[4329] in testers
Help Test Linux/Athena
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Fri Dec 3 15:56:39 1999
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 15:55:07 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199912032055.PAA170345@pusey.mit.edu>
From: tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
To: Many Possibly Interested Parties <nobody@mit.edu>
As many of you know, IS is developing a Linux/Athena product as a
third supported platform for Athena. The normal Athena releases for
this platform are not ready yet. This message is to invite interested
parties to participate in the testing phase in a new way.
We have RPM packages that can be installed on a RedHat 6.1 i386-based
box. You can use these packages to install all or part of Athena on
such a workstation. If you want to participate in our test, you need
to:
* Add yourself to the linux-testers mailing list.
* Have a running RedHat 6.1 PC.
* Be interested in running test software, possibly buggy
* Be a member of the MIT community
You must especially be willing to update the Athena packages installed
on your system when new updates come out during testing. This will be
more frequently than normal Athena release testing experience and (at
least initially) there will not be an automated tool to locate and
install updates.
The current packages still have many rough edges. Be warned that this
is an alpha-test product.
Bugs with these packages should be announced on the linux-testers
mailing list. Please report significant bugs that you find in these
packages, and also report any small niggling problems. Please do not
assume that I must already know about any problem you happen to find,
go ahead and report it, no matter how glaringly obvious it is to you.
You can find the packages you need in the following two directories:
/afs/dev.mit.edu/system/i386_linux22/srvd-8.3/free/RPMS/i686
/afs/dev.mit.edu/system/i386_linux22/srvd-8.3/restricted/RPMS/i686
Please also see the two files:
/afs/dev.mit.edu/system/i386_linux22/srvd-8.3/README
/afs/dev.mit.edu/system/i386_linux22/srvd-8.3/BUGS
You can install only some of these packages if you like. You must
install the athena-base package to use any of the others. I'm most
interested in having people install *all* of them, but people who
install only some are also welcome to participate in the test.
Once you have copied these packages into your own system (I suggest
storing them in /usr/src/athena-rpms/RPMS/i686), you can install them
with a single RPM command like:
rmp -i *.rpm
The packages found in the `restricted' repository are licensed
software and can only be used as part of Athena. Do not copy these
packages or use them elsewhere. You can only access that repository
from within MITnet.
If it is helpful for you in getting a running RedHat 6.1 computer, we
have placed a complete CD-ROM image of the RedHat 6.1 distribution in
/afs/dev.mit.edu/system/i386_linux22/install. Feel free to make use
of it in installing your computer.
