Yes, work on implementing SL5 at DESY Zeuthen has started. Fedora Core 6 is used to get a first glimpse. From there we'll move to the RHEL5 beta and later to the SL5 beta as soon as they become available.

TableOfContents

Status

• working with FC6T2 (50 is a link to that, script to create SL-like layout)

• profiles generation works
• adding to tftpboot works
• kickstart installation with DHCP works
• post, selection, firstboot are preliminary but working
• openafs-1.4.2beta3 works (with some ugly ugly hacks in the SPEC)
  • without PAGs (syscall table is r/o)
    • need to rebuild kernel or use openafs-1.5 with keyring pag support
      • 1.5.6 still too hard to build
  • installation in %post (yum does not work in %post, and NFS still needs portmap start)

Differences w.r.t SL4 (FC6T2; to be verified for RHEL5)

• no more /proc/pci (-> use lspci)

• no more /usr/X11R6

New Possibilities of Installer (FC6T2; to be verified for RHEL5)

• using additional repositories (how to configure kickstart for this?)
  • updates and additional packages

  • could alleviate need for SL's sites

Problems to Solve

• rsh access from trusted hosts does not work

Things to Understand

Ain't this nice?

[root@em64t ~]# /afs/ifh.de/project/linux/SL/scripts/SLU.pl yes please -shell
boot/grub/menu.lst exists
loader    : grub
site      : HH
Can't load '/opt/products/perl/5.8.8/lib/site_perl/i386-linux-thread-multi/auto/Crypt/OpenSSL/RSA/RSA.so' for module Crypt::OpenSSL::RSA: libcrypto.so.0.9.8: cannot enable executable stack as shared object requires: Permission denied at /opt/products/perl/5.8.8/lib/i386-linux-thread-multi/DynaLoader.pm line 230.
 at /project/VAMOS/prod//client/Auth/RSA.pm line 9
Compilation failed in require at /project/VAMOS/prod//client/Auth/RSA.pm line 9.

Notes from manual FC6T2 installation

• network install using DHCP - no media
• first attempt with a rather large set of packages including Xen failed
  • system got stuck when starting firstboot
• second attempt with smaller package set and without Xen worked
• X came up with some 1900x1400 resolution, just about usable
  • minimal xorg.conf prefers highest mode possible
  • could not be changed with system-config-display (monitor could not be chosen)