No legacy for Fedora x86-64 [LWN.net]

April 27, 2005

This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier.

As Fedora Core 2 (FC2) is transferred to the Fedora Legacy Project, some users may be surprised to find that the project will be focusing only on the i386 platform, leaving users of FC2 on x86_64 platforms to fend for themselves when it comes to security updates and bugfixes.

For those not familiar with Fedora Legacy, the project provides support for Red Hat 7.3, Red Hat 9, and Fedora Core releases past their "end-of-life." With Fedora Core releases, the project uses a "1-2-3 and out" policy. When Red Hat's Fedora team stops providing support for an FC release, the Fedora Legacy project begins maintaining the release, for two additional releases. Note that the idea behind the Legacy project is not to provide new packages for retired releases, but only to provide security updates and necessary fixes. Users who want the newest software need to look to newer FC releases.

Unlike Fedora Core, the Fedora Legacy project is not directly sponsored by Red Hat, though the group does receive some assistance from Red Hat. We talked to Jesse Keating, Fedora Legacy Project Leader, about the lack of support for FC2 on x86_64, what alternatives users have, and whether the project will be supporting future x86_64 releases.

Keating said that the project lacks the developers to keep up with x86_64 in addition to maintaining i386 versions of FC:

Primarily it is lack of developers/testers for package testing and approval. Starting off with the small set we have, and trying to subset them into x86_64 users is pretty tough. Further reasons include lack of physical resources (build hardware, rack space, bandwidth), build software changes, and publishing changes necessary to handle x86_64.

Indeed, it does seem that the Legacy project is a bit short-staffed. The (volunteer) positions page lists quite a few vacancies.

We also asked Keating how the project was building packages, whether they used a system similar to Debian buildd or something else. Keating said that the project is using a version of mach to build packages, and that they're looking to have a system that can produce i386 and x86_64 packages.

This allows us to build in a fresh chroot each time, and do multiple builds of a package for different RH/FC releases. It works pretty well for what we need it for. In the near future we will look at moving to the new Fedora Extras build system that is currently in development. Our goal is to be able to have one build system we can use to produce both 32bit and 64bit packages. Currently 32bit packages have to be built on a 32bit host and 64bit packages will have to be built on a 64bit host. The main build hardware that Pogo Linux donated to the project is x86_64 capable (dual Opteron) but we're using it in a 32bit mode currently. Given the price of rack space and bandwidth and all things associated we may not be able to afford a second 64bit build system. So we'll probably have to wait until the new build software is complete and re-design/deploy our Legacy build server.

Users who are in no hurry to upgrade to later FC releases can try building the source RPMs on x86_64. Keating invited those users to offer feedback on the packages, and said that users "typically" don't run into issues when trying to compile i386 packages on x86_64.

Keating did say that it's likely that there would be support for x86_64 in the future, given that there are more users for x86_64 with each new FC release. Since the Legacy project is strictly a volunteer operation, the best way to see to it that there is support for x86_64 is for users to get involved with the project.

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