[Planetlab-users] a few questions from a first timer

[Marc E. Fiuczynski]

 > -My-plc posts mention fedora core 4, but the node I logged on to still
 > runs fedora core 2. Why the discrepancy?

We are "upgrading" PlanetLab from fc2 -> fc4 this month.  I failed to 
complete the internal upgrade to fc6 in time for the release.  So maybe 
sometime later we'll upgrade to a more recent version of fc.  Nothing 
stops you from upgrading your slice on your own!

 > -In order to develop my applications, should I use devbox (if it's
 > still current) or my-plc? What is the difference? I just want a
 > chroot with planet-lab's gcc tool-chain and libraries. My-plc
 > appears to be overkill.

A chroot is the right approach.  We have a script in our own build 
package that does this:

cvs -d :pserver:anonymous at cvs.planet-lab.org:/cvs \
   co -p build/mkfedora > ./mkfedora

Then execute
mkdir fc2root
sudo ./mkfedora -v -l ${FC2REPOSITORYURL} -r 2 -a i386 ./fc2root

Once it is set up, you just need to mount proc and dev/pts in there and 
chroot to ./fc2root.  You can use the same script to create a FC4 or 
whatever chroot area for development purposes.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Marc