Linux Changes, July 2006
This page is for sharing information regarding the Fedora 5 upgrade during summer 2006.
Test machines
There are currently 2 designated test machines. A regular office workstation is available (f5beta1) and a computational sensor style machine (f5beta2).
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JamesRoche - 10 Jul 2006
sendmail client configuration
Our fedora 5 workstation installation will contain a new sendmail client configuration as part of the continuing department email infrastructure upgrade process. This should be completely transparent to users. I announce this here simply to notify users that if they notice a problem or unexpected email behavior when sending email from a fedora 5 workstation it should be reported to labstaff so it can be addressed promptly. The configuration has now been installed on the two beta machines for testing before deployment.
note: If your email client does not automatically append a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to email addresses before sending mail you should consider updating your local aliases to include them ('somebody@somewhere.com' rather that just 'somebody'). In most cases the sendmail service will attempt to figure it out for you when mailing to local addresses but it is better practice to explicitly provide it.
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DaveCostello - 14 Aug 2006
Pre-deployment Testing and Observations
gcc version changes
Fedora Core 3 uses gcc 3.4.4 but Fedora Core 5 will upgrade gcc to version 4.1. While testing recompilation of your source code here is a link to the changes, features, and fixes you'll find in gcc 4.1
http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.1/changes.html
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DaveCostello - 28 Jul 2006
POSIX: sort and tail
Warning:
sort +N
and
tail +N
no longer work - use
sort -k +N
and
tail -n +N
instead.
testing fedora 5 desktops
It appears to be
safe to login to the console of the test machine f5beta2 to test-drive the latest gnome and kde desktops in terms of not destroying your
current desktop settings when logging back in later on a fedora 3 machine. I have only performed a quick test on an account that did not have a significantly customized desktop, but things seem cross compatible. I would avoid making custom changes to the fc5 version before the actual rollout though. You will notice a Link to Old Desktop icon added. Gnome test was pretty uneventful but the first fc5 KDE login hesitated for a minute or two during "init system services" and then complained about a SIGSEGV signal 11. Logging out and back in again, with a KDE session, the problem went away so it appeared to be a one time personal config update issue.
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DaveCostello - 11 Jul 2006
=sort and tail
Actually, you don't need the '+' on the numeric field with the new style of arguments.
sort -k 2
will sort on the second field. (So will
sort -k +2
.)
tail -n 5
will output the last 5 lines.
tail -n +5
will output
beginning with line 5.
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MichaelScott - 14 Aug 2006
Xorg and Xwindows Development
X.org
X11R7.0 is included in Fedora Core 5. The new modular architecture of R7.0 enables easier driver upgrades and simplifies development. This also introduces several changes that could affect building X based applications. Old code that depends on hard-coded paths may need to be rebuilt.
From Fedora Core 5 Release Notes:
21.4. X.org X11R7 Developer Notes
This section includes a summary of issues of note for developers and packagers, and suggestions on how to fix them where possible.
21.4.1. The /usr/X11R6/ Directory Hierarchy
X11R7 files install into /usr directly now, and no longer use the /usr/X11 R6/ hierarchy. Applications that rely on files being present at fixed paths under /usr/X11 R6/, either at compile time or run time, must be updated. They should now use the system PATH, or some other mechanism to dynamically determine where the files reside, or alternatively to hard code the new locations, possibly with fallbacks.
21.4.2. Imake
The imake utility is no longer used to build the X Window System, and is now officially deprecated.
X11R7 includes imake, xmkmf, and other build utilities previously supplied by the X Window System. X.Org highly recommends, however, that people migrate from imake to use GNU autotools and pkg-config. Support for imake may be removed in a future X Window System release, so developers are strongly encouraged to transition away from it, and not use it for any new software projects.
21.4.3. The Systemwide app-defaults/ Directory
The system app-defaults/ directory for X resources is now %{_datadir}/X11/app-defaults, which expands to /usr/share/X11/app-defaults/ on Fedora Core 5 and for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems.
21.4.4. Correct Package Dependencies
Any software package that previously used Build Requires: (XFree86-devel|xorg-x11-devel) to satisfy build dependencies must now individually list each library dependency. The preferred and recommended method is to use virtual build dependencies instead of hard coding the library package names of the xorg implementation. This means you should use Build Requires: libXft-devel instead of Build Requires: xorg-x11-Xft-devel. If your software truly does depend on the X.Org X11 implementation of a specific library, and there is no other clean or safe way to state the dependency, then use the xorg-x11-devel form. If you use the virtual provides/requires mechanism, you will avoid inconvenience if the libraries move to another location in the future.
21.4.5. xft-config
Modular X now uses GNU autotools and pkg-config for its buildsystem configuration and execution. The xft-config utility has been deprecated for some time, and pkgconfig *.pc files have been provided for most of this time. Applications that previously used xft-config to obtain the Cflags or libs build options must now be updated to use pkg-config
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DaveCostello - 17 Aug 2006
page created
JamesRoche - 10 Jul 2006