Compile/ Install CentOS 7

[Jee-Bee]

Hello all
I have got a new(2nd hand) Dell PowerEdge 320 (https://www.dell.com/gd/business/p/poweredge-t320/pd) server. I want to is as a kind of FEM server with possebility to use it as external desktop.
So i want to stay at close to it's original configuration.

The current supported OS are:

• Microsoft® Windows Server® 2012
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Essentials
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, x64 (includes Hyper-V®)
• Novell® SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server
• Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®
• Virtualization options:
• Citrix® XenServer®
• VMware® vSphere® ESXi ™
• Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization®

So i prefere to run CentOS (and Red Hat as second option) as OS for FreeCAD and Calculix(and maybe some other). This because of max support for the server(like idrac etc)...
Have anybody experience with compiling fore these OSses for FreeCAD + OpenCascade + Calculix?
Acc to: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7510 It looks like the user is switcht first ... but later it looks like it is possible but the threat is from 2014 so it's a wile ago. So i hope anything is changed.
and Acc to: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=15245 i have no clue

If nobody have any experience I tried to contact Dell maybe they know something...

[Jee-Bee]

Found another link: https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=48286

[Jee-Bee]

So i guess that nobody have any clue about calculix + FreeCAD on CentOS or Red Hat?

[sgrogan]

So i guess that nobody have any clue about calculix + FreeCAD on CentOS or Red Hat?

I don't have experience with CentOS but what I think you would need to do is:

Install the EPEL repo: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/installin ... edhat-7-x/
Use yum to install as many FreeCAD dependencies as possible.
Compile all the missing dependencies yourself using the yum installed packages as the dependencies of the dependencies.
Compile FreeCAD.

The disadvantage of this is that, as far as I can tell, many of the packages available are dated. For example it looks like OCE is 0.17.1 which is based on OCCT 6.7. So some FreeCAD stuff won't work, like boolean fragments. This means you may need to compile even more stuff yourself. It's discouraged to compile stuff yourself on CentOS because eventually you may end up with conflicts with your system libraries.

An alternative would be to install Miniconda (not Anaconda): https://www.linuxhelp.com/how-to-instal ... -centos-7/
Miniconda ships with the conda package manager. With conda you can install all necessary dependencies (very recent versions) or install FreeCAD itself (@looo provides weekly builds of FreeCAD master). This method will also give you a PY3 build of FreeCAD.

You could probably accomplish this yourself in an virtualenv, but the overhead would probably be similar by the time you were done with way more work for you.

[Jee-Bee]

That looks quite bad...

So basically my best bets are or use the microsoft server OS (there is a license number on it...) or use unsupported Debian...
(last but maybe worst option use a lot of time of their help center...)

[Jee-Bee]

slightly related...
Fedora is related to Red Hat as well... isn't it?
What is the difference that it runs on fedora but not on CentOS

@PrzemoF maybe you know a bit more??

ping

[sgrogan]

What is the difference that it runs on fedora but not on CentOS

@PrzemoF would know more than me. But I think it comes down to the gaols of the distro. CentOS strives for maximum stability, Fedora strives for frequent releases. https://danielmiessler.com/study/fedora_redhat_centos/

I would look at Miniconda. It is basically a "rolling release" in a virtualenv. So you have both extremes; CentOS which is rock solid stable and an environment to act as a rolling release. The best of both worlds. I think much better than running a Virtual machine.

Windows wouldn't be any different. Your stuck with whatever version of the dependencies are in the Libpacks or the binaries compiled with them.
For the PY3 builds on Win, I'm already using conda as a package manager to replace the Libpacks.

[NormandC]

So i prefere to run CentOS (and Red Hat as second option) as OS for FreeCAD and Calculix(and maybe some other). This because of max support for the server(like idrac etc)...

Many servers run Debian or even Ubuntu. Have you checked if these distros really don't support the server features you want?

Considering the work done last summer by kkremitzki on GSoC, and the work he will continue to do as an official Debian Maintaner (as well as a member of the FreeCAD Maintainers team on Launchpad), it would be much simpler for you to install Debian or Ubuntu.

[kkremitzki]

If you use a traditional server distro for this task you're going to end up compiling a lot of the software you want. Since it seems like you're really after experimentation and aren't really using the server in a normal production sense, you might try Debian Testing, which is a fairly stable base that gets semi-rolling updates from packages that mature out of Unstable. Running Unstable itself also isn't actually bad, and you get packages as soon as they're uploaded and built--you just can't blindly run sudo apt full-upgrade in case a new uploaded caused a problem.

[Jee-Bee]

it would be much simpler for you to install Debian or Ubuntu.

Absolutely true! My only reason for not choosing Debian is support from Dell(what i have to 2019 so not that long!!) I want to acces it over my home network via iDrac (visualisation tool from Dell) or similar. My worries are that iDrac is not supported by other operating systems...

For now I shall ask Dell maybe they can help in any way (including using Debian etc...). i come back if they have any comments (or if somebody here have any tips).