Document CentOS/python2.6 provisional support

INSTALL.md

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ which is the only reason I haven't automated this too...)
 Linux Installation
 ==================
 
-The simplest installation path (assuming you have Python 2.7 or later and
+The simplest installation path (assuming you have Python 2.6 or later and
 Git installed already) is as follows:
 
     git clone git://github.com/glennmatthews/cot

INSTALL_LINUX.md

@@ -10,14 +10,13 @@ are insufficient.
 
 # Check installed Python version #
 
-Make sure your Python version is at least 2.7:
+Make sure your Python version is ideally at least 2.7 or 3.x:
 
     > python --version
     Python 2.7.4
 
-If it's an older release (CentOS in particular defaults to old Python versions)
-then you need to install a newer version. Refer to http://www.python.org for
-installation instructions.
+CentOS in particular defaults to Python 2.6 - COT can be installed and
+run under Python 2.6 but this is not optimal. See below for more details.
 
 # Download COT #
 
@@ -31,11 +30,11 @@ To download the latest bleeding-edge version:
     tar zxf cot.tgz
     cd cot-master
 
-To download a specific stable release (in this example, v1.1.3):
+To download a specific stable release (in this example, v1.1.4):
 
-    wget -O cot.tgz https://github.com/glennmatthews/cot/archive/v1.1.3.tar.gz
+    wget -O cot.tgz https://github.com/glennmatthews/cot/archive/v1.1.4.tar.gz
     tar zxf cot.tgz
-    cd cot-1.1.3
+    cd cot-1.1.4
 
 ## Downloading COT via Git ##
 
@@ -49,9 +48,9 @@ Make a local clone of the Git repository:
 
 This will default to the latest bleeding-edge version. If you want a specific
 stable release, use the following command to select to the desired release
-(for example, version 1.1.3):
+(for example, version 1.1.4):
 
-    git checkout tags/v1.1.3
+    git checkout tags/v1.1.4
 
 # Build COT #
 
@@ -179,21 +178,27 @@ one already. Once downloaded, install it according to the included instructions.
 
 # Install COT #
 
-1. Before installing COT, if you want to, you can test it as follows:
+1. Before installing COT, if you want to, you can run its built-in unit tests
+   as follows:
 
         > python ./setup.py test
         running test
 
    (verbose test case output omitted here for brevity)
 
         ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-        Ran 123 tests in 36.904s
+        Ran 136 tests in 41.130s
 
         OK
 
-   (If any tests fail, likely due to missing optional dependencies described
+   Note that under Python 2.6 (i.e., CentOS) this test will report numerous
+   failures at present as the XML generated by Python 2.6 is structured
+   differently (but still valid!) from the XML generated by 2.7 and later,
+   and the unit tests do not presently account for this variance.
+
+   If any tests fail, likely due to missing optional dependencies described
    above, the failures will be reported here, giving you a chance to fix them
-   or ignore them before installing COT.)
+   or ignore them before installing COT.
 
 2. Install COT:
 
@@ -205,9 +210,9 @@ one already. Once downloaded, install it according to the included instructions.
 
         Installing cot script to /usr/local/bin
 
-        Installed /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/common_ovf_tool-1.1.3-py2.7.egg
-        Processing dependencies for common-ovf-tool==1.1.3
-        Finished processing dependencies for common-ovf-tool==1.1.3
+        Installed /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/common_ovf_tool-1.1.4-py2.7.egg
+        Processing dependencies for common-ovf-tool==1.1.4
+        Finished processing dependencies for common-ovf-tool==1.1.4
         > which cot
         /usr/local/bin/cot
 
@@ -220,7 +225,7 @@ one already. Once downloaded, install it according to the included instructions.
           cot <command> --help
           cot [-f] [-v] <command> <options>
 
-        Common OVF Tool (COT), version 1.1.3
+        Common OVF Tool (COT), version 1.1.4
         Copyright (C) 2013-2014 the COT project developers
         A tool for editing Open Virtualization Format (.ovf, .ova) virtual appliances,
         with a focus on virtualized network appliances such as the Cisco CSR 1000V and

README.md

@@ -41,7 +41,9 @@ COT's capabilities include:
 System Requirements
 ===================
 
-* COT requires either Python 2.7 or Python 3.
+* COT is supported under Mac OS X and Ubuntu at present and requires either
+  Python 2.7 or Python 3.x.
+* COT now has limited support for CentOS and Python 2.6 as well.
 * COT uses [`qemu-img`](http://www.qemu.org) as a helper program for various
   operations involving the creation, inspection, and modification of
   hard disk image files packaged in an OVF.

bin/cot_unittest

@@ -32,4 +32,8 @@ fi
 exec $python -m unittest discover -s COT/tests -p "*.py" "$@"
 
 # You can also invoke test cases with the following command:
-# python-2.7.1 -m unittest discover -s COT/tests -p "*.py"
+# python2.7 -m unittest discover -s COT/tests -p "*.py"
+# or, in 2.6:
+# nosetests COT/tests/*.py
+# Note that at present many failures will occur under 2.6 as it produces
+# differently structured XML output compared to the expected 2.7/3.x output.