Oolite Bulletins

DON'T get Fedora Core 5 right now if you want to build / run Oolite - GNUstep doesn't build and Oolite will NOT run on FC5.

FC5 includes amongst other things a number of security enhancements (such as PaX, which basically stops writeable memory from being executable). GNUstep will not build because it falls over when building some of the GNUstep executables. (I think this is a problem with libffcall.)

The run time (either the autopackage or the tarball, it doesn't matter) will not run either since things like the SDL libraries from that package will not work, nor will the GNUstep prepackaged libraries.

The change in the way the security framework for Fedora Core 5 is such that it will have to be treated as a separate architecture (and so will all other distros doing the same thing with PaX and possibly SElinux) - it is NOT binary compatible with FC <= 4.

I have filed a bug report with GNUstep, hopefully they can fix the compile issues for their stuff (once that is fixed, Oolite should work fine on Fedora Core 5). I'll make an announcement when we have an FC5 compatible build available (or I find a way of making the current build work on FC5). It's a shame because otherwise Fedora Core 5 is really good - it's very snappy.

UPDATE

You can get Oolite to run on Fedora Core 5 by changing SElinux to a 'permissive' policy. To do this:

System -> Administration -> Security Level
(type your root password)
Select the SElinux tab
Set SElinux setting to 'Permissive'

Since I don't really want people to have to turn off SElinux (which is a VERY good thing for desktop security) to run Oolite, in the interim (until GNUstep can eliminate 'trampolining' which is causing SElinux to kill the process - the trampolining code is put on the stack which SElinux is enforcing as non-executable) I will see if I can write an SElinux policy for Oolite which can be installed if Fedora Core 5 is detected by the installer.

Better still - you can make Oolite run WITHOUT turning off SElinux but you *do* have to allow an executable heap. To do this:

System -> Administration -> Security Level and Firewall
Enter your root passwd
Choose SElinux tabl
Modify SElinux policy
Scroll down to 'Other' and expand it
Check the 'allow execheap' checkbox
Click OK

Oolite will now run on FC5. As I was saying, I'm going to look into the practicality of making an SElinux policy for Oolite rather han blanket allowing executable heap.

The joys of strong security

Thats a little to much concentration and constipation for one system to just run 1 game

Fedora Core 5 reached its End of Life on Friday June 29th, 2007.
Moved topic from sticky to normal.