[EPEL] rpmconf question for EPEL7 on Amazon Linux 2

[Christopher]

Hi,

I know Fedora doesn't directly support Amazon Linux, but I was
wondering if the package maintainer for rpmconf on EPEL was aware that
the latest version doesn't work on Amazon Linux 2, which recently
updated to python-3.7, whereas rpmconf has a direct dependency on
python(abi)=3.6. If it's possible to use '>=3.6' instead, and the
package maintainer is willing to update it so it works with python 3.7
on Amazon Linux 2, that would be great for my use case.

Regards,
Christopher

[Scott Talbert]

On Tue, 30 Jun 2020, Christopher wrote:

>  I know Fedora doesn't directly support Amazon Linux, but I was
>  wondering if the package maintainer for rpmconf on EPEL was aware that
>  the latest version doesn't work on Amazon Linux 2, which recently
>  updated to python-3.7, whereas rpmconf has a direct dependency on
>  python(abi)=3.6. If it's possible to use '>=3.6' instead, and the
>  package maintainer is willing to update it so it works with python 3.7
>  on Amazon Linux 2, that would be great for my use case. 
I don't think it would be that easy.  rpmconf is byte-compiled for Python 
3.6 and everything.  I don't think you can just upgrade a major Python 
version like that and expect modules built for the previous version to 
continue to work.  rpmconf would have to be built for Python 3.7 *also* 
and since it's not in EPEL, I don't see how that could happen.

Scott

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 2:18 PM Christopher <ctubbsii(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Hi,
>
>  I know Fedora doesn't directly support Amazon Linux, but I was
>  wondering if the package maintainer for rpmconf on EPEL was aware that
>  the latest version doesn't work on Amazon Linux 2, which recently
>  updated to python-3.7, whereas rpmconf has a direct dependency on
>  python(abi)=3.6. If it's possible to use '>=3.6' instead, and the
>  package maintainer is willing to update it so it works with python 3.7
>  on Amazon Linux 2, that would be great for my use case. 
You need to talk to Amazon. They have their own EPEL repository,
inconsistently forked from EPEL and enabled with the
"amazon-linux-extras" command, along with a variety of other
not-really-yum-repo-managed tools like mock and ansible. It's
problematic.. And don't let that incomplete EPEL channel get mixed
with the official EPEL repository in your configurations.

The time spent hunting for workarounds might be better spent migrating
to RHEL or CentOS, which is likely to be more compatible with Fedora
packages backported through EPEL. The decision to leapfrog to python
3.7 was problematic, since it also puts them ahead of RHEL 8 and
CentOS 8's releases of python 3.6 and complicates EPEL support
profoundly.

[Christopher]

On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 4:52 AM Nico Kadel-Garcia <nkadel(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  On Tue, Jun 30, 2020 at 2:18 PM Christopher <ctubbsii(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  >
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > I know Fedora doesn't directly support Amazon Linux, but I was
>  > wondering if the package maintainer for rpmconf on EPEL was aware that
>  > the latest version doesn't work on Amazon Linux 2, which recently
>  > updated to python-3.7, whereas rpmconf has a direct dependency on
>  > python(abi)=3.6. If it's possible to use '>=3.6' instead, and the
>  > package maintainer is willing to update it so it works with python 3.7
>  > on Amazon Linux 2, that would be great for my use case.
>
>  You need to talk to Amazon. They have their own EPEL repository,
>  inconsistently forked from EPEL and enabled with the
>  "amazon-linux-extras" command, along with a variety of other
>  not-really-yum-repo-managed tools like mock and ansible. It's
>  problematic.. And don't let that incomplete EPEL channel get mixed
>  with the official EPEL repository in your configurations. 
Yeah, I noticed the same problem for rpmconf in both EPEL lines.
Somehow, I don't think this is a problem Amazon is likely to
prioritize. I'd probably be better off rebuilding rpmconf from source
for my instance (using a modified EPEL SRPM).

>  The time spent hunting for workarounds might be better spent migrating
>  to RHEL or CentOS, which is likely to be more compatible with Fedora
>  packages backported through EPEL. The decision to leapfrog to python
>  3.7 was problematic, since it also puts them ahead of RHEL 8 and
>  CentOS 8's releases of python 3.6 and complicates EPEL support
>  profoundly. 
I would *love* to be using CentOS, but this is for an "Amazon
Workspaces" instance, which only supports Amazon Linux 2 or Windows,
because of the driver support needed for the PCoIP features inherent
to the service. There are tons of other problems with Amazon Linux,
too, such as the complete lack of USB support in the kernel... which
makes forwarding USB devices over PCoIP (which is a supported feature)
a completely useless feature. These problems don't exist in CentOS...
but I'm stuck with the shitty Amazon instance I'm forced to use in my
environment for now.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Miroslav Suchý]

Dne 30. 06. 20 v 20:17 Christopher napsal(a):
>  Hi,
>  
>  I know Fedora doesn't directly support Amazon Linux, but I was
>  wondering if the package maintainer for rpmconf on EPEL was aware that
>  the latest version doesn't work on Amazon Linux 2, which recently 
No, I was not aware of that :)

>  updated to python-3.7, whereas rpmconf has a direct dependency on
>  python(abi)=3.6. If it's possible to use '>=3.6' instead, and the
>  package maintainer is willing to update it so it works with python 3.7
>  on Amazon Linux 2, that would be great for my use case. 

As other said, it is not as easy. Rebuild for EPEL will still put there python(abi)=3.6

You have two options:
 * contact Amazon, to put (and build) rpmconf into their extras
 * take rpmconf.src.rpm and build it localy for AL2. Fortunately, Mock has config for AL2
:
    mock -r amazonlinux-2-x86_64 rpmconf.src.rpm

-- 
Miroslav Suchy, RHCA
Red Hat, Associate Manager ABRT/Copr, #brno, #fedora-buildsys