Paul Abrahams wrote:

Mads Martin Jørgensen wrote:

...

* Paul Abrahams [Jun 18. 2001 10:39]:

...

A while ago I remember reading a post noting that Lenz Grimmer of SuSE had developed a mini-HOWTO on converting .tgz files to .rpm files consistent with the SuSE conventions. I've looked on his web page at SuSE (http://www.suse.de/~grimmer) and also at his section on the FTP site, but haven't found anything resembling what I'm looking for. Any pointers?

Non existing at the moment. Its beeing examined, partly rewritten. So I guess you'll have to wait 'till the good Mr. Grimmer release a new one.

Here's a suggestion. Many Linux-related websites have a "contrib" section. How about one for RPM packages that have been converted from TGZ packages by someone outside of SuSE (like me, perhaps). And also, when the estimable Mr. Grimmer releases his new writeup, it would be great if it could be placed in the SuSE support database (in response to the obvious hypothetical question, "How do you convert a tarball (.tgz file) to a SuSE-compatible RPM package?").

Paul

According the the LSB/LFS anything installed onto the machine that did not come with the distribution should be installed into /usr/local. This is supposed to guarantee that any subsequent updates do not overwrite any externally added software. Any update procedure is supposed to be sure that if the word local is in the path of a file then it is off limits. So any rpm you wanted to build that is not part of the distrubtion does not need to be suse specific. It should really be an rpm that could be installed on ANY linux box without having to worry about the distribution. This makes building an rpm much easier and you do not need Len's procedure to build an rpm that will work and be LSB compliant. In fact I beleive you are looking for trouble trying to make a so called "SuSE-compatable RPM" unless you are trying to help SuSE in some way. Your better off just building your basic rpm that installs into /usr/local. I do it just to try to maintain the rpm database. It's really not neccassary to be SuSE specific. What if you (god forbid) decided to change distributions? All that work you did may be for naught. Just my opinion.. Happy rpming............. Mark

* Jonathan Wilson [Jun 18. 2001 13:41]:

At 03:53 PM 6/18/2001 -0400, you wrote:

...

According the the LSB/LFS anything installed onto the machine that did not come with the distribution should be installed into /usr/local. This is supposed to guarantee that any subsequent updates do not overwrite any externally added software. Any update procedure is supposed to be sure that if the word local is in the path of a file then it is off limits. So any rpm you wanted to build that is not part of the distrubtion does not need to be suse specific. It should really be an rpm that could be installed on ANY linux box without having to worry about the distribution. This makes building an rpm much easier and you do not need Len's procedure to build an rpm that will work and be LSB compliant. In fact I beleive you are looking for trouble trying to make a so called "SuSE-compatable RPM" unless you are trying to help SuSE in some way. Your better off just building your basic rpm that installs into /usr/local. I do it just to try to maintain the rpm database. It's really not neccassary to be SuSE specific. What if you (god forbid) decided to change distributions? All that work you did may be for naught. Just my opinion..

Happy rpming.............

It is certainly the wisest idea to make your RPMs (and other code) LFS compatible. SuSE 7.1 and 7.2 are LFS compatible, so your RPMs will work fine on SuSE.

Don't forget some things also belong in /opt as well as /usr/local/bin

BTW the previous post's ugly formatting is an excellent example of why I refuse to use line wrapping - it's ugly and hard to read :-)

So this is hard and ugly to read? All done with one single keystroke? Sorry Jonathan; line-wrapping is only ugly if not done right. -- Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk "Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic and totally illogic, with just a little bit more effort." -- A. P. J.

Þann mánudagur 18 júní 2001 19:53 skrifaðir þú:

Paul Abrahams wrote: [snip]

According the the LSB/LFS anything installed onto the machine that did not come with the distribution should be installed into /usr/local. This is supposed to

Here you are not quite right. The LSB 0.92 ( latest ) doesn't mention this one word. The FHS 2.2 ( latest ) says about /opt: /opt is reserved for the installation of add-on application software packages. A package to be installed in /opt must locate its static files in a seperate /opt/<package> directory tree, where <package> is a name that describes the software package. About /usr/local it says: Requirements: /usr/local -> Local hierarchy ( empty after main installation ) Purpose: The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for programs and data that are shareable amongst a group of hosts, but not found in /usr. Locally installed software must be placed within /usr/local rather than /usr unless it is being installed to replace or upgrade software in /usr. Although the FHS states that locally installed software SHOULD go into /usr/local, it also states that optional software should go into /opt ( a conflict ). Very few Linux installations create /usr/local as a seperate mountpoint, but rather as an empty hierarchy. SOME Linux installations use /opt ( SuSE being one ), and in the correct way too. My understanding through countless years as a unix system administrator has always been what the FHS loosely implies - install kickass big'n'fat packages into /opt, and keep small utils and locally developed software in /usr/local ( emphasis on "locally developed" :-)

guarantee that any subsequent updates do not overwrite any externally added software. Any update procedure is supposed to be sure that if the word local is in the path of a file then it is off limits. So any rpm you wanted to build that is not part of the distrubtion does not need to be suse specific. It should really be an rpm that could be installed on ANY linux box without having to worry about the distribution. This makes building an rpm much easier and you do not need Len's procedure to build an rpm that will work and be LSB compliant. In fact I beleive you are looking for trouble trying to make a so called "SuSE-compatable RPM" unless you are trying to help SuSE in some way. Your better off just building your basic rpm that installs into /usr/local. I do it just to try to maintain the rpm database. It's really not neccassary to be SuSE specific. What if you (god forbid) decided to change distributions? All that work you did may be for naught. Just my opinion..

Here I'd say you are off-track. In many cases, you MUST build a distribution-specific RPM, mostly due to distribution-specific needs. For example, on RedHat there is this great tool "chkconfig" which adds and removes services from the rc tree. Also, you could opt to create the links yourself. That would be "ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/myscript /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S99myscript". See... that wouldn't work on SuSE... ok, so let's use the chkconfig... Oh.. on SuSE that script does: #!/bin/sh # don't complain exit 0 So.. it wouldn't work either... ¡darn! There are distribution-specific library needs, distribution specific security needs ( some use crypt, others mcrypt etc ) and a program for KDE just wouldn't install correctly if not installed in $KDEDIR ( which happens to be $KDE2DIR for KDE2 on SuSE :-) I hope your'e getting my point, and before you reply, please take a breather, and read this again :-) -tosi

Happy rpming.............

Mark

At 11:12 2001.06.26 +0200, you wrote:

Hi,

after wading through more than 4000 posts in this lists (Pine even crashed because of the size of this folder!) I am back from vacation and illness that kept me offline for the past weeks. Hope you are all well!

It's good to see you back, Lenz!!! One simple question... ;-) will be there ISO 7.2 for japanese or some other languages... ;-)))) Of cause it's a joke!!! But, who knows... Audrius