[linux-security] supported distributions

[Martin Siegert <siegert@sfu.ca>]

Dear List Subscribers,

after a lot of discussion on various mailing lists (I particularly watched
the discussion on the Beowulf mailing list that is most relevant for
research computing on clusters) RedHat has now revealed its pricing scheme
for educational institutions:
http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industries/education/site/
For SFU's Beowulf cluster alone such a license would cost about $7500 US;
a site license would cost in excess of $10000 US.
This ends the dicussion whether we could support a commercial RedHat
distribution: we cannot. (You may also ask why we should, as long as
freely downloadable distributions are still available).

Therefore, the plan is as follows:

1) As of now SuSE Linux 9.0 is available from sphinx in
   /vol/vol0/distrib/suse/9.0

   I have not rewritten check-rpms to work with that distribution, but I
   will do so soon.

2) As of Jan 1, 04 there will be a directory
   /vol/vol0/distrib/sfu/7.3
   be available on sphinx. This directory will not carry a full distribution
   (i.e., you cannot install a machine from that directory). This directory
   will contain updates backported for RedHat 7.3. The RedHat 7.3
   distribution will still be available in /vol/vol0/distrib/redhat/7.3,
   but it will be frozen at the state of Dec. 31, 03.
   [we would like to provide a full distribution in 
   /vol/vol0/distrib/sfu/7.3, however, due to RedHat's license restrictions
   this would require stripping all RedHat logos and trademarks out of
   RedHat 7.3 rpms, which requires a significant amount of time].

3) The /vol/vol0/distrib/redhat/7.1 and /vol/vol0/distrib/redhat/7.2
   directories will disappear on Jan. 1, 04 at the latest: due to
   constraints on disk space we would like to hear from the community
   whether these two versions are still required - if not they may be
   removed within days. 
   The /vol/vol0/distrib/redhat/9.0 directory will disappear on May 1, 04.

4) We are planning to setup a Fedora Linux 1.0 distribution in
   /vol/vol0/distrib/fedora/1.0 as soon as time permits.

5) We would like to setup a Debian distribution
   (/vol/vol0/distrib/debian/3.0). This will require significant amount
   of time. Information from the community about how to setup such a
   distribution would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Martin

-- 
Martin Siegert
Manager, Research Services
WestGrid Site Manager
Academic Computing Services                        phone: (604) 291-4691
Simon Fraser University                            fax:   (604) 291-4242
Burnaby, British Columbia                          email: siegert@sfu.ca
Canada  V5A 1S6