Hi, You are right. RPMs are quite distribution specific thus RH RPMs might not work on SuSE and vice versa. The answer of the why is the different locations of software components and the different compiling and dependency resolving strategies. I used to follow the below protocol while building my custom RPMs: 1. I unpack the src.rpm of the package in question (ex. the GNUstep) of SuSE 2. I check the SPEC file to learn how they managed to build their binary package 3. I download the most recent source tarball of the software. 4. I edit the spec file 5. Then I begin to build the binary and source rpms Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no package management system which can handle all details automatically while building packages from source tarballs. Maybe the closest thingy is the port-tree of the BSDs (NetBSD as it supports many HW architectures) and the portege system of Gentoo Linux. I considered to install one of them but with my RS/6000 7025-F50 CHRP server and the few time I had for this issue I had no luck. I installed SuSE 7.3 PPC and I upgraded SLES 8 for iSeries and pSeries. I think for you Yellowdog Linux could be the right choice. It is more recent and more supported than the out-of-date 7.3 :-( Or even better, the PPC version of Gentoo Linux. Sorry to say this, but SuSE (Novell) supports no more the PPC architecture (even if SLES versions have PPC builds also) for desktop use. Regards, Vakvarju On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 08:44:59 +0800 "Erik Hentell" <customimage@email.com> wrote:

Hello!

Thanks for responding. I was primarily interested because I had been told that RPMs are a little distribution-specific. That is, RPMs for Redhat might not work 100% with SuSE, and so forth. I was sort of prompted to think about this when I was trying to install GNUstep on my SuSE box. I carefully downloaded all the software the packages were dependant on, compiled each with no problems (not RPMs, tar.gz files). GNUstep, however, started throwing warnings left and right, and although it compiled, a couple programs wouldn't start correctly (Project Builder would segfault, for example). I don't think it's an issue with GNUstep per se. I probably misconfigured something or didn't run Make with the right flags or something. Anyway, it was a hassle. I don't mind downloading tarballs and configuring & compiling them, but it's just easier if there's a package system that handles the details automatically. It's kind of the lazy way out, but it reduces hassle.

Erik