CentOS - Oct 2017 - How to encourage maintainers to update their software

On 10/28/2017 02:07 PM, Johnny Hughes wrote:
> On 10/28/2017 12:28 PM, Japheth Cleaver wrote:
>> On 10/27/2017 2:54 PM, Frank Cox wrote:
>>> I do that with a number of packages that are either newer or simply
>>> not available in the various Centos repos.? In many cases it's
as easy
>>> as downloading a new tar source file and adding it to the existing
>>> source rpm, doing three seconds of editing on the spec file to
account
>>> for the new update, and compiling the result.? Sometimes it's
even
>>> easier -- just download a newer Fedora rpm and compile that on your
>>> Centos system.
>>>
>> It would be nice if this remained even a *suggestion* at the Fedora
>> layer, but there seems to be from occasional obliviousness to outright
>> hostility to the idea of keeping spec files broadly compatible across a
>> range of downstream releases and for other RPM-based distributions, or
>> not ripping out compatibility at Fedora-speed. (Even leaving aside
>> "burn-the-ships" actions like outright banning SysV init
scripts.)
>>
>> It didn't seem to use to be that case. IMO it makes a lot more
sense to
>> wrap distro-specific .spec file changes in conditionals and let the
>> rpmbuild do the right thing than to post and maintain separate versions
>> for Fedora, EPEL, and anything else.
> If people want all the newer packages that exist in Fedora .. why not
> just use Fedora?
>
> Enterprise distributions are designed to be maintained for 10 years so
> when you make an investment of X million dollars in a piece of software,
> you can use it for an extended period of time.  Having all the latest
> packages is not what Enterprise Linux is about.  That is what Fedora is
> about.
>
> Fedora has introduced a new feature called modularity
> (https://docs.pagure.org/modularity/).  Eventually, when / if modularity
> is rolled into Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you will get some more
> flexibility in RHEL (and therefore CentOS as we use RHEL sources).
>
> CentOS Linux is a great Linux distribution.  We want everyone to use it.
>  But trying to convert CentOS Linux into Fedora is not only redundant
> (Fedora already exists .. use it) .. a bastardized version of CentOS
> with hundreds of newer manually maintained components is not really
> CentOS, and Fedora is likely more stable than that monstrosity anyway.
>
> There are things to add newer pieces to CentOS (SCL SIG, PaaS SIG,
> etc.), and those can be done now and integrated into the Enterprise
> Distro.  If those are what you need, that is what they're for.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Well, I am trying to get a couple of applications compiled that I believe are
quite compatible with the positioning of CentOS:

- The graphical configuration utility for fcitx (fcitx-configtool) is missing
and any configuration presently has to be done by manually editing the complex
configuration files which are very poorly documented. Thus configuration of
fcitx for e.g. entering/editing Chinese text took a long time and I still have a
couple of issues that I have been unable to resolve.

- The geany editor is missing the markdown plugin, this however, may shortly be
resolved.

- I'd love to have keepassx updated so bugs are fixed and the file format
becomes compatible with the file format used by its Windows counterpart and
files thus interchanged without any problems.

- pdfshuffler is not available for CentOS 7, only CentOS 6.

On Sat, 28 Oct 2017 17:15:01 -0400
H wrote:
> The graphical configuration utility for fcitx (fcitx-configtool) is missing
I don't know anything about Chinese text rendering.
> - The geany editor is missing the markdown plugin, this however, may
shortly
> be resolved.
Check on my website. :)

The rest of your stuff is easily dealt with by compiling the relevant Fedora
rpms.
> I'd love to have keepassx updated
Download this:

ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/Everything/source/tree/Packages/k/keepassx-2.0.3-1.fc25.src.rpm

and you can have this:

keepassx-2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64.rpm

I just tried it and it took only a few minutes.
> - pdfshuffler is not available for CentOS 7, only CentOS 6.
I just compiled this

ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/Everything/source/tree/Packages/p/pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.fc25.src.rpm

It took about three seconds to do the whole job and now I have this:

pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.el7.centos.noarch.rpm

You can easily do the same if you wish.  Just install rpmdevtools and any
necessary dependencies for the rpm that you want to compile and  off you go. 
The rpmbuild command will even tell you about any missing dependencies.  For
example, my first attempt at compiling keepassx told me:

error: Failed build dependencies:
	libXtst-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64
	libgcrypt-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64

To fix it I did this:

yum install libXtst-devel libgcrypt-devel

My next attempt to compile the keepassx rpm worked.

This isn't a guaranteed solution for absolutely every rpm or program that
you might ever come across; sometimes you get into a dependency rabbit hole that
never seems to end and it becomes more work than it's worth to solve.  Other
times you get stuff that requires a newer or different version of something
that's way too much work to upgrade or change.  But in a lot of cases, you
can just download and compile your own rpm as needed.  As you see here, two
items on your wish list are easily handled this way in less than five minutes. 
It took me longer to write this email than it did to download and compile those
programs.


-- 
MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com

On 10/28/2017 05:42 PM, Frank Cox wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Oct 2017 17:15:01 -0400
> H wrote:
> 
>> The graphical configuration utility for fcitx (fcitx-configtool) is
missing
> 
> I don't know anything about Chinese text rendering.
> 
>> - The geany editor is missing the markdown plugin, this however, may
shortly
>> be resolved.
> 
> Check on my website. :)
> 
> The rest of your stuff is easily dealt with by compiling the relevant
Fedora rpms.
> 
>> I'd love to have keepassx updated
> 
> Download this:
> 
>
ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/Everything/source/tree/Packages/k/keepassx-2.0.3-1.fc25.src.rpm
> 
> and you can have this:
> 
> keepassx-2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64.rpm
> 
> I just tried it and it took only a few minutes.
> 
>> - pdfshuffler is not available for CentOS 7, only CentOS 6.
> 
> I just compiled this
> 
>
ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/Everything/source/tree/Packages/p/pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.fc25.src.rpm
> 
> It took about three seconds to do the whole job and now I have this:
> 
> pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.el7.centos.noarch.rpm
> 
> You can easily do the same if you wish.  Just install rpmdevtools and any
necessary dependencies for the rpm that you want to compile and  off you go. 
The rpmbuild command will even tell you about any missing dependencies.  For
example, my first attempt at compiling keepassx told me:
> 
> error: Failed build dependencies:
> 	libXtst-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64
> 	libgcrypt-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64
> 
> To fix it I did this:
> 
> yum install libXtst-devel libgcrypt-devel
> 
> My next attempt to compile the keepassx rpm worked.
> 
> This isn't a guaranteed solution for absolutely every rpm or program
that you might ever come across; sometimes you get into a dependency rabbit hole
that never seems to end and it becomes more work than it's worth to solve. 
Other times you get stuff that requires a newer or different version of
something that's way too much work to upgrade or change.  But in a lot of
cases, you can just download and compile your own rpm as needed.  As you see
here, two items on your wish list are easily handled this way in less than five
minutes.  It took me longer to write this email than it did to download and
compile those programs.
> 
> 
The problem with compiling the relevant fedora SRPMs is .. once fedora
moves to a version (in their tree) that no longer compiles on CentOS
because of shared library issues, any security updates dry up.  If you
have not found an upstream (of Fedora) source for updates for that
version of the software in question, you either have to learn how to
backport (https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/backporting), live
with software that contains security issues, or compile a newer version
of Fedora's software.  Many times, that means adding in a newer version
of dependent shared libraries.  And that can mean having to recompile
other things that depended on the shared libraries that you upgraded (or
building statically, etc.).

I recently had to go through that with the 3.18.x kernel that we used in
the Xen4CentOS repo in the Virt SIG.  I worked on another LTS kernel
(4.9.x) for about a month before 3.18.x went EOL from kernel.org .. then
it took us about another 2 months of testing in the Virt SIG to get a
fairly stable kernel build that worked for the xen Dom0 kernel.

The reason that every package in Fedora which is removed from RHEL is
not in EPEL is that it is very hard to properly backport items and find
new streams of updates that can keep older ABI/API compatibility and
main software secure after the project that maintains it moves on.  It
is also a major reason Red Hat employs thousands of engineers to do it
and why people pay them billions of dollars a year to maintain it.

So yes, it can be done .. but if you are trying to do it for 10 or so
years, it is not easy.

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Frank please could you explain how to create rpms for el7 from fedora
src.rpms?

On Sun, Oct 29, 2017 at 12:42 AM, Frank Cox <theatre at sasktel.net>
wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Oct 2017 17:15:01 -0400
> H wrote:
>
> > The graphical configuration utility for fcitx (fcitx-configtool) is
> missing
>
> I don't know anything about Chinese text rendering.
>
> > - The geany editor is missing the markdown plugin, this however, may
> shortly
> > be resolved.
>
> Check on my website. :)
>
> The rest of your stuff is easily dealt with by compiling the relevant
> Fedora rpms.
>
> > I'd love to have keepassx updated
>
> Download this:
>
> ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/
> Everything/source/tree/Packages/k/keepassx-2.0.3-1.fc25.src.rpm
>
> and you can have this:
>
> keepassx-2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64.rpm
>
> I just tried it and it took only a few minutes.
>
> > - pdfshuffler is not available for CentOS 7, only CentOS 6.
>
> I just compiled this
>
> ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/
> Everything/source/tree/Packages/p/pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.fc25.src.rpm
>
> It took about three seconds to do the whole job and now I have this:
>
> pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.el7.centos.noarch.rpm
>
> You can easily do the same if you wish.  Just install rpmdevtools and any
> necessary dependencies for the rpm that you want to compile and  off you
> go.  The rpmbuild command will even tell you about any missing
> dependencies.  For example, my first attempt at compiling keepassx told me:
>
> error: Failed build dependencies:
>         libXtst-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64
>         libgcrypt-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64
>
> To fix it I did this:
>
> yum install libXtst-devel libgcrypt-devel
>
> My next attempt to compile the keepassx rpm worked.
>
> This isn't a guaranteed solution for absolutely every rpm or program
that
> you might ever come across; sometimes you get into a dependency rabbit hole
> that never seems to end and it becomes more work than it's worth to
solve.
> Other times you get stuff that requires a newer or different version of
> something that's way too much work to upgrade or change.  But in a lot
of
> cases, you can just download and compile your own rpm as needed.  As you
> see here, two items on your wish list are easily handled this way in less
> than five minutes.  It took me longer to write this email than it did to
> download and compile those programs.
>
>
> --
> MELVILLE THEATRE ~ Real D 3D Digital Cinema ~ www.melvilletheatre.com
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

On 10/28/2017 06:42 PM, Frank Cox wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Oct 2017 17:15:01 -0400
> H wrote:
>
>> The graphical configuration utility for fcitx (fcitx-configtool) is
missing
> I don't know anything about Chinese text rendering.
>
>> - The geany editor is missing the markdown plugin, this however, may
shortly
>> be resolved.
> Check on my website. :)
>
> The rest of your stuff is easily dealt with by compiling the relevant
Fedora rpms.
>
>> I'd love to have keepassx updated
> Download this:
>
>
ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/Everything/source/tree/Packages/k/keepassx-2.0.3-1.fc25.src.rpm
>
> and you can have this:
>
> keepassx-2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64.rpm
>
> I just tried it and it took only a few minutes.
>
>> - pdfshuffler is not available for CentOS 7, only CentOS 6.
> I just compiled this
>
>
ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/fedora/linux/releases/25/Everything/source/tree/Packages/p/pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.fc25.src.rpm
>
> It took about three seconds to do the whole job and now I have this:
>
> pdfshuffler-0.6.0-9.el7.centos.noarch.rpm
>
> You can easily do the same if you wish.  Just install rpmdevtools and any
necessary dependencies for the rpm that you want to compile and  off you go. 
The rpmbuild command will even tell you about any missing dependencies.  For
example, my first attempt at compiling keepassx told me:
>
> error: Failed build dependencies:
> 	libXtst-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64
> 	libgcrypt-devel is needed by keepassx-1:2.0.3-1.el7.centos.x86_64
>
> To fix it I did this:
>
> yum install libXtst-devel libgcrypt-devel
>
> My next attempt to compile the keepassx rpm worked.
>
> This isn't a guaranteed solution for absolutely every rpm or program
that you might ever come across; sometimes you get into a dependency rabbit hole
that never seems to end and it becomes more work than it's worth to solve. 
Other times you get stuff that requires a newer or different version of
something that's way too much work to upgrade or change.  But in a lot of
cases, you can just download and compile your own rpm as needed.  As you see
here, two items on your wish list are easily handled this way in less than five
minutes.  It took me longer to write this email than it did to download and
compile those programs.
>
>
Thank you. I will set up the environment so I can compile apps on my computer.