Re: /opt/gnome? (Newbie-ish question)

[Gleef <dzol virtual-yellow com>]

On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Allan Third wrote:
[snip]
> > With the way GNOME is built currently, automatically relocatible RPMs are
> > essentially impossible to make.  They should be very easily manually
> > relocatable.  First, configure your system to accept an /opt/gnome
> > installation (eg. /opt/gnome/bin in the path, /opt/gnome/lib in
> > ld.so.conf).  Then, for each package, in compile order, do the following
> >   * Take the SRPM (glib) and install it.
> >   * Go to /usr/src/redhat/SPECS, and edit the spec file (glib.spec) so
> >     that the %prefix line points to "/opt/gnome" instead of "/usr"
> >   * Build the RPM from the new spec file
> >   * Install the RPM from /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/<arch>
> >   * Repeat for the next SRPM
> > 
> > The %prefix variable should get passed to all the right places, so the
> > binary RPM, while still not relocatable as far as rpm is concerned, is now
> > properly located in the different directory.
> 
> That's what I was hoping to be able to do, and it all seemed to be OK, but I
> wasn't sure how adding %prefix would affect the %build section - would I
> have to alter the arguments given to configure, or would rpm do this
> automatically? My guess is that it wouldn't, but I wasn't sure, and given
> that I don't fully understand all of the arguments that are there, I thought
> I'd better hold off a while, and seek expert advice! :-) I'd give examples
> of the things I don't understand, but I'm not using my own machine right
> now. I'll look them up when I get home, though.

My fault, I was speaking off the top of my head rather than looking at a
spec.  I meant changing the line that says "%define prefix /usr" to 
"%define prefix /opt/gnome".  Don't add a "%prefix /opt/gnome" line, that
WILL confuse rpm (it will think the package is relocatable, but the
binaries won't be able to handle relocation).

If you look in the %build section, you should see "./configure --prefix=%prefix"
that's where it hardcodes the prefix into the GNOME binaries.  If you need
to make changes in any line other than the %define prefix line, consider
it a bug in the spec file, and post the problem to the list.

Best of Luck,
-Gleef