Source RPMs are the proper way to install software from source code on Linux. They are rebuilt into binary RPMs with rpmbuild.
Reasons why you should be using source RPMs when installing software from source: * Software can be managed in the standard fashion, with a standard installation, upgrading, uninstallation, verification, querying, GPG signing and dependency handling by higher level indexing tools like up2date, urpmi, and apt. Otherwise you're turning your system into an unmanagable nightmare for no good reason. Yes, many people don't know how their packaging system works but decide to install crap all over their hard disk anyway. No, that doesn't mean this situation is acceptable. * You can perform these tasks en masse, in an automated non interactive fashion * RPM is the LSB standard for package management * Likewise, so is the FHS. RPM spec files are designed to put things in FHS specified locations by passing appropriate options to make. * You can easily pass your own custom options to rpmbuild, which will then be passed to the configure script, customizing your app. There's also a variety of standard arguments that get passed to makem, eg, to rebuild a xine source package into a binary package: rpmbuild --rebuild --target=athlon xine-whatever.rpm If you install software from source code, its best practice to package that source code into a SRPM - this is very easy to do (especially if you already know how to compile apps from source) and only takes 5 minutes for any app which uses GNU autoconf / automake. If you install software from source, you can learn how to package here: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-rpm1/ Mike On Wed, 2002-10-16 at 03:34, Alan L Tyree wrote: > This sounds like a stupid question even to me, but... > > What good are src.rpm files? How can I use them, and why would I want > to? I don't understand their purpose when they are accompanied by > binary rpms with the same program. I have just installed RH8 and I > wonder what I can do with the other three CDs. > > Cheers, > Alan > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------ > Alan L Tyree [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.law.usyd.edu.au/~alant > Tel: +61 2 4782 2670 > Mobile: +61 419 638 170 > Fax: +61 2 4782 7092 > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ > More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Mike MacCana Support Consultant RHCE, MCSE, MCP+I Cybersource: Providing Quality IT Professional Services for 11 Years Specialists in Unix/Linux, TCP/IP and Web Application Development Level 9, 140 Queen St, Melbourne. Ph : 03 9642 5997 Fax: 03 9642 5998 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
