On Monday 12 May 2003 15:30, Paul Conn wrote:
On Mon, 12 May 2003 12:00:02 -0700
Curtis Rey <crrey@charter.net> wrote:
Hi all. I decided to install the lastest version of ZiNF rather than the version of freeamp that comes with 8.2. I have three options.
[....stuff deleted...]
Two get the aforementioned files as *.src.rpms and rebuilid them for my system. But, Is the rpm database going to correctly reconized these later so that I can track them correctly with rpm?
Three is to get the source packages and then create my own rpms for SuSE 8.2 myself. I haven't done this but feels it's time I learned to. If I were to take this path I would greatly appreciate any pointers that others may offer, such as specific literature/readme's and programs that would make it easier for an rpm noob to use and follow.
You can build rpm's from source rpm's, but can I suggest another method. You have a wonderful little program already called "checkinstall" that you can use. You get the compressed tarballs and follow along as though doing a configure/make/make install. However, instead of doing make install you call checkinstall. It actually does the make install for you but then it interactively creates an rpm from the detail it gathers doing the install. It then installs the rpm. This creates an entry in the rpm database and you can subsequently treat it as an rpm installation.
It makes maintaining non-SuSE specific software a breeze. All the advantages of your own configure plus rpm management. BTW, I usually run SuSEconfig manually after such an install, for good order.
Paul.
Cool, I do remember hearing about this. Also, is the KRPMbuilder a front end for this. I was giving it a look and some pre-defined arguments (fill in the spaces). Are you or anyone else aware of this program and have any opinion one way or the other? The checkinstall sounds very handy though. I have done many tarballs and am faily comfortable with them. I guess what your saying config make to get things straight, deps, paths, etc.. and the run check install - I'll have a look at the man pages. Cheers, Curtis.