Re: Moving to a more distro/host agnostic setup for the canonical specfiles.

[Christian Lohmaier <cloph cup uni-muenchen de>]

Hi Yanko,

On Fri, Jan 10, 2003 at 11:15:54AM +0200, Yanko Kaneti wrote:
> 
> Lets remove all the host/distro specifics that can found currently in
> the spec.in files and move to using strictly defined subset of rpm
> macros and techniques. Whenever the available rpm functionality lacks or
> some extension is needed write new macros and include them in the
> allowed subset. Maintain these extensions per platform. Distribute them
> in the form of a package , say grpmbuild (or somesuch)

I agree on this. It starts with some packages using ./configure instead
of %configure and the like. Most notably the explicit defines of prefix
and the like bother me a lot.

> Along the way:
>  - remove the requires and deps and rely on the hosts autodep, the
> configure and pkg-config checks.

This wont take long. Most packages don't include requires and if they
do, these are either outdated or use different package names than other
packages (ORBit2 vs ORBit and similar)

>  - remove direct calls to rm, make ./configure, ldconfig etc. and use
> the available rpm macros 

+1
Don't forget install-info in this list! I had to change all the packages
because Caldera had install-info in /usr/bin and not in /sbin

>  - remove the various gconf schemas install interpretations and similar
> scrollkeeper-update hacks in favor of appropriate  macros.

This is a little trickier. But this is definitely desireable.

>  - generally remove all the hacks and workarounds  e.g. all the libtool,
> alpha, RPM_BUILD_ROOT != /  trickery

A big plus was if packages could be installed with %makeinstall or
%makeinstall_std without further hacks.
 
> All this gives? Imho more maintainability and portability. It would
> allow the person/vendor wishing to adapt the build system to his own
> setup by just adjusting the necessary rpmmacros. It would also result in
> less maintenace effort for the spec (you wouldnt have to copy one hack
> all over the place). It would make the "tarbuilding" of a rpm from the
> vanilla source a more predictable process.

What you forgot to mention is the files-section. This is a real mess
sometimes.
 
> So, do you think this would work?

Definitely.

ciao
Christian