Re: Building RPMs from tarballs

[James Henstridge <james daa com au>]

When you do "rpm -ta tarfile.tar.gz", rpm extracts the first .spec file
from the archive and puts it in /usr/src/redhat/SPECS and puts the archive
in /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES.  It then calls "rpm -ba" on this spec file.
If the version number is wrong in the spec file, it won't be able to find
the archive properly (because different versions of a package have
different names), so the build fails.

You are better off doing this first bit yourself (maybe use mc to poke
around in the archive).  Then check the spec file to make sure the version
is correct.  Most GNOME packages use a macro to specify the version up the
top so this is pretty easy to do.  Then call rpm -ba on it.  If you get
any errors, see if you can find where the bug is, fix it and send a note
to the author through bugs.gnome.org.

James Henstridge.

--
Email: james@daa.com.au
WWW:   http://www.daa.com.au/~james/


On Mon, 8 Feb 1999, Zach Frey wrote:

> OK, not strictly a GNOME question ...
> 
> How *does* one build an RPM from a tarball. I've seen the
> suggestion "just rpm -ta <tarball>.gz", but either (a) this
> is busted with gnome-core-0.99.5.1.tar.gz, or (b) there's
> something unstated here that is key to making it work.
> 
> I have tried two methods now, neither of which give me a .rpm
> file or an installed RPM.
> 
> (1)  Download foo.tar.gz
>      rpm -ta foo.tar.gz
> 
> (2)  Download foo.tar.gz
>      tar xovfz foo.tar.gz
>      cd foo
>      ./configure
>      make
>      make dist
>      rpm -ta foo.tar.gz
> 
> Could some kind soul give me a hint here?  Is the output of a
> 'rpm -ta ...' command supposed to be a .rpm file, or an installed RPM?
> Neither the man page nor the FAQ on RPM shed much light on this for me,
> I'm afraid ...
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> 
> Zach
> 
> 
> -- 
>         FAQ: Frequently-Asked Questions at http://www.gnome.org/gnomefaq
>          To unsubscribe: mail gnome-list-request@gnome.org with 
>                        "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
>