In a message dated: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 14:53:58 EDT
Benjamin Scott said:
> In the defense of the packagers, don't forget, a lot of the settings for
>where stuff is get built into the program at compile-time, so the package
>manager really can't do much to help you out there. In that case, I always
>reach for the source. One more reason why Open Source is a Good Thing.
With the exception of apps distributed in a binary-only fashion, what's so hard
of just using a "smart" source rpm.
Picture this, the RPM (or deb) consists of the source tree only. When you use
'rpm -i* name.rpm' or 'rpm -U* name.rpm' it does:
./configure
make
make install
and installs everything into the default/proper locations.
When you use the --prefix=/some/long/path option or --relocate... it does:
./configure --prefix=/some/long/path
make
make install
and installs everything into the location you *wanted* it installed in.
This exact mechanism would only work if the app used autoconf/automake, but
that is a significant amount of the open source packages out there. So, for
the majority of stuff, this would work.
This gives you the benefits of RPM, and the benefits of compiling from source.
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
I'm in shape, my shape just happens to be pear!
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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