Re: Gnome retrival system.

[Gleef <dzol virtual-yellow com>]

On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Yoni Elhanani wrote:
> I'm sorry if I got misunderstood.
> >From the chain "Yet another newbie" I have detected a problem that
> people have with RPMs.
> This software is no aimed to help the build of RPM, in that case I'm
> REALLY clueless.
> It will aim to help the user find a suitible RPM for his needs.

That makes sense.  Keep in mind that we also need help getting a suitable
RPM out there so the user CAN find it.

 
[snip]
> > The best way to get familiar with RPM is to read Maximum RPM, available in
> > postscript form from RPM's website (http://www.rpm.org).  Warning, it's a
> > big book.
> 
> All I need is how to quesry info, find dependecies, install and upgrade.

Chapter 21 goes in detail on how to use rpmlib, which is the C library
containing all these functions.


> > > Also, when this thing is done, I will need to have a site that can host
> > > the database so people will know what are the newest packages around.
> > > I also hope that by the time it's done there will be RPMs to [almost]
> > > every availible package.
> > 
> > Have you looked at rpmfind?  It does everything you refer to above
> > except actually building the RPM.  It already has a database online
> > (rpmfind.net, hosted by w3.org).  It already mirrors the GNOME RPMs from
> > the FTP site.
> 
> It does?
> I havnt looked there for ages...
> Anyway if it has a list of all packages in gnome (including externals
> such as gIDE) complete with dependenices and description, it will be
> very cool.

It does to the extent that RPMs are available, and that RPMs are on sites
that they know about.  For example:
$ rpmfind gIDE
Cannot install or locate resource gIDE 
Do you want to search it in the catalog? [Y/n] : n

$ rpmfind gnome-libs
Installing gnome-libs will require 6750 KBytes

### To Transfer:
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.3/i386/imlib-1.9.2-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.3/i386/glib-1.1.13-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.3/i386/gtk+-1.1.13-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.1/i386/esound-0.2.7-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.1/i386/audiofile-0.1.5-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.1/i386/glib-1.1.11-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.1/i386/ORBit-0.3.91-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/gnome.org/GNOME/redhat/0.99.3/i386/gnome-libs-0.99.4-3.i386.rpm
Do you want to download these files to /tmp [Y/n/a] ? : n


> However rpmfind does not inspect your system and tells you what you
> need, then installs it. 

It does inspect your system, it doesn't do the final installation step.
If you want to patch rpmfind to add a command line switch which will offer
to install the packages, I'm sure they will add it.


> this is very useful for installing outside gnome apps too, as i said,
> such as gEdit or gIDE. Nobody will have to search for these anywhere
> (although freshmeat provides an easy search method) but just to click
> and it will get them via anonymous FTP from the host site.
>  
> however - if my program is useless or can be substituted, please let me
> know so I wont work for nothing...

I don't think it is useless.  I do think that most of the functionality is
out there already, and your time might be better spent improving on
rpmfind and/or apt (Debian's equivalent) rather than starting a new
gnome-specific version of the same thing.

Best of Luck,
-Gleef