Comments | grumpy_sysadmin: RPM is still in the dark ages.

grumpy_sysadmin

RPM is still in the dark ages.

Nov 13, 2007 00:10

It's either a blessing or a curse that I've never had cause to build an RPM down to the spec file until this evening. Well, really, I theoretically should have done this back during the summer, but it's the side job, and there was a faster way to get the new servers running (build a few things like PHP by hand and install, rather than package, them ( Read more... )

Comments 12

(The comment has been removed)

grumpy_sysadmin November 13 2007, 05:56:52 UTC

While this statement is true, that doesn't magically generate a spec file to build the RPM that the various clients (via yum) will install and Just Work.

grumpy_sysadmin November 13 2007, 07:17:45 UTC

As below, this definitely fails for PHP where you want Apache's mod_php to use it.

grumpy_sysadmin November 13 2007, 07:19:39 UTC

PS, every packaging system I described does this the fuck for you when you get to the point of the functional equivalent of rpmbuild. RPM? Yeah, not so much. The math, not my goddamn job.

jwz November 13 2007, 05:50:21 UTC

So another trick, besides the "find" trick, is to just do "make -s INSTALL=true" and get your list of file names that way. You may find the xscreensaver spec file a thing of either beauty or horror, depending. (The one in my dist, note, not the ones that RH and Fedora wrote themselves for who knows what reason.)

grumpy_sysadmin November 13 2007, 05:59:42 UTC

Winner.

I think I had previously read that you could cheat gmake by doing that before, but I had definitely forgotten it. Thanks!

grumpy_sysadmin November 13 2007, 07:16:24 UTC

Oh, except that doesn't actually work for PHP5, since part of their install target is to go run apache module integration crap and overwrite things in the Apache module tree...

Sigh.

en_ki November 13 2007, 13:10:41 UTC

(No, here's where I suggest Ubuntu. Debian + releases every 6 months = happy. Though I had actually been in the habit of using "unstable" practically everywhere, except where it was too politically incorrect; "unstable" is absurdly stable. And I actually tend to run the "next" release of Ubuntu as well.)

grumpy_sysadmin November 13 2007, 13:47:29 UTC

Right. Shut the fuck up.

en_ki November 13 2007, 13:57:31 UTC

I also bike.

reddragdiva November 13 2007, 13:11:59 UTC

rpm is st00pid. yum is comparable to apt, but in either case the question is the quality of the repositories (e.g. Fink, which is way too flaky for me).

For CentOS 4.5, go to centosplus - that has PHP 5.1. That's what I did. Since the box in question is horribly firewalled I couldn't do the same thing and just add centosplus to yum, but pulling down the right RPMs did in fact Just Work.

grumpy_sysadmin November 13 2007, 13:48:51 UTC

I doubt centosplus gets me Solr Lucene.

lullysing November 13 2007, 13:31:29 UTC

I've always had a visceral reaction to the deadrat package manglement system. Maybe it's the fact that when you really, REALLY need it to install, no fucking questions asked, with --force and --yes-really-just-fucking-do-it , it will STILL fucking complain and not do it. Even from root.

In comparaison, unless your source files are buggered, make won't/will complain and BUT will do exactly what you tell it to do, even to the point of breaking things. Now that's a trooper.