[PlanetCCRMA] Re: problem with new redhat glibc

[Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano]

> Cripes, is there anything RH can't screw up?

Hmmmmm, they don't have a monopoly!, what makes you think I don't screw
up every once in a while? see the changelog for examples :-) ;-) :-)

Of course I agree they could have tested better... they just tested with
their kernels (which have nptl) so the bug did not happen at all. 

> Here's my idea:  Since RH is getting out of the consumer
> Linux business, PlanetCCRMA should create its own distro

I don't see any smilies so I take this is a serious proposal. It would
be nice, of course, except that: 

- it would be an _amazing_ ammount of work (yes, much much more than
  you, or even _I_, can imagine - I know because even something as
  simple as Planet CCRMA takes an amazing ammount of work). 
- it would duplicate effort that existing distributions already do
- and of course there is no guarantee that it would be any better than
  RedHat or Debian or anything else :-)

I thought long and hard while developing Planet CCRMA on this issue and
I still think the path I have chosen is the best at this point in time
(the path being creating Planet CCRMA as an add-on system to an existing
distribution(*) - not whether RedHat is/was the best choice, all distros
have strong points and weaknesses). Scarcity of resources, that's the
main bottleneck. So resources should be applied only where they
contribute to the main goal of the project. In this particular case
(Planet CCRMA) the goal(**) is to create _something_ that will make it
easy to install audio, music and video applications on a Linux system
and keep them up to date. Creating a complete distribution does not
really make the end result any different (IMHO) and is a lot more work.
Every once in a while I think of creating a "custom hat distro" with the
packages already integrated, then I look around, stop dreaming and say
"nope, keep focused". 

> using
> the best of the RH install procedures, the Debian OS and the
> CCRMA kernel.

Who knows, let's see what the future brings. For now Fedora Core is the
next "host" for Planet CCRMA. With regard to the integration you propose
see this post on the Debian lists:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/debian-devel-200310/msg01880.html

So, in the same way that apt (from Debian) was ported by Conectiva and
added value to rpm based distros, now the RedHat anaconda installer has
been ported to Debian! The beauty of Open Source software in action.
Maybe Debian will be as easy to install as RedHat in the near future...
(please, no flames from Debian users). 

The _current_ best long term option is to slowly integrate with Fedora
Core Extras and/or Alternatives as they come online, but probably not
before they offer a 2.6 kernel (because almost everything worth the
trouble in Planet CCRMA depends on alsa - starting with Jack). 

-- Fernando

(*) as an addon keep in mind that Planet CCRMA was not something that
was "proposed" and then "developed" as a formal project. It is just the
side effect of the fact that I have been mantaining a sound/music
environment on Linux here at CCRMA for quite a while... 

(**) again, the goal (for me) was to try to create a good Linux-based
working environment here at CCRMA... initially at least. But I created a
monster...