On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, Joakim Schramm wrote:
So, how can I go on to convert a .gz package to a .rpm? Alien is obviously a tool handy in the situation, but it don't seams enough just to do a "alien --to-rpm <package.tar.gz/.tgz>
Alien has it's uses, but it's primarily for converting packages that are ready to rock and roll, form one distribution format to another. It doesn't have anything to do with taking tar.gz files of pure sources and converting them to rpms, debs, slps or whatever. See below. (Note: slakware tar.gz might be the basis of confusion because they aren't normal tar balls of sources and have some things added to them so that you can go 'installpkg blah.tar.gz'and have a running program. Maybe this is where the confusion is.) The easiest way to do what I think you want to do,or at least the one I use, is to build my own rpms. All you really need is the sources ( the .tar.gz ) and a spec file. There's an RPM How-To that comes with the distribution in the docs packages that clearly tells you how to do it. It's pretty easy. The rpm man page is really helpful too. Basically ( a bit oversimplified ) on S.u.S.E. there's a /usr/src/packages dir, with BUILD, RPMS, SOURCES, SPECS, and SRPMS directories in them. You can put sources in SOURCES ( the process will even unzip them for you if I remember right ) and write a spec in SPECS and if named blah.spec and it's written right ( look at an available spec file to get a basic template notion) just go rpm -ba blah.spec and you can sit there and watch the process. It'll leave and RPMS ( usually in /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i386 ) and a SRPM in /usr/src/packages/SRPMS,etc etc. You can then install the RPM with rpm -Uvh or whatever onto your system. If you have an SRPM and you 'install' it it'll already put in the sources and spec etc in the right directory on S.u.S.E. and all you have to do is check out the spec file in <...>/SPECS and make sure it doesn't look funky for your system. If it's groovy or after you get done making the right adjustments, just proceed to build it and woolah, you have a shiny, freshly built rpm, ready to rock.
I tried with both proftpd1.2.0.pre1.tar.gz (renamed to .tgz) and apache 1.3.3. Yast noticed that I had an other (CD orginal) version installed and replaced it, but ftp didn't work anymore after. The new proftpd was placed otherwere and orginal was deleted. Probably some path or something was set differently by alien. YaST didn't notice I had an other version of apache instaled though.
If you built from sources YaST would have no reason TO recognize it. I think all YaST does it query the rpmdb.
Most source packages contain a README and a INSTALL file. Read them carefully!
Bye, LenZ
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