[rt-users] Why I am recommending 3.6 over 3.8 to my boss

[Robert Grasso]

Hello,

I have recently installed RT 3.8.7 on CentOS 5 (main RHEL clone), after several previous upgrades. The rpm you mention did not fit
our requirements.

This is my own opinion : as you increase your Unix/Linux/RedHat skills, you will feel less concerned by such issues.

BTW : the Best Practical installation scripts install RT in /opt, which is a standard location for extra software, according to the
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/

http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#OPTADDONAPPLICATIONSOFTWAREPACKAGES

So their decision of installing RT in /opt is pretty compliant.

Besides, to me, maintaining the non-RedHat Perl modules is quite straightforward, using the Best Practical :

make testeps

make fixdeps

and of course, there is a slight burden, each time perl is updated by yum, I must install Scalar::Util from CPAN by hand again -
this has been painful the first time, now I am warned and it does not cost anything more on upgrades.

Regards
---
Robert GRASSO – System engineer

CEDRAT S.A.
15 Chemin de Malacher - Inovallée - 38246 MEYLAN cedex - FRANCE 
Phone: +33 (0)4 76 90 50 45 - Fax: +33 (0)4 56 38 08 30
mailto:robert.grasso at cedrat.com - http://www.cedrat.com  

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : rt-users-bounces at lists.bestpractical.com 
> [mailto:rt-users-bounces at lists.bestpractical.com] De la part 
> de Wes Modes
> Envoyé : 4 novembre 2010 22:02
> À : RT Users
> Objet : [rt-users] Why I am recommending 3.6 over 3.8 to my boss
> 
> Dear Boss:
> 
> I strongly recommend going with the 3.6 version of RT.  The 
> install takes a few minutes, and it otherwise meets all the 
> requirements of our project.  Migration of old queues is 
> simple.  There is cost savings in the near and long-term.  
> 
> There is no rpm of RT3.8 that works for RHEL (32 or 64 bit) 
> and none seem to be forthcoming.  Someday perhaps someone 
> will put one together, but it doesn't look like anytime soon.  
> 
> I CAN do a manual install of RT3.8 using the Best Practical 
> install scripts.  It is not terribly hard.  However, the 
> long-term costs of this are large.  The install scripts put 
> all the binaries, configuration files, and libraries in the 
> wrong places for RHEL/CentOS, and working outside the package 
> manager means files could be clobbered at any time.  On the 
> other hand, the rpms for RT3.6 use the package manager and 
> put all the config files in /etc, all the perl modules in the 
> perl modules dir, and the various tools in /usr/bin and 
> /usr/sbin.  The non-standard install using the scripts 
> creates recurring costs in the future as the system is 
> significantly more difficult to update and harder to 
> maintain, like by a factor of 50 (five minutes compared to 4 hours).
> 
> Additionally, the cost of migration of old content from 3.6 
> to 3.8 is unknown.
> 
> Again, I will install either RT3.6 or RT3.8 but I need you to 
> understand
> and acknowledge the costs of the choice.
> 
> Wes
> 
> 
> Thanks to Gary Greene for the info about his latest centos rpm build.
>