* c G (susegoose@hotmail.com) [020410 08:41]:
my area of confusion is to whether or not the update rpms from ftp.suse.com apply themselves to the source code existant on my system that I installed as spms.
Source rpms are just archives or source code, patches, and spec file that tells rpm how to build a binary rpm from them. The update rpms will replace the binaries and libraries (e.g., /usr/sbin/httpd), the update source rpm will replace the stuff in /usr/src/packages/.
I want to ensure that the compilation and istall process for apache, php4, and perl all use source code that will produce files with the updates applied. (thus the need for updated source code)
I don't think I understand what you are trying to do. The installation docs for apache tell you how to build it from scratch which you don't need to do if you are using our rpms. If you want to build it from scratch for self-betterment or whatever the patches we have in our source rpm are against the pristine source so they will apply to the same version. This seems like a strange exercise though since the the apache-<version>.tar.gz in the source rpm is the identical to one you'll download from apache.org. Why just rpm --rebuild apache.spm and install the rpm you've built?
Also is there a method (syntax and all) that might be preferred to following the general "apache install (how-to)"?
You can see how we build it in the spec file. I don't know if that's to be preferred though. -- -ckm