[PlanetCCRMA] fedora 12 support (coming?)

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

Hey, many might have noticed that:
  http://fedoraproject.org/
now points to Fedora 12 as the latest version :-)

You have been warned! As with new versions of anything I'd wait before
installing the latest shinny object in a computer you need (see below
for more details). 

So here's what I can offer right now:

- installing planetccrma-repo will point to your planetary repositories

- there is a planetccrma-core package you can install:

  it will pull a 2.6.31.6-rt19 based kernel (with as many Fedora patches
  as I could patch cleanly into the rt modified tree) and the cool
  rtirq script (newer version that works with 2.6.31.x rt kernels)

- there's also a jack-audio-connection-kit 1.9.4 svn package with the
  correct rt priorities to match the kernel and rtirq - and a build
  of ffado rc1 (same as in fc11). Not very well tested but jack2 svn
  solves a transport problem that was triggered by ardour exporting a 
  soundfile. 

(after installing the newer jack you will need to logout/login to get
the correct permissions for locking memory and getting access to
realtime scheduling). 

You can see what's there here:
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/mirror/fedora/linux/planetccrma/12/i386/repoview/
http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/mirror/fedora/linux/planetcore/12/i386/repoview/
(replace i386 by x86_64 for the 64 bit links)

BUT

My first tests of fc12 indicate a bit of instability, as is to be 
expected in a new release. 

DO READ the release notes:

  http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f12/en-US/html/

and specially the most common bugs:

  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F12_bugs

My limited experience: a preupgrade from fc11 failed. An initial install
from the fc12 i386 dvd also failed. In both cases I was not looking when
it happened but the result was a blank screen with a wait cursor,
looking into the text consoles I saw a failed install message but did
not look too closely into what had happened. I managed to do an install
telling the installer that I wanted to use "basic video" (or words to
that effect). This resulted in a successful install and a usable reboot
(with "nomodeset" in the kernel boot line). I'm using a radeon card in
that machine, most probably a problem with the new modesetting kernel
support (it is in the new features list as well as in the new bugs
list :-)...

I also got a few kernel oops while trying out things, got spontaneously
logged out and firefox misteriously died while surfing. Not reliable
(the stock fedora kernel on that particular hardware). 

Surprisingly the rt kernel performed better, no oopses and I managed to
boot without having to use "nomodeset" in the kernel boot line. With
that kernel and the new jack "everything" seems to work - my testing was
limited to one of the demos of hydrogen, so interpret "everything" as
just one hydrogen demo :-)

Enjoy (if you can)!
-- Fernando