Does anyone have any experience in building open source software on an IBM Mainframe running z/VM with SUSE 10 sp2 installed.

Issue: Open Source software provided by IBM/Novell was built from a source that was at v 1.3. We now have a requirement to bring the Open Source software up to 1.6.x.

1. How do I resolve the upgrade requirements to the supporting products that are used in the Primary Open Source software RPM. I understand that I will have to perform the "BUILD" on the primary packages, but will I have to do this for every packages that is used by the primary package?

2. Will I have to install the .src. RPM's in order to perform the Build?

3. Is there any other organization that supports s390x packages other than IBM and Novell?

4. Is there an s390x group that can provide technical support/knowledge to help in identifing problems and thier likely solutions?

It would help if you told us WHAT "open source" software you're building, and what error(s) you're getting.

1. Yes, you will have to update/upgrade any and all packages that the initial software calls for. This includes any libraries, headers, etc.
2. Maybe....if you can't find the binary packages for whatever you need to update. Again, you will have to update everything that the package depends on, before you can build/install that .src package.
3. Maybe...you don't say what software you're trying to get support for, so it's hard to say.


The best thing I can suggest to you, is to contact IBM, and have them provide tech support. This is a fully supported IBM configuration, and I'm positive you're paying (heavily), for it.

You can get Slackware and Debian for 390 architecture, if that's what you're asking in 3.
http://www.slack390.org/

Just like for any other RPM; I guess (not knowing just WHICH
"opensource package" you're trying to bump from wxy mumble to
xyz mumble ... ) you could try building it against whatever
is there, and if it works you're lucky. If it doesn't see whether
you can go to a newer version of SuSE. If you start updating
system provided RPMs you're pretty much out of support, anyway.

Yes.


RedHat - both the commercial line and Fedora have a line
of s390x packages.


Your software vendor? Novell in this case. The s390 mailing list?
The good folk here at LQ?


Cheers,
Tink