's overlap (where we've put something in Extras
> > from CCRMA), I don't think there's any reason to prefer the CCRMA
> > packages over Fedora Extras (unless you're running FC4 or lower).  I
> > think all of the Extras packages have higher version/release numbers
> > than the CCRMA packages anyways, so yum should just sort this out for
> > you.
> 
> Are the packages in Extras built with the same support for LADSPA, JACK,
> and such; i.e. is the functionality the same as the CCRMA packages?

Should be. It may be that temporarily there could be newer versions of
relevant packages in the Planet CCRMA repos. Or versions that depend on
stuff that has not made it to Extras yet. 

> > > 1c) is the project currently targeting FC5 or is it targeting
> > > compatibility with FC6 and future versions of Fedora Core?
> > 
> > I think everything so far has gone into FE5 and development (FE6).  Some
> > packages were also placed in FE4.
> 
> ...
> 
> > > 2) As this project gets under way will there be a kernel available
> > > featuring the real-time preemption patch by Ingo Molnar?  This has made
> > > a huge difference for me and is essential to making my system actually
> > > usable for live recording.
> > 
> > There are no plans to put kernels into Fedora Extras.  We just don't
> > have the infrastructure or policy to support this in Fedora Extras.  I'm
> > hopeful that Ingo's patches will get merged  upstream some day.  Of
> > course, this may take years.  Who knows.
> 
> So far I've been using (FC5) " yum --exclude='*kernel*' update "
> I've been running with strictly the CCRMA repos enabled, since I noticed
> for one that the CCRMA repo looked like it had a modified version of
> PAM.

That is needed so that Planet CCRMA users have access to realtime
scheduling and memory locking by default. Otherwise they would have to
edit as root a configuration file. I try to avoid things like that like
the plague for obvious reasons... the Planet CCRMA "audio workstation"
should work out of the box as much as possible. 

> From: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/installtwosix.html
> 
>         "The core packages include the patched kernel itself and newer,
>         more up to date versions of the ALSA sound drivers (including
>         some tools and packages that are not part of the normal Fedora
>         Core install). It also brings in a patched version of PAM that
>         has access to realtime scheduling and memory locking for all
>         users."
> 
> 
> Also, from:
> http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/installtwosix.html
> 
>         "The Planet CCRMA package collection is managed through the Yum
>         utilities. You will need to update yum to a newer version that
>         has support for installing older kernels (you need this to be
>         able to later install the core components of Planet CCRMA
>         (realtime kernel, etc, etc)."
>         /planetccrma/5/i386/yum-2.6.1-0.1.rhfc5.ccrma.noarch.rpm
> 
> Is this now deprecated?

Nope, still needed and even unsuccessful in some cases. That's
regretfully there because yum will not let you install an older kernel
(from the point of view of e-v-r numbering) than the latest one
installed at all. No chance. Not even if you know what you are doing.
IMHO broken, the dependency resolver should NOT define policy as to
which packages I can install. 

> And finally, and again from:
> http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/installtwosix.html
> 
>         "If you have not already done it, you should update your machine
>         to the latest version of the Fedora Core packages. They will
>         provide important security and functionality upgrades. The
>         Planet CCRMA repository includes the Fedora Core updates, you
>         can install what is available..."
> 
> Having had ONLY planetccrma, planetcore, planetextras, and planetupdates
> repos enabled (and system up to date), I enabled Extras repo and the
> only updates currently available for the software I use are lash,
> ladspa, and python-mutagen.  I notice however that Extras has many of
> the same versions of packages that I have installed, less the 'ccrma'
> tag in the filename.
> 
> > If you're interested in helping move things to Extras, just shout out.
> > 
> > AG
> 
> I've no experience in building packages, but as long as the Extras
> packages offer the same functionality as the CCRMA packages I'd be happy
> to enable the Extras repo again and help test the apps that I actually
> know well how to use, such as JACK & LADSPA tools, Ardour, Hydrogen, etc
> etc...

They should be equivalent. If not let us know. I have not done a
thorough review but that is the case in what I know. 

-- Fernando