-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday 27 June 2002 8:26 pm, Jan Lentfer wrote: > Hi all, > > i would like to ask Mandrake to add a package to their distribution. > Can anyone tell me how to do this? > > In particular I want them to add "kaptain" > (http://kaptain.sourceforge.net/) as a package. That's a programm > that provides graphical interfaces to command line programs using > grammar files. It is widley used to controll the EMBOSS > (www.emboss.org) molecular biology program suite. > The author provides a package for MDK 7.2 which doesn't work on 8.2. > I can't compile the sources either (qt problems). > SuSE has this as an rpm in their distribution (7.3 and 8.0), if I > can't get it to work on MDK I would have to install SuSE at > university (which I don't want to). > > Any help would be appreciated - maybe someone could just give me a > hint on how to compile the sources.
Producing RPMs is difficult - the problem is getting a generic install which will work on all machines. (A lot of non-Mandrake packages fail here). As it turns out, there's a piece on Mandrake Club about this very issue; the URL, if you're a member, is: <http://www.mandrakeclub.com/article.php?thold=0&mode=flat&order=0&sid=42> Quote if you're not: "Imagine the following situation: You have just discovered a cool new application, and would like to give it a try, but bummer - no RPM package available yet. Wouldn't it be cool if someone would build an RPM when you ask for it? Reality check OK, in reality building and testing RPMs costs quite a lot of time and money, and it would be completely impossible to set up a service for MandrakeClub members where you could really demand new RPMs. Theoretically, it would be possible to set up a system where you could suggest new RPMs, and someone builds at least the most requested ones, but right now, Mandrakesoft has no resources to do this. So we come to the third possibility: RPMs built by volunteers. There are people out there who enjoy building RPMs, and some of them are interested to hear which RPMs would YOU like to have, and possibly build some of them. Some of them already have VIP accounts on MandrakeClub, and I'll be happy to hand out a few more VIP accounts when a need arises. How is this supposed to work? For the beginning, we'll try a very simple system: 1. You can propose the application which should in your opinion be packaged, or updated. Feel free to add your proposal as a comment to this article. 2. One week from now, I'll pick up all the proposals, and put them up for voting. 3. Our volunteers will (hopefully) pick up at least some of the application from the top of the list and build RPM for it. 4. Folks who requested the application in the first place will be kindly asked to try out the new RPM, and if everything works well we'll add it to a repository. If this works out well, I'll try to build up a special voting system which will make it possible to continuously request new applications and vote for them in the same time. Small print I hope that I've made it completely clear that this is supposed to be a community action, and Club only serves as a way to organize things. In particular, there is absolutely no guarantee that anyone will volunteer to build an RPM "for you" in this action. Another thing worth mentioning is where will the RPMs made by volunteers for Club members go: * RPMs of the free software made by volunteers for the Club will be made available for everyone - probably in "unsupported" or "contribution" directory on Mandrake mirrors. * Software which isn't published under one of the "free" or "open source" licenses will be added to club downloads section, if we are allowed to do so. * Finally, in case someone builds packages with free software which is legally problematic in USA, but not in the country he lives in, these packages will have to go to some special repository which isn't mirrored in USA." The catch is that you'll have to be a Club member to propose and benefit (there is a thread of responses under that article on the Club pages). Alastair - -- Alastair Scott (London, United Kingdom) http://www.unmetered.org.uk/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE9G28TCv59vFiSU4YRAoW8AKCstlGxpVq65ZdL/AXumWWOspIdVgCffVnS 1/CE9RQQl7Z4D8o2yZJgJBY= =iUw5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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