On Wednesday 16 August 2006 18:04, BandiPat wrote:

Stan, The same place you find the i386 KDE files, so will you find the PPC ones as well. Most of the files located on the Packman mirrors are the hard work of Peter building those on his machine. Once some of the rest of us get setup on a good machine, we can help with those chores.

Hope that helps Lee

Thanks Lee but please give me a URL. I've been to http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/10.1/ and the ppc directory is empty. I've also checked http://software.opensuse.org/download/KDE:/KDE3/SUSE_Linux_10.1/ and there is no ppc directory. If my old 1Ghz and dual 450Mhz machines are capable, I'll get them cranking out compiles. I just need a lot of instruction for the first few to make sure I get it mostly right. Stan

On Wednesday 16 August 2006 21:39, BandiPat wrote:

Stan, I apologize for what I thought would be some PPC sites, there aren't! I'm at a loss to, at this point. They may not have update files for KDE for the PPC. I suppose one just gets the 10.2 Alpha files to install, which probably has all the files. Maybe Peter will let us know where we need to look. Just like the sources, SuSE makes it difficult to find the PPC from their mirrors site too.

I'm pretty sure your two machines should do well.

Sorry for the bad information. :-/

Lee

No problem. That was just a sanity test you tried on me right? I guess going 10.2 alpha would be OK _if_ they have ppc in sync with i586 and x86_64. Maybe I need to ask this over at the openSUSE or openFACTORY lists. Thanks, Stan

ftp://spike.fa.gau.hu/pub/pmppc101 10.0 packages are there, but I don't update them any more. The reason is, that Packman people use lots of different ways to compile packages, with many different home made scripts. I use the SUSE supplied y2pmsh, which requires carefully written RPM spec files, with all the necessary requirements included. This uses a chrooted environment, and makes sure, that any

spent a lot of time on fixing up 10.0 packages, but finally I gave up, as some for some larger packages it took literally days to get them fixed, and it's not my only job :-) With 10.1 packman people finally spent a bit more time on better spec files, so I fix them more easily. I did not yet integrate PPC packages in the Packman website. It has a few reasons: - it does not generate yet the amount of traffic, which would justify to include it in a complex mirror infrastructure - it has many source RPMs modified, to fix dependency issues, add PPC

- PPC packages have different (usually fewer) dependencies, as other

----Original Message----- From: Peter Czanik packaging problems are reproducible. I patches, etc. packman packages etc.

BTW: my machine is compiling Packman packages at the moment :-) Bye,

I've commented about this problem to others, but I would like to hear your thought on it. Why is it neccesssary to have a different RPM of every program for each linux distro as well as each version? It seems like a huge waste of resources to do it this way. On the Windows side, a program will install on most any version of windows or at least on W2k and XP. I've tried downloading and installing RPMs for other distros under SuSE, and sometimes it works, but more often than not it doesn't. I've gotten to the point that I just either install it from source or not update. Case in point, my desktop here as v9.2 on it. I had to hunt down an RPM for Firefox for it and install it. I had v1.5.0.3 on here. Then last night, I got a security update to v1.5.0.6 installed by YOU. I don't even know what it did. It definately should not have taken that long to get those updates...... Also, I am still trying to get the "Old World" mac support returned. Do you have any older Macs or know anything about the problems involved? I've offered to help test, but I'm not a programmer, so I can't just go in and fix something. Anyway, I was just wondering what your thoughts were on the matter. Thanx

----Original Message----- From: Stan Glasoe

Windows only runs on a limited number of hardware architectures; i386-i686, x86_64, ARM, etc. Linux runs on dozens. Windows used to support MIPS and Alpha and PPC but MS dropped those because they were not selling millions of copies of each chip architecture. Those chips weren't minting them any money...

Yes, but that's also the problem. Probably 80% of the desktops are x86 based, and a full 90% of them do run windows. When I try to encourage someone to make use of Linux or OSS, I end up having to do more work for them to get them running. And, when they do get up to speed, they do something that breaks the system by trying to do something that should be simple: Installing a program. Program support and installation is much more difficult on the Linux side because of all the different things. With Windows, they can go to the store and get a program they want or download it. There are a lot of great OSS programs for Windows like Firefox, and Firefox installs easier and updates better under Windows than I have seen it do under Linux.

LSB and FHS. SUSE is actually moving GNOME 2.16 and KDE 4.x out of /opt and into /usr to more fully comply with LSB and FHS. That will help. Other distros will package things different or place files where ever they want. OSS is about choice. For better or worse!

...

Case in point, my desktop here as v9.2 on it. I had to hunt down an RPM for Firefox for it and install it. I had v1.5.0.3 on here. Then last night, I got a security update to v1.5.0.6 installed by YOU. I don't even know what it did. It definately should not have taken that long to get

That's a good sign, and a start in the right direction. But there is more work to be done. I think that shared libraries are useless in so many ways because they change them too much too often. Just distribute your program with the shared libraries it needs. And Dependecies are still a pain. It's irritating to have to install bluetooth, firewire, Irda, and other hardware I don't have and don't intend to use just because I want to install KOrganizer. Heck, openSuSE/PPC installs support packages for the Intel 855 chipset, which has NEVER been used on a PPC platform.....Why?? those updates......

How long should it have taken?

Not that long. That's a few months. I never got the updates for v1.5.0.4 or v1.5.0.5. Firefox is supposed to be able to update itself. But that "Scan for updates" option is no longer available. I either have to learn how to build RPMs or hunt for an updated RPM. Also, I already had v1.5.0.6 on this machine. I have no idea what the update even did.......

I'd like it if the New World Macs were supported closer to the same time frame as i586 and x86_64. The Old World Macs had spotty support back when SUSE still put out a PPC version with the i386 releases. IIRC Apple wouldn't/won't release any info on the BIOS/firmware to get everything running properly. Lots of dead-ends for video, NUBus, etc. Some distros had a relationship with Apple or somehow got the info but due to licensing couldn't share it.?.? Good old proprietary software.

Yes, there are issues with many of the old macs. But, the PCI based machines are excellent performers under linux. I have a 7500 w/ a G3/400/1M that is very snappy. My Beige G3/266 works fine as well. Even the Rev A ROM isn't a problem. SuSE installed right to the slave drive on the primary controller to a 20GB partition. Try that with OS X. There are some problems with the OpenFirmware of those machines. I posted a list of suggested supportable machines a while back. The 7300 series can go to 1GB RAM and a 1Ghz G3 or G4 and the 8600/9600s can do 1.5GB RAM. Other than a lack of AGP and the 50Mhz system bus, they are excellent perfomers. Better than the similar Celerons which had a faster bus.

Use a known working distro if you want those Old World Macs running Linux.

I do. It's openSuSE v10.0. I can't go beyond that tho. It's sad that support was renewed, and then cut off for the Old machines almost immediately. I only have 1 new world machine, a B&W G3 with a G4 upgrade, and I had problems getting SuSE to run on it properly.

Hello, larrystotler@netscape.net írta:

I've commented about this problem to others, but I would like to hear your thought on it. Why is it neccesssary to have a different RPM of every program for each linux distro as well as each version? It seems like a huge waste of resources to do it this way. On the Windows side, a program will install on most any version of windows or at least on W2k and XP. I've tried downloading and installing RPMs for other distros under SuSE, and sometimes it works, but more often than not it doesn't. I've gotten to the point that I just either install it from source or not update. The Windows situation is something compare able to different versions of SLES and SLED. First of all: there are a lot less packages , with a lot less dependencies. This means, that there are a lot less packages to stay compatible with. Second: these are different versions of the same distribution. So there is a good chance, that if you compile something on an earlier version, it will also work on a later one, as if something did not remain directly compatible, there is a 'compat' package for it. But as even SLES contains more than a thousand of packages, this is true only for a limited number of packages. The problem is (which is actually also a good thing), that there are many Linux distributions. They compile most of their packages with very different settings. So simple packages, like dvdcss.rpm work on most distributions, but those which have more dependency than libc, usually fail due to different version, different compile time options, etc. This can partially be solved by statically linking in dependencies (like Skype), but this is only a fall back, the best solution is still to recompile software for each distribution, version and architecture.

Case in point, my desktop here as v9.2 on it. I had to hunt down an RPM for Firefox for it and install it. I had v1.5.0.3 on here. Then last night, I got a security update to v1.5.0.6 installed by YOU. I don't even know what it did. It definately should not have taken that long to get those updates...... SUSE (and most other distributions) policy is to backport safety fixes to versions, which were in the distribution originally. The version does not change, but the fixes are there. With some applications it's sometimes next to impossible, there one must do the version upgrade sometimes. But the default is to get problems fixed in the original version.

Also, I am still trying to get the "Old World" mac support returned. Do you have any older Macs or know anything about the problems involved? I've offered to help test, but I'm not a programmer, so I can't just go in and fix something. My only PPC machine is this a Pegasos2 based computer. It has Altivec, which is auto detected by most build scripts and I could not find an easy way to turn it off, as I'm also not a programmer. This means, that some of the packages I compile might not run on G3 Macs. Bye, CzP

Hello, Stan Glasoe wrote:

I'd still like to assist in compiling if you'd care to tutor me. Give me the easy ones, if there are such, and that may free up your time for the tougher compiles.

I would rather outscore the more difficult ones :-) Prerequisites: install y2pmsh and createrepo. Have full installation sources available on local hard drive or local network. Configure y2pmsh to use it. Basically I do the following: - check out what I compiled last time - rsync source rpms - rm /usr/src/packages/*/* - rpm -Uvh * (install all source rpms) - change to /data/psunpacked, where all sources and spec files will be copied together - rm * - cp /usr/src/packages/*/* . - y2pmbuild-10.1 --strictrequires blabla.spec for each new sources, and fix them as necessary. - when all packages are done, I remove old files from the output directory, run createrepo, and then rsync up to the server. The problem is, that on the server side I have FreeBSD now, where I can't run createrepo. This means, that I can't easily share the work at the moment. Bye, -- CzP http://peter.czanik.hu/