#acl PaulHowarth:read,write,admin,revert,delete All:read

=== Thursday 22nd June 2006 ===

==== Fedora Extras ====

The version of [[FedoraProject:Projects/Mock|mock]] in FedoraProject:Extras was updated to the new version, 0.6.
This version does away with using ''comps'' style groups for populating the buildroot (at least by default), and
introduces the use of a `buildsys-build` package, which is basically empty but has dependencies on all of the
packages required for the buildroot. The default list of dependencies is much smaller than with the previous
`mock` release, basically lining up with the ''!BuildRequires Exceptions List'' from the FedoraProject:Packaging/Guidelines,
which is good.

In addition to using `mock` to test-build packages for Extras, I also use it to build packages for old distributions.
There are some problems to be overcome to do this though.

 * For all Fedora Core distributions before Fedora Core 5, and Red Hat Linux 9, an additional package, `elfutils`, is needed in the default buildroot. It's needed because `redhat-rpm-config` turns on the creation of ''debuginfo'' packages, and `eu-strip` from the `elfutils` package is needed for this. In Fedora Core 5, `elfutils` is a dependency of `rpm-build`, so it gets pulled in automatically, but this doesn't happen for earlier distributions. There is disagreement about where the dependency should really be (see [[RedHatBugzilla:111363|Bug #111363]], [[RedHatBugzilla:132633|Bug #132633]], and [[RedHatBugzilla:155129|Bug #155129]]) so in the meantime (and certainly for end-of-lifed distributions), it needs to be a dependency of `buildsys-build`.

 * For all Fedora Core and Red Hat Linux distributions before Fedora Core 3, `runuser` isn't available and so the `mock` configuration file needs:
 . {{{

config_opts['runuser'] = '/bin/su'}}}

 * I can't get `mock` to build for a Fedora Core 2 target on an ''x86_32'' host, though I'm told it works on an ''x86_64'' host, and it ''might'' work with SELinux disabled (not just permissive mode). The symptom is that it hangs up at the ''useradd mockbuild'' stage. I'd be interested to hear from anyone that has this working.

 * To build for a target of Fedora Core 1, you need to set in the host's `/etc/sysctl.conf`:
 . {{{

kernel.vdso = 0}}}
 . This is due to a `glibc` bug ([[RedHatBugzilla:121351|Bug #121351]]).

 * Building for any Red Hat Linux target requires rebuilding of many of the original packages, which have broken dependencies due to the use of ''Epoch:'' tags and the omission of the epoch in exact version dependencies, such as between ''foo'' and ''foo-devel''. Whilst these comparisons worked back in 2003, they don't now.

 * Building for any Red Hat Linux target older than Red Hat Linux 9 requires `file`, `fileutils`, and `findutils` in the buildroot rather than `coreutils` (these are needed for the post-build scripts).

 * Red Hat Linux 7 does not include the `redhat-rpm-config` package, so it must not be included in the buildroot.

I have built `buildsys-build` and `buildsys-macros` packages for Red Hat Linux 7 to 9, Fedora Core 1 to 5, and they are available in my [[http://www.city-fan.org/ftp/contrib/buildsys/|local repository]].

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