new to the list

[Maccy]

Hi all,

I have been following this project with interest for a short time. I am 
Systems Manager for the X-Ray and Observational Astronomy Group at the 
University of Leicester. We run Scientific Linux 4.6 on our desktop 
systems, mainly because I have 55+ systems to look after and I don't want 
to be upgrading them any more than every 12-18 months. Scientific Linux 
has proven to be very stable and trustworthy - it is of course a rebuild 
of the RHEL source.

A Fedora Astronomy distro 'proper' would be great, in addition to the Live
CD. Are there any plans for this? I would have to give it serious
consideration if a large number of packages that we use here are included,
such as the HEASOFT stuff, PyRAF/IRAF, and the Starlink Software
Collection. The ESO Scisoft collection would be a brilliant inclusion.
We have users with Mac and Windows laptops who I am sure would welcome the
Live CD.

I know that a few of our UK counterparts are wholly using Fedora so I will
bring the project to their attention in case they have not discovered it
already.

Unfortunately I cannot make any meetings on Saturday due to sports
commitments but I will of course keep an eye on the mailing list.

Best regards,

Mark

----
Mark Mahabir (XROA System Manager)
Dept of Physics & Astronomy,        Phone  [phone]
University of Leicester,            Fax    [phone]
Leicester, LE1 7RH,  U.K.

[Sergio Pascual]

Hello Mark. I have packaged some of the more 'astrophysical-oriented'
packages in Fedora, such as ds9 or sextractor. I must say that I tend
to package software that I use myself or the dependencies of that
software (xpa, tkimg, wcstools, funtools are dependencies of ds9, for
example).

Some of the packages in the scisoft collection are already in fedora
(most of the python packages, sextractor,  ds9), others can't be
included in fedora due to license problems (sadly iraf is one of
those).
Midas for example would be a very interesting inclusion (I tried to
package it in the past unsuccessfully).

If you are particularly interested in other packages not already in
fedora, please add it to
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Astronomy/Packages/Proposed or if
you can't edit the wiki just send me an email.

Regards, Sergio

--
Sergio Pascual Ramírez
Dept. Astrofísica Facultad de C.C. Físicas
Universidad Complutense de Madrid

[Marek Mahut]

Maccy wrote:
> Hi all,

Hello Maccy,
> I have been following this project with interest for a short time. I am 
> Systems Manager for the X-Ray and Observational Astronomy Group at the 
> University of Leicester. We run Scientific Linux 4.6 on our desktop 
> systems, mainly because I have 55+ systems to look after and I don't 
> want to be upgrading them any more than every 12-18 months. Scientific 
> Linux has proven to be very stable and trustworthy - it is of course a 
> rebuild of the RHEL source.

This is great! Welcome to the list. I understand that the release cycle 
is more focused on rapid development, see my notes about EPEL below.
> A Fedora Astronomy distro 'proper' would be great, in addition to the Live
> CD. Are there any plans for this? I would have to give it serious
> consideration if a large number of packages that we use here are included,
> such as the HEASOFT stuff, PyRAF/IRAF, and the Starlink Software
> Collection. The ESO Scisoft collection would be a brilliant inclusion.
> We have users with Mac and Windows laptops who I am sure would welcome the
> Live CD.

All packages on the Live CD will be also available as 'proper' package. 
I think you could be interested in EPEL [1], I've packaged some software 
as gnuradio for EPEL or I have plans to increase the number of packages 
from Astronomy project there -- in this way you could install these 
package even on SL.
> I know that a few of our UK counterparts are wholly using Fedora so I will
> bring the project to their attention in case they have not discovered it
> already.

Cool! More people would be certainly a good point.
> Unfortunately I cannot make any meetings on Saturday due to sports
> commitments but I will of course keep an eye on the mailing list.

:) You're right, sports are healthier that computers.
> Best regards,

Have a nice day!
> Mark

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

[Jef Spaleta]

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 5:52 AM, Maccy  wrote:
> A Fedora Astronomy distro 'proper' would be great,

Speaking as a Fedora Board member for a moment.
Inside the scope of the Fedora project...a proper Astronomy distro
with its own release schedule and support cycle would be exceedingly
difficult to establish.

But I'm not sure that sort of effort is needed.  We do have the
ability to provide all the astronomy packages in Fedora as EPEL
packages as long there is the manpower to do so.  EPEL is meant to
provide rebuilds of Fedora packages as addons to RHEL and its cousins,
using the existing Fedora infrastructure.  EPEL is meant to be far
less aggressive in terms of updates, since its targeting the
enterprise and its derivatives including the RHEL support timescale of
7 years.  For Astronomy for EPEL to work effectively we need to have
package maintainers who can reasonably make a multi-year commitment
for the packaging workload.  You make consider trying to become
involved explicitly as an EPEL branch maintainer for some of the
Astronomy software going into Fedora now.  EPEL encourages potential
maintainers, like yourself, to discuss adding EPEL maintenence duties
with employers to try to establish it as an official job duty.
> in addition to the Live
> CD. Are there any plans for this? I would have to give it serious
> consideration if a large number of packages that we use here are included,
> such as the HEASOFT stuff, PyRAF/IRAF, and the Starlink Software
> Collection. The ESO Scisoft collection would be a brilliant inclusion.

There is always a need for more people to help by maintaining packages
they are directly interested in using.  If the software in question is
licensing such that Fedora can include it, then the only thing
stopping its inclusion is the manpower necessary to make it happen.  I
would very much encourage you to talk to your employer. If you have a
compelling reason to make participating in Fedora and EPEL part of
your job, you could be a valuable and very productive asset to the
Astronomy SIG.
> I know that a few of our UK counterparts are wholly using Fedora so I will
> bring the project to their attention in case they have not discovered it
> already.

Yes please do,  there will always be a need for active contributors to
grow the available number of packages.

-jef

[Wrolf]

On Wed, 2008-05-14 at 08:57 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> EPEL is meant to
> provide rebuilds of Fedora packages as addons to RHEL and its cousins,
> using the existing Fedora infrastructure.  EPEL is meant to be far
> less aggressive in terms of updates, since its targeting the
> enterprise and its derivatives including the RHEL support timescale of
> 7 years.  For Astronomy for EPEL ...

Not quite as new to the list, but lurking up till now.

I do not understand why anyone from the Astronomy SIG would be
rebuilding Fedora packages for RHEL.

As I understand the model from the Astronomy SIG, it is to write SPECs
and RPMs for Fedora, either of existing packages, or of new work; and
also provide an Astronomy spin of Fedora - kickstart file(s) and .iso
builds of a subset of Fedora, with all the packages that an astronomer
would need. And ideally these spins could be put on a live CD with
persistence. Oriented at rank amateurs (I just like to print out star
charts for when I go camping with the boys), to professional
astronomers.

As I understand it, this is exactly the model for special interest
groups in Fedora - get your software packaged and suitable for the repo,
and/or create .ks and/or .iso file that include some subset of Fedora
packages, including those specific to your SIG.

I do not see where EPEL comes in.

Wrolf

[Jef Spaleta]

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 2:17 PM, Wrolf  wrote:
> I do not understand why anyone from the Astronomy SIG would be
> rebuilding Fedora packages for RHEL.
> I do not see where EPEL comes in.

First of all I think you should understand that EPEL is actually a
piece of Fedora, its just another branch for the Fedora build system.
As a Fedora maintainer you can choose to maintain the EPEL branch or
let another Fedora contributor maintain that branch for you.  I
currently maintain scipy and some related packages for EPEL as well as
active Fedora branches as part of my Fedora contributions. So in a
very real sense any SIG could in fact be contributing to EPEL. As a
Fedora Project Board member, I'm actually trying to see things
re-structured so SIGs can choice to formally have a EPEL role that can
recruit contributors for so users of the software for all the binaries
that come out of the Fedora build system can use a SIG to communicate
with maintainers and developers.    See my role based SIGs initiative
posts on the fedora-advisory-list for more information concerning
roles.

But more to the point.....the original poster mentioned Scientific
Linux....which is itself based on the RHEL sources.
So the EPEL description was meant in the context of what I thought the
original poster was looking for in terms of a life cycle for a
distribution.

I very much encourage the idea of an Astronomy livecd(actually with
the advent of the usb image stuff..we probably just say Astronomy
images..though even that's confusing). I think such images would have
absolutely great value.  But the reality is such a livecd would have a
usable lifetime constrained by the Fedora release policy... of
approximately 13 months. This will be fine for some people, and it
will be too short for others.  If it is too short for the original
posters needs, then contributing to Fedora by building Astronomy EPEL
packages in coordination with the Astronomy SIG may very well be the
best available option for him.  It really comes down to what the
original poster is looking for in terms of usability lifetime. If the
original poster was looking for an opportunity to have a long-lived
distribution, then contributing to Fedora by maintaining Fedora
Astronomy packages in EPEL and then using EPEL on CentOS for his own
needs might best fit what he is looking to do. Hell, EPEL might
actually work directly on Scientific Linux since its a enterprise
rebuild as well, someone would have to check that for sure however.

-jef

[Marek Mahut]

Wrolf wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-05-14 at 08:57 -0800, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> > EPEL is meant to
> > provide rebuilds of Fedora packages as addons to RHEL and its cousins,
> > using the existing Fedora infrastructure.  EPEL is meant to be far
> > less aggressive in terms of updates, since its targeting the
> > enterprise and its derivatives including the RHEL support timescale of
> > 7 years.  For Astronomy for EPEL ...
>
> Not quite as new to the list, but lurking up till now.
>
> I do not understand why anyone from the Astronomy SIG would be
> rebuilding Fedora packages for RHEL.
>
> As I understand the model from the Astronomy SIG, it is to write SPECs
> and RPMs for Fedora, either of existing packages, or of new work; and
> also provide an Astronomy spin of Fedora - kickstart file(s) and .iso
> builds of a subset of Fedora, with all the packages that an astronomer
> would need. And ideally these spins could be put on a live CD with
> persistence. Oriented at rank amateurs (I just like to print out star
> charts for when I go camping with the boys), to professional
> astronomers.

This is wrong. I do consider this SIG a group of people trying to 
promote open-source in the world of astronomy (both professional and 
amateur) and thinks that Fedora is a good way to start. I would be more 
that happy that someone uses our good work on Centos, RHEL, Ubuntu or 
any other open-source project. Fedora is a open project.
> As I understand it, this is exactly the model for special interest
> groups in Fedora - get your software packaged and suitable for the repo,
> and/or create .ks and/or .iso file that include some subset of Fedora
> packages, including those specific to your SIG.
>
> I do not see where EPEL comes in.

It's a sub-project of Fedora project that helps people to get the 
open-source software for their open-source enterprise solutions.
> Wrolf