Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3653 mails)

[Anand Buddhdev <arb@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jun 26, 2002 at 03:56:59PM +0200, Joe Sullivan wrote:

> Hey,
> 
> There are several programs that I'd like to make SuSE RPMs for (not part of 
> the SuSE distro).
> 
> I'm sorta new at making RPMs, so I'm wondering a few things...
> 
> Right now, I'm making an RPM by taking a tarball and doing:
> rpm -tb tarballname.tar.gz
> 
> This makes  a "noarch" RPM that works fine on my system.

It just so happens that the program you're trying to make an RPM of is
architecture independent, other you would have found a "i386" RPM.

> (Note: Using 7.3 Pro on an i686 system)
> 
> But will that RPM work on another person's SuSE system? I'm referring only to 
> general programs, not anything that's "vital" to the linux system like the 
> kernel or gcc...

It should work, as long as that other person Suse version is the same
as yours. It will most likely work on a different version as well, as
long as the dependencies for that RPM are satisfied by the other version
too. For example, an RPM built on Suse 7.2 would most likely work fine on
a Suse 7.3 system, since very little is likely to have changed in terms
of architecture. But don't expect a Suse 7.3 RPM to always work with say,
a Suse 6.2 system. A lot will have changed between the 2.

> Should I be specifying a target installation place so that it matches where 
> SuSE installs programs?

No.

> Should I be specifying i686 when building the tarball? Or will the "noarch" 
> work on an i386 (for example). Can I specify i386 when building the RPM to 
> make an i386 RPM, or will that not work since I'm using an i686 system?

Sometimes (especially with kernels) you need to specify the architecture
type. With most other RPMs, you don't need to.

> Will there be any issues with an 8.0 user trying to use these RPMs? Again, 
> it's just for some general programs, not vital stuff (ICQ programs, games, 
> things like that).

See above.

-- 
Anand Buddhdev
http://anand.org