svn2git fails "ERROR: No RCS files found under..."

[rofl0r]

using the latest release 2.4.0 as described on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/881158/is-there-a-migration-tool-from-cvs-to-git

$ cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@pearpc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/pearpc login 
$ cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@pearpc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/pearpc co -P pearpc
# ... downloads stuff...
$ cp /opt/cvs2svn/share/cvs2svn/cvs2git-example.options .
# ... edit run_options.set_project r'dirname' to point to pearpc
$ cvs2git --options=cvs2git-example.options --fallback-encoding utf-8
ERROR: the path 'pearpc' is not a CVS repository, nor a path within a CVS repository.  A CVS repository contains a CVSROOT directory within its root directory.
# as decribed in the stackoverflow answer:
$ mkdir pearpc/CVSROOT
$ cvs2git --options=cvs2git-example.options --fallback-encoding utf-8
ERROR: No RCS files found under 'pearpc'!
Are you absolutely certain you are pointing cvs2svn
at a CVS repository?

[mhagger]

You need to run cvs2git against the CVS repository, not a checked-out copy. The repository is the thing with a CVSROOT directory at its top level and lots of filename.txt,v files with the ,v suffix.

Last I checked, sourceforge provides some way to download a tarball of your repository.

[rofl0r]

well the point is to get the commit history, not just a snapshot. and the above stackoverflow article suggests that it is possible to use cv2git like that. i.e. point cvs2git to a CVS repository (although not a local one, but. a read-only external one like in the above case) and let it checkout commit after commit and create a new git repo out of that.

[mhagger]

@rofl0r: You are right; the stack overflow instructions are wrong. I just downvoted that answer and added a comment explaining why it is wrong.