ANNOUNCE: Gnome RPM tools, v1.6.7 (build RPMS from source tarballs)

[Peter Wainwright <prw wainpr demon co uk>]

ANNOUNCING THE GNOME RPM BUILD TOOLS - A new way to mangle your RPM
database!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi everybody,

If the subject line hasn't scared you off, you may like to check out
my Gnome 2 RPM building scripts at

http://www.wainpr.demon.co.uk/programming.html

Just download the Gnome source tarballs, or tarballs generated from a
CVS checkout, together with the patches on my page (some of the RPM
specfiles are absent or buggy).

Unpack the gnome-rpm-tools and add that directory to your PATH.

Run the installation script and answer a few questions about paths for
sources, RPMS, and installation prefix.

Type "mgw" to start building!

Be warned that even if you set your prefix to something other than
/usr, some of your existing files may be overwritten.  There are three
cases:

(1) The spec file uses the builtin macro %_prefix - this is OK, since
the installation script for gnome-rpm-tools inserts a line to set this
in your .rpmmacros file.

(2) The spec file is generated by ./configure from *.spec.in, and uses
prefix= prefix@ - this is OK, because makegnome passes your desired
prefix to ./configure.

(3) Some of the spec files have prefix=/usr hardcoded. There may be
good reasons for this, but if so your existing package will probably be
overwritten by an RPM update or a forced installation using
--replacefiles - you have been warned!

These caveats aside, there are good reasons to use a package manager
like RPM for your bleeding edge Gnome work - you can see exactly what
you have installed, and uninstall cleanly if (when) you find it
doesn't work.

If it doesn't work for you, you might try changing the build order
(the gnome2modules variable in makegnome-config) to the official one
from the GNOME 2 release notes.

Peter Wainwright

-- 
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