SuSE 10.0

[vorlon2261]

Yes, I know its only just been released... ;-)

Am just after some indication on when (if) a release for SuSE 10.0 is planned.
Would I be correct in assuming not until next release in q1 2006?

[jch]

That's not an unreasonable assumption. So far, each release has supported the current "free" versions (eg Fedora Core 4, SuSE 9.3) as well as SLES9, RHEL3 and RHEL4.

Interestingly, and I say this without any knowledge at all of what the powers that be are thinking, SuSE 10 changes the picture as they're moving more towards the Fedora/Enterprise model of development. There's a bit about this in the November 2005 "Linux Magazine" (not to be confused with "Linux User and Developer Magazine")

jch

[florian]

Well, I guess john is right; if I read the flight of the birds correctly, no formal decision has been taken. Needless to say, we usually don't consider new platforms outside our normal release cycle, this is because of the very thorough testing we do on each supported platform. Now, for a new release at some point we take a look at the available supportable Linux releases and make choices based on stability, usage, etc; under this policy, we'll also look at SuSE 10.0/OpenSuSE and everything that comes along with it [I just got my first DVD with it today at linuxopensourceforum Stockholm].

So....stay tuned!

Florian.

[florian]

Well, I guess john is right; if I read the flight of the birds correctly, no formal decision has been taken. Needless to say, we usually don't consider new platforms outside our normal release cycle, this is because of the very thorough testing we do on each supported platform. Now, for a new release at some point we take a look at the available supportable Linux releases and make choices based on stability, usage, etc; under this policy, we'll also look at SuSE 10.0/OpenSuSE and everything that comes along with it [I just got my first DVD with it today at linuxopensourceforum Stockholm].

So....stay tuned!

Florian.

[mephisto]

Just to let you know: I just installed Scalix 9.4.2 on OpenSUSE 10.0 and it worked fine. All I had to do was replace 10.0 with 9.3 in /etc/SuSE-release

[KimVette]

"Not Supported" - fine and well, how can I force installation on SuSE 10 (retail) - does it check a file for the system version, or does it check an environment variable, or ______?

[KimVette]

OOps, if I had bothered to read the last post I'd have my answer: D'oh!

[KimVette]

After working with SuSE 10 I decided to revert to SuSE 9.3 pro to test Scalix, figuring the installation would go more smoothly (after ~2 hours of working with it I could NOT get Scalix to work properly with the JRE 1.4.2 or 1.5). Even after I reverted to SuSE 9.3 it took a couple of hours to get Scalix to run on it. It didn't recognize the installed Tomcat, and once I installed the bundled version of Tomcat I still had to jump through a few hoops. I badly want to punt Microsoft Exchange but am going to wait until the next release. Here's why:

If you specify certain distributions, the assumption is that by supporting only specific versions of specific distros and by providing an installer, you would be limiting it to known quantities.

By limiting it to known quantities, you should know:

1. The location of the JRE by default
2. The location of Tomcat by default
3. The location of the required config files

And since these are known quantities with supporting a limited matrix of distros and versions, and the installer's enforcing the limiting of this matrix, the installer should be able to detect the dependencies and move forward on those detected dependencies, again, based on those dependencies being fulfilled, should proceed with the installation without users having to wrestle with it by pointing it at the various JREs which may be installed. Sendmail's "voodoo" configuration files (and likewise apache's) are a cakewalk in comparison because at least those are documented very well. With the Scalix documentation being brief and the installer's GUI providing little to no feedback initial setup and configuration of Scalix is by no means easy.

If Scalix configuration is going to be this difficult, then why not just get rid of the GUI and make the installer a shell script which is easy to modify (set the required variables at the top) and open up the matrix? Then you can have "recommended" distributions but also enable (relatively) easy installation on the distributions you didn't test on. The way it's done now, as I can see from existing threads in these forums (fora?) more than one person has run into such headaches on the "required" distributions so it seems limiting the matrix hasn't helped make installation easy.

Lastly: I contacted support via email over the weekend and have yet to receive a courtesy reply.

[KimVette]

Oh, and one more thing: it should automatically detect where the init.d scripts are and offer to correctly configure tomcat and add it to runlevels 3 and 5, since you require very specific builds of tomcat, the JRE, and the distro. Since all are known quantities, the install script should take care of all of these tasks - there should be no guesswork involved. I've had custom sendmail configurations and clustered Exchange installs go much more smoothly than this test scalix installation. :( I'm not giving up on Scalix though - so far it's still our intended upgrade path and I am holding things back until I see what 1Q2006 brings.

[natkins]

Hi Kim,

Sorry I did not see this thread earlier but it's on the feedback thread which I don't monitor very often - maybe I should.

I'm the lead engineer on the Installer project and just read your very informative and honest report. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. The good news is that all of your concerns are fixed in the next release of Scalix:

- JRE 1.5 is now bundled and installed if required
- Tomcat 5.0.28 is properly integrated and it installs into a specific place /opt/scalix-tomcat. The installer also disables any existing tomcat service and installs ours as a service in /etc/init.d
- dependencies are automatically resolved where possible (libical, lynx), unfortuantely you still need to supply your own Sendmail and Apache
- Apache/Tomcat JK connector is bundled and all the config is installed in Apache to make JK "just work"
- SuSE 10.0 is supported (but SuSE 9.3 is not, sorry)
- "typical" install mode does all of the above automatically without asking many questions (but it tells you what it's going to do before doing it).
- there is a full command-line installer included if you don't want to use X or prefer CLI.

I hope this news will please you. Let me know if you have any more feedback.

Cheers,

Nick.

[ScalixSupport]

Lastly: I contacted support via email over the weekend and have yet to receive a courtesy reply.

Hi

What was your question about ? If you mailed to support@scalix.com, you would have received an automated reply. Is this the case ?

Cheers

Dave

[KimVette]

Lastly: I contacted support via email over the weekend and have yet to receive a courtesy reply.

Hi

What was your question about ? If you mailed to support@scalix.com, you would have received an automated reply. Is this the case ?

Cheers

Dave

I'd like to address the email issue offline rather than air things publicly. There was some feedback I provided (not harsh, just some feedback I would not like to air here) plus some business-related inquiries.

Also with experience as both a release engineer and quality assurance prior to that I have an appreciation for installers, which is why I provided the feedback above (I hope no one took it personally). I've inherited lousy installers and have had to maintain bad code (extending where I could, cleanly re-architecting and re-implementing what I could get approved), and I've inherited some good projects with good code so I wanted to share some feedback on the issues I encountered.

[ScalixSupport]

I'd like to address the email issue offline rather than air things publicly. There was some feedback I provided (not harsh, just some feedback I would not like to air here) plus some business-related inquiries.

OK. Can you mail your information to support@scalix.com (mark it for my attention) and hopefully I can assist. I will pass on your business-related questions to the correct people.

Cheers

Dave

[KimVette]

I'd like to address the email issue offline rather than air things publicly. There was some feedback I provided (not harsh, just some feedback I would not like to air here) plus some business-related inquiries.

OK. Can you mail your information to support@scalix.com (mark it for my attention) and hopefully I can assist. I will pass on your business-related questions to the correct people.

Cheers

Dave

Hi Dave,

One of your reps called a few weeks ago but I got so involved in some client products that I was unable to return the call, and lost the contact info in the meantime. I will be sending an email to your attention in the next few days. However, if you need any beta testers for the installer I'd be happy to test Scalix 10 installation on SuSE 9.3 Pro, SuSE 10.0, and OpenSuSE 10.1 (since retail 10.1 is not yet available) over the weekend.

[ScalixSupport]

Thanks for the offer but we're due to release next week (Feb 14th) so any testing has been completed.

Cheers

Dave