[wplug] Mandrake 8.0

[Rick Smith]

If you are wanting to roll your own, and are using an RPM based system,
then I've had success with this strategy: put hand built stuff under
the /usr/local tree or make rpms.  Most stuff I do the /usr/local route.
Meaning: ./configure becomes ./configure --prefix=/usr/local 
or ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/{tool-rev} like for example
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/ssh-1.2.27
My experience is RPM's from Redhat don't mess in the /usr/local tree.

For stuff in the main tree area (/etc, /bin/, /usr/bin, /usr/X11R6/,...) 
then I make my own rpm.  When I've done this, I took an existing source RPM
and built it into a binary RPM to get a working example to start with,
then I substituted all the stuff I was interested in, and voila -- an rpm. 

There might be a tool to help create RPM spec files to make the rolling
of an rpm easier.  Anybody know of such?

I'm currently using RH5.2 (I'd upgrade, but everything works) and RH6.2
Though thinking Mandrake 8 sounds like fun to put on one of the machines.

-- Rick


On Mon, Apr 23, 2001 at 11:27:56AM -0400, harrold at sage.che.pitt.edu wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, David G Matthews wrote:
> 
> > Ok, another stupid question about Mandrake 8.0:
> > I had heard that previous versions of Mandrake were easy to break by
> > compiling a lot of stuff from source.  (Dependency database?)  Has this
> > been solved by 8.0?  I'm curious about Mandrake but can't use it if it
> > doesn't like non-rpm software, because a lot of the stuff I use is only
> > availabe in source.
> >  -dgm
> >   
> 
> if you are a "roll your own" kinda guy then slackware is probably the
> better choice. if you think about the dependency thing it's pretty
> obvious. since $./configure && make && make install doesnt update the rpm
> database (or dpkg for that matter) then there isnt much mandrake or redhat
> can do if you install something over parts of a package already in place. 
> 
> 
> well at least that's my $.02.