Hi Hartmut!

> Hello and a big thank you to all the helpful and sympathizing people who
> encouraged me to not give up my attempts to get the version T102 of
> MusiXTeX
> und PMX! I must say that I have not yet reached my aim completely as PMX
> still
> does not work, but version T102 of MusiXTeX does! This would never have
> been

I hope you'll be able to learn how to create rpm binaries from src.rpm
files which makes life often a lot easier. So I write down some tips
I use when trying to find out why something does not work.

First to find out what an rpm package needs (I assume you downloaded
a .src.rpm file):

rpm -qp --requires <src.rpm-File>

(You should omit all <>)
The output could be (for musixtex):

tetex  
/bin/sh  
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1

Which means musixtex only requires tetex to be compiled (the other
things are installed on your system or it would not run ;-)

How to build a binary from src.rpm:

rpm --rebuild <src.rpm-File>

If all goes well (no errors while building), then one of the last
messages on screen will show you where the binary was moved to
(something like /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/i586)

This self-compiled binary can now be installed as usual.

If there is a problem it is usually a missing file (very often these
are header files, some -dev rpm package is missing), f.e. the rpm
package xfree-dev or similar (I don't know package names for SuSE).

 
> Then I created a directory (here called "T102") in an  appropriate path
> where
> I wished to save the file musixtex-T102.tar.gz from the download:
> 
> mkdir .../T102
> 
> Then I downloaded musixtex-T102.tar.gz into .../T102, changed my current
> working directory by entering
> 
> cd .../T102
> 
> and unpacked the downloaded file:
> 
> tar xvfz musixtex-T102.tar.gz

These steps and the other you described are done automatically by the
rpm program. There is a so called SPEC-File in /usr/src/RPM/SPECS
(or similar) which tell the rpm how to build a package. There are many
macros defined like %prep, %build, %install for the parts of building
the rpm file: extracting the package, building/compiling the package,
installing it (in a temporary directory, not on the system).
 
> At this point the installation of MusiXTeX-T102 was complete and the
> program
> executable. For the very first execution of the program, it is advisable
> to be
> logged in as root. During this first execution, fonts files are created,
> which
> takes some time. I processed a MusiXTeX-file (source.tex) I had on my
> hard
> disk by executing the three steps

When creating rpms you need to be root as well. AFAIK the font files
are created as well when being logged in as a user (at least I would
find it annoying the su to root for every font needing to be created
with tex, expecially if you use a frontend for latex like lyx ;-)

> (By the way, my first (private) attempt to get MusiXTeX-T101 in its
> rpm-version
> did not work because SuSE's rpm obviously does not have the properties
> one
> would need for the .rpm file of MusiXTeX as given in the net.)

Could you describe closer what you did, did you try to create a binary
rpm from src.rpm or did you just try to install a binary ?
If you tried from source, which error message did you receive when
you tried to compile it ?

> Originally I thought it would be easy to get RPM once MusiXTeX was
> installed
> successfully (and RPM was my goal as, unfortunately, I just do not have
> the
> time to work with the original MusiXTeX). But no!, again something seems
> to be
> incompatible with Don Simons's files pmxab.f, pmxab.c and the way SuSE
> Linux
> tries to compile. 

When you post the error message (or the upper part, if it is lengthy),
We could help you more in creating an appropriate rpm for your system.
You can even use the original suse rpm SPEC (as described above),
adapt the version number in the spec file, copy the sources to
/usr/src/RPM/SOURCES/ (or similar) and create a .src.rpm and a binary
by using the command:

rpm -bb /usr/src/RPM/SPECS/<SPEC-FILE>

where you might have adapth the patch and give the correct name of
the spec file.

> PS. Oh, just before sending this I realize that even more answers to my
> first
> post have come. Thanks to all of them. I know I must read them carefully
> which
> I have not done yet. Hartmut

For pmx I once created a spec file and there should be a src.rpm file
for it as well. It probably requires dos2unix, a program which converts
the files containing the DOS ^N^M characters to ^N. An alternative to
it is the program recode, which should be included with SuSE.
You simply have to replace the lines in the pmx.spec file containing 
dos2unix by: 
recode pc <filename>

If you (or others on the list) are interested in spec files or rpm
for noteedit (created on Mandrake, should run on RedHat as well, SuSE
is untested, but with some adaption you should be able to compile
the current noteedit with the src.rpm from the noteedit homepage).

For more informations of rpm I recommand reading a rpm HOWTO, which
explains in more detail what the options all mean I used in my
examples. The man page of rpm might be helpful as well.

With best Regards,

Reinhard Katzmann
-- 
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Software-Developer for Embedded Devices - Ideasoft AG, Hechingen
Project: HyperPen Tablet USB Driver for Linux 
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