From: Michael Irons (michaelelectricmonk.us)
Date: Thu Mar 31 2005 - 10:32:35 CST

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On Thursday 31 March 2005 9:12 am, Bennett Todd wrote:

> Ok, so download the src.rpm, then instead of building it, install
> it with "rpm -i postfix-...src.rpm". At that point you've got spec
> file, patches, and whatever in your rpm work dir. The sources will
> be a copy of the original, virgin, upsteam sources. Customize to
> suit. If you dislike using rpm for managing your locally-built
> software, you can still look at what the spec file does to see
> how to slot a build-from-source of Postfix into the alternatives
> framework.

The src.rpm may be my only option it looks like. maybe I can convince myself I
won't be cheating if I use it. :)
>
> > Kinda funny, I was trying to keep myself away from prebuilt
> > packages thinking they were the easy way out, but it turns out
> > they are causing all the problems :)
>
> It sounds like you're at war with your distro.
>
> I'd sorta kinda recommend that you consider either making peace with
> rpm, using it for all your local installs, or switch to a distro
> that isn't based on rpm --- e.g. Slackware, perhaps.

I love using fedora and rpm (I use this at home). I don't really have any
problems with it at all at home. Unfortunately, I am sorta at war with fedora
on my VPS. Like I said, I would have chosen a different, less automized
distro if it was available to me on my VPS. One of the reasons I got the VPS
was for me was to learn to do it without the automation. Except for the
"alternatives" issue, I have been able to work out everything. When I get my
new computer (the pentium 2 won't do ;) ), I plan on trying gentoo, which
should teach me alot. I may have to wait until then.

> I use rpm for all local installs on Red Hat systems. I never
> download rpms, other than updates from Red Hat themselves, always
> pull down virgin sources and wrap them myself.
>
> -Bennett
>
> P.S. If you haven't worked with rpm before, the following steps may
> make it more comfortable:
>
> mkdir -p $HOME/rpm/{BUILD,SOURCES,SPECS,RPMS,SRPMS}
> echo %_topdir $HOME/rpm >$HOME/.rpmmacros
>
> That way you can do all your src.rpm unpacking, rpmbuilding, etc. in
> your homedir without having to crank on root privs. I never touch
> /usr/src/redhat. In fact, I just had to go trawling through the
> system rpm macros to even find out where that was, I'd forgotten:-).

Thank you very much. I actually have never rolled my own rpms before and that
is what I think I will have to do. Now I am off on that path.

Thanks,
Mike

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