EPEL 8 Modularity was set up shortly after the main EPEL 8 release. It attempted to use the Fedora module ecosystem with RHEL modules. The strange mixture of Fedora ecosystem and RHEL modularity never worked properly. There have been routine instances of modules that wouldn’t install, modules that overwrote RHEL modules, Fedora maintainers surprised their modules were in EPEL, and the constant issue that EPEL modules couldn’t depend on RHEL modules.
Many people have attempted to fix EPEL modularity over the years but none of these attempts have worked. At this point the EPEL Steering Committee is saying that the experiment with modules in EPEL has not worked. We are decommissioning EPEL 8 modularity.
Decommission Plan
- October 31, 2022
- An updated epel-release will be pushed to the epel8 repo.
- This sets “enabled = 0” for epel-modular, if you haven’t already changed your config.
- epel-modular full name will have “DEPRECATED” in it.
- An updated epel-release will be pushed to the epel8 repo.
- February 15, 2023
- The infrastructure for building and publishing epel8 modules will be removed.
- The EPEL 8 modules will be archived and removed.
- The mirror manager will be pointed to the archive.
Archive Access
Systems will still be able to access archived modules, but their use is not recommended. The modules will not receive any further security or bug fixes.
ty
I appreciate the clear communication very much. Is there a transition plan somewhere in a community / documentation / thread anyone can link me to?
Troy
There is now.
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/epel-devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/TRJMM3ARQQDKNPSG67ZMWW2FDWDGEHGB/
Sergey
For me it is not clear why there are no modules in Fedora and in the EL is.
And then EPEL is a package for the EL and what does Fedora have to do with it?
In the original EL modules are and work.
And EPEL 9 modules will be?
Troy Dawson
There are modules in Fedora but they are no longer turned on by default. EPEL is built on the Fedora infrastructure. Thus, EPEL had access to the Fedora modules and Fedora module infrastructure. Because a majority of Fedora packages and modules do not install on RHEL 8, having access to Fedora’s modules was causing more harm than good.
EPEL 9 will not have modules.
ty
Thank you very much Troy, this is great! 🙂
Bud
Thank you! The modules are a pain and you get the feeling that Red Hat uses them to make it harder for projects like Alma or Rocky.
Eric L.
Modules have been introduced with the objective of allowing certain software (mainly development and database ones) to change more quickly than the underlying OS itself, which is supposed to remain stable for the duration of the lifetime of RHEL. So this is a compromise between actuality and stability, and similar concepts (called SCL, Software Collections) have been introduced way before Alma or Rocky became a thing.
And to answer @Sergey’s question: there are modules in Fedora, check the fedora-modular repo and https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/modularity/using-modules/ (but they make possibly less sense because Fedora is so much more short-lived than RHEL).
XXx
So there will be a resignation of the EPEL Steering Committee ?
Troy Dawson
No
FeRD (Frank Dana)
Yay. Modules were always terrible and confusing. I’d love to see the Fedora modularity repo go away (completely), as well.
There’s a solution to the multiple-versions problem, I’m sure, but the current modularity design was not that solution. Experimentation is good, but it has to come with the willingness to declare an experiment failed.