[TriLUG] Availability of Fedora 28

[Hrivnak, Michael via TriLUG]

On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 1:20 PM Paul Boyle via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org>
wrote:

>
> I'm looking for a site where I can download a copy of Fedora 28. I know
> this distro has already passed its EOL.  However, the choice is beyond
> my control. If you are interested in the details, read more below.
>
> ### Lengthier version ###
> I have been running a couple of single crystal X-ray diffractometers
> under Linux. For some reason the vendor, Bruker AXS, has chosen Fedora
> as their supported platform.  Not liking a short release cycle for
> the Linux distro used for instrument control, I have, up until this
> point, been using CENTOS 7 to operate my diffractometers. In a recent
> updating of my CENTOS distribution, some of the functionality of the
> diffractometer control software broke (most importantly some of the
> OpenGL related functionality).  Bruker blames the breakage on a bug
> in the more recent versions of the GLUT library.  I suppose it is worth
> trying Fedora 30, but I'm not convinced it will work.
>

Is there a bug report in the Fedora bug tracker? That's a good way to know
whether the problem has been fixed. If that's the platform they're
supporting, it's reasonable to expect them to either provide a link to an
existing bug report or file one.

That said, Fedora is fairly quick to install. Could you install 30, try it,
and re-install with 28 if it doesn't work?


>
> Bruker AXS supports only an unsupported version of Fedora (Fedora 28)
> to run their software under Linux. I've tried talking to them about
> supporting a distribution with a longer life cycle (trying to make the
> case that distributions and application level software used to run an
> instrument should focus on stability and longetivity).  However, the
> Bruker is thoroughly in the DGAF zone on this issue.
>
> So my options, as I see them are:
> 1) install Fedora 28. I don't feel great about the choice of using a
> distro which will no longer get security updates.  However, both
> computers are behind firewalls -- at both the university and
> laboratory levels.  So, I'm willing to accept this situation.
>
> 2) install Fedora 28 into an LXD container (or something similar,
> maybe Docker?) hosted by the existing CENTOS 7 distro and then run the
> diffractometer control software from within the container. As the
> machines are currently configured I would have to run the container in
> a loopback device, which, from what I've read, is not advisable for a
> production environment.  So, I would have to either install a new hard
> drive or reformat the existing drives. (No big deal, just more work).
>

Running a container with docker or podman is very different from LXD. In
the former case, you generally run just one application, often a single
process, in an isolated environment that includes its own separate
filesystem. For example, the container image could be a Fedora 28 base
image plus the control application you're using. When you "podman run" or
"docker run" that image, you end up with just that process running such
that it only has access to the filesystem from its image. No other services
would be running inside that container unless you explicitly start them.
You can mount in devices and directories from the host to the container as
necessary.

I think this could be a viable, perhaps even good, option for you. When you
need to run a single application in a carefully-curated and reproducible
environment, that's a classic use case for modern (not lxc or lxd)
containers.

The potential gotcha is that you'd still be using the centos kernel. In
most cases that's fine, but if the vendor is depending on anything in the
F28 kernel, that might be problematic.


>
> 3) Blow away the Linux installation and run Windows.
>
> For options 1 and 2 I need a source for Fedora 28.  I've been running
> diffractometers under Linux for 26 years, and has been the backbone
> of what I consider to be a well integrated scientific computing
> environment.  For that reason, as well as other reasons, absolutely
> loathe option 3.
>
> At this point, I see option #1 as my first choice.
>
> I've tried finding a downloadable Fedora 28, but my googling hasn't
> yielded anything.  If anyone can point me in the right direction, I
> would appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paul
>
>