Testing Results for LSB Sample Implementation 1.1
After running into a few small problems in getting the latest sample
implementation to work properly in time for LinuxWorld Expo last week
(thanks for Ralf for resolving my problems), I decided to do some simple
testing on several distros to see what issues there might be. My testing
involved building rsync in lsbdev and then trying to run it under the
sample implementation. For the five distros I tested rsync ran just fine,
but I did run into problems and/or nuisances when installing the sample.
Here are details of my results.
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1. Debian Woody - October 10, 2001 version
Installing under Debian worked just fine with the exception of one small
warning. When the man-lsb package is being installed it gives a warning
about user "man" not existing on the system and user "root" will be used as
the owner for /usr/bin/man instead.
2. Redhat 7.2 Enigma
This is the distro I have loaded on my laptop and the one I was using for
my LinuxWorld presentation. It also ended up being the most difficult
installation. Several problems were encountered and two workarounds were
required to complete installation. The first problem was the rpm on Redhat
not allowing installation of most of the RPMs due to interdependencies,
even though the "--depends" option was being used. It appears the version
of Redhat I am using does not handle this flag properly. To get around this
problem I needed help from Ralf. He sent me the /usr/bin/rpm command from
the Caldera distro. I loaded it on my system and modified the mkLSBdist
script to use it instead of the rpm commad on Redhat. Unfortunately, the
Caldera rpm would not run in this state. It complained about not being able
to find some files in the /usr/lib/rpm-3.0.6 directory. To work around this
problem I created a symbolic link from /usr/lib/rpm to /usr/lib/rpm-3.0.6.
Once these two problems were addressed, the installation completed, but
with lots of warning messages. When installing the DEV-lsb package it gave
1726 warnings about the group "operator" not existing on the system and
group "root" would be used as the group for many of the files in the
package. I also got the same error as the Debian installation about user
"man" not being there.
3. Caldera OpenLinux Server 3.1
Installing the sample on Caldera succeeded with no warnings or errors. This
shouldn't be too big of a suprise since the sample is based on Caldera.
4. SuSE 7.3
Installing the sample on SuSE succeeded, but it had similar warnings about
groups not existing. In addition to reporitng the lack of group "operator"
when installing DEV-lsb, it also reported no group "games" existing. Other
than that, everything went fine.
5. Turbolinux Server 7.0 Esprit
Installing the sample on Turbo was similar to the results for SuSE. In this
instance it reported group "operator" and user "man" not existing on the
system.
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In summary, I think the latest version of the sample implementation is in
pretty good shape. It just needs a little polishing to avoid nuisance
warning messages about groups and users missing on a system. Additionally,
a little more investigation should be done to determine why the rpm on
Redhat can't handle "--depends".
Regards,
Marvin Heffler
Linux Standard Base and Developers Toolbox
IBM Linux Technology Center
11400 Burnet Road, Zip 908-1A33
Austin, TX 78758
(512) 838-0953 T/L 678-0953
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