Lamar et al: what is the current state of the posted (and upcoming)
RPMs? Did the Mandrake stuff get integrated into The One True SpecFile
(modulo the .bz input files)?

I've got Mandrake-7.1 up on my home system (after an
upgrade/hosed/install cycle :( and would like to build some fresh RPMs
to try out.

                       - Thomas

Sun, 23 Jul 2000 23:18:07 +0000
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
State of RPMs
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:

> Lamar et al: what is the current state of the posted (and upcoming)
> RPMs? Did the Mandrake stuff get integrated into The One True SpecFile
> (modulo the .bz input files)?

They claim they are compatible with Red Hat Linux, so there shouldn't
be any problems.

-- 
Trond Eivind Glomsrï¿½d
Red Hat, Inc.

23 Jul 2000 19:34:11 -0400
teg@redhat.com (Trond Eivind=?iso-8859-1?q?_Glomsr=F8d?=)
Re: State of RPMs
> > Lamar et al: what is the current state of the posted (and upcoming)
> > RPMs? Did the Mandrake stuff get integrated into The One True SpecFile
> > (modulo the .bz input files)?
> They claim they are compatible with Red Hat Linux, so there shouldn't
> be any problems.

Hi Trond. There were a few issues on .bz2 vs .gz vs ?? for man pages and
input files which afaicr Lamar was resolving using vendor-specific
support in rpm. There certainly shouldn't be any show-stoppers...

                     - Thomas

Sun, 23 Jul 2000 23:44:51 +0000
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Re: State of RPMs
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:

> > > Lamar et al: what is the current state of the posted (and upcoming)
> > > RPMs? Did the Mandrake stuff get integrated into The One True SpecFile
> > > (modulo the .bz input files)?
> > They claim they are compatible with Red Hat Linux, so there shouldn't
> > be any problems.
> 
> Hi Trond. There were a few issues on .bz2 vs .gz vs ?? for man pages and
> input files 

No reason to touch those: If no tar.bz2 sources are available from
postgresql.org, it shouldn't be used. Simple enough. If tar.bz2
sources show up, we would be happy to use them.

Bzipping of man pages is useless - and the way to handle it would be
by not compressing at all in the specfile, as you can then handle it
with an RPM build policy.
 

-- 
Trond Eivind Glomsrï¿½d
Red Hat, Inc.

23 Jul 2000 19:51:07 -0400
teg@redhat.com (Trond Eivind=?iso-8859-1?q?_Glomsr=F8d?=)
Re: State of RPMs
> Bzipping of man pages is useless - and the way to handle it would be
> by not compressing at all in the specfile, as you can then handle it
> with an RPM build policy.

Yeah, that's it. Lamar already knows about it; I just wanted to get the
latest spec file which has (or will have) this stuff in it.

Thanks.

                     - Thomas

Mon, 24 Jul 2000 00:04:29 +0000
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Re: State of RPMs
Trond Eivind Glomsrï¿½d wrote:
> Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:
> > > They claim they are compatible with Red Hat Linux, so there shouldn't
> > > be any problems.

> > Hi Trond. There were a few issues on .bz2 vs .gz vs ?? for man pages and
> > input files
 
> No reason to touch those: If no tar.bz2 sources are available from
> postgresql.org, it shouldn't be used. Simple enough. If tar.bz2
> sources show up, we would be happy to use them.
 
> Bzipping of man pages is useless - and the way to handle it would be
> by not compressing at all in the specfile, as you can then handle it
> with an RPM build policy.

<RANT>
The RPM buildrootpolicy stuff is currently not available in Mandrake 7,
according to tars of the Mandrake RPM config. Nor is --buildpolicy
sufficiently documented to be able to use in a production third-party
RPM -- so, currently, at least, Mandrake RPM's either have no
compression or the specfile needs to specify the compression.

PLEASE -- LET'S GET THIS IMPORTANT FEATURE DOCUMENTED (and, if it IS
documented somewhere, a pointer to that documentation is NEEDED)!

And don't say that Mandrake needs to get with the program -- it's awful
hard to get with an _undocumented_ program.  It's hard to use a feature
you don't know about.  Just look at the confusion on rpm-list of rpm v4.

</RANT>

Sorry for the rant, but this issue is about to upset me... :-)  I want
to be able to make the RPM's work well with more than RedHat without
special hacks that are not likely to be included in the RedHat
distribution RPM -- making my effort for One True Spec File vain.

--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11

Mon, 24 Jul 2000 09:55:48 -0400
Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org>
Re: State of RPMs
> And don't say that Mandrake needs to get with the program -- it's awful
> hard to get with an _undocumented_ program.  It's hard to use a feature
> you don't know about.  Just look at the confusion on rpm-list of rpm v4.

Hmm. I had purchased the RPM book quite some time ago, but have found no
source of info for rpm-3 features. afaict the program (or at least its
more recent features) has been undocumented for a while. But I haven't
looked recently...

Or, let's rephrase this in a positive way: Trond, where would be the
best places to look for these newer features? I recall looking at other
spec files to stumble across stuff that wasn't in the book.

                          - Thomas

Mon, 24 Jul 2000 15:05:57 +0000
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Re: State of RPMs
Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:

> > And don't say that Mandrake needs to get with the program -- it's awful
> > hard to get with an _undocumented_ program.  It's hard to use a feature
> > you don't know about.  Just look at the confusion on rpm-list of rpm v4.
> 
> Hmm. I had purchased the RPM book quite some time ago, but have found no
> source of info for rpm-3 features. afaict the program (or at least its
> more recent features) has been undocumented for a while. But I haven't
> looked recently...
> 
> Or, let's rephrase this in a positive way: Trond, where would be the
> best places to look for these newer features? I recall looking at other
> spec files to stumble across stuff that wasn't in the book.

The doc directory of rpm and the macros file - 3.0.5 has been
released(with much stuff from 4.0-series) , 4.0 is due soon. After
that, the current plan is for the author to spend a couple of
hours/day creating more documentation.

-- 
Trond Eivind Glomsrï¿½d
Red Hat, Inc.

24 Jul 2000 12:33:43 -0400
teg@redhat.com (Trond Eivind=?iso-8859-1?q?_Glomsr=F8d?=)
Re: State of RPMs
Trond Eivind Glomsrï¿½d wrote:
> Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:
> > > And don't say that Mandrake needs to get with the program -- it's awful
> > > hard to get with an _undocumented_ program.  It's hard to use a feature
> > > you don't know about.  Just look at the confusion on rpm-list of rpm v4.

> > Hmm. I had purchased the RPM book quite some time ago, but have found no
> > source of info for rpm-3 features. afaict the program (or at least its
> > more recent features) has been undocumented for a while. But I haven't
> > looked recently...

There is a RPM-HOWTO -- but it helps little.  There is a overview of RPM
3 written by Jeff Johnson -- but it isn't really detailed enough.  It
reminds me of the old "Impress your friends with RPM" section of the
RedHat 4.x documentation....

> > Or, let's rephrase this in a positive way: Trond, where would be the
> > best places to look for these newer features? I recall looking at other
> > spec files to stumble across stuff that wasn't in the book.
 
> The doc directory of rpm and the macros file - 3.0.5 has been
> released(with much stuff from 4.0-series) , 4.0 is due soon. After
> that, the current plan is for the author to spend a couple of
> hours/day creating more documentation.

That is _good_ news.  The doc directory had _some_ information -- but
nothing on --buildpolicy.  Just a simple "--buildpolicy does this..."
note in the man page, even, would be nice.

A new "Maximum RPM" would be nicer, though. (I am aware of the current
project for the updation of Maximum RPM online....and I'm also aware
that it really hasn't gone anywhere as of the last time I checked.)

Sorry to sound so negative -- but I've been banging my head against that
for a little while -- the --buildpolicy sounds like such a good feature
-- but I even went to the source -- and it told me very little.  I am
chomping at the bit, so to speak, to start using this amazing
portability feature -- but I am frustrated by lack of concise docs to
show me just what I need to do to use it to its full effect.

And, Trond, you have been very helpful, as you _are_ in the know about
these features that I am not aware of.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11

Mon, 24 Jul 2000 22:14:14 -0400
Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org>
Re: State of RPMs
Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> writes:

> > > Or, let's rephrase this in a positive way: Trond, where would be the
> > > best places to look for these newer features? I recall looking at other
> > > spec files to stumble across stuff that wasn't in the book.
>  
> > The doc directory of rpm and the macros file - 3.0.5 has been
> > released(with much stuff from 4.0-series) , 4.0 is due soon. After
> > that, the current plan is for the author to spend a couple of
> > hours/day creating more documentation.
> 
> That is _good_ news.  The doc directory had _some_ information -- but
> nothing on --buildpolicy.  Just a simple "--buildpolicy does this..."
> note in the man page, even, would be nice.

--buildpolicy is just a (now standard) macro:

./rpmpopt-4.0:rpm alias --buildpolicy --define '__os_install_post /usr/lib/rpm/brp-!#:+'

os_install_post is another macro, this is the second script:

[teg@hoser rpm]$ cat /usr/lib/rpm/brp-redhat 
#!/bin/sh

# These are the build root policies that Red Hat invokes at the end
# of the %install scriptlet.

# Compress man pages (Red Hat uses GNU gzip)
/usr/lib/rpm/brp-compress

# Strip ELF binaries (Red Hat uses GNU binutils).
/usr/lib/rpm/brp-strip

# Strip even more sections (Red Hat uses GNU binutils).
/usr/lib/rpm/brp-strip-comment-note
[teg@hoser rpm]$ 

> A new "Maximum RPM" would be nicer, though. (I am aware of the current
> project for the updation of Maximum RPM online....and I'm also aware
> that it really hasn't gone anywhere as of the last time I checked.)

If someone has time to contribute, that would be greeeat. I don't know
what parts of the documentation Jeff is planning to improve.

-- 
Trond Eivind Glomsrï¿½d
Red Hat, Inc.

24 Jul 2000 22:54:12 -0400
teg@redhat.com (Trond Eivind=?iso-8859-1?q?_Glomsr=F8d?=)
Re: State of RPMs