> From: "Ian C. Sison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Gee a long reply. A few short comments. You are 100% right, for > instances wherein you need to 'graft' an alien package into an > existing distro, you come up with a whole slew of dependencies. > I've encountered that more times than i care to admit,
Indeed, the first time I encountered this situation, I immediately understood why this more experienced (at the time) friend of mine dissed RH in favor of Slackware. I didn't yet realize how easy it was to make Slackware packages at that time, so I still valiantly struggled with rpm thinking it was easier to learn (that's the impression it gave) but dependency management was too much for me, so I said screw them and ended up doing make installs (yuck). Also, why, oh why, did RH choose to make rpm use cpio instead of tar/gzip??? > but i don't find it quite a problem, i've recompiled gcc 3.2 > and a whole slew of other needed packages on mandrake 7.2, > just because i needed to get openoffice compiling and running > on that platform. I've invested the time and effort to make > these packages THE RPM WAY, simply because when i'm all done, > i can simply install > the RPMs on any mandrake 7.2 system via a simple command. You've got a much higher pain threshold than me, I'd say that. :-D > Sure the tarball way can be done the same way but who wants > to keep on repeating those build commands on 30 other boxes? > Wheather you do it the RPM way or the tarball way or the > slackware pkgtool way you STILL HAVE TO BE AWARE OF > DEPENDENCIES. But you don't have to repeat those build commands under Slackware either! Just bring your compiled staroffice tarball over and do: installpkg openoffice-1.0.0.tgz plus installpkg xxx-a.b.c.tgz of whatever other stuff OpenOffice depends on. That's it! Of course these would all be post-compiled binary tarballs now, not source .tar.gzs. IMPORTANT POINT REGARDING THE TERM 'TARBALL': The term 'tarball' seems to more correctly refer to ONLY a Slackware _package_ with an extension of .tgz. One that can be cleanly removed and installed via installpkg and removepkg. It should NOT refer to a .tar.gz source distribution. Giving the latter an extension of .tgz or calling it a tarball, which is what I used to do, is not strictly correct, as it turns out. > So what's the added value of using lesser technology? I see the Slack package system as simpler, not necessarily lesser. _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fully Searchable Archives With Friendly Web Interface at http://marc.free.net.ph To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
