From bwalton at artsci.utoronto.ca  Tue Apr 17 18:44:20 2007
From: bwalton at artsci.utoronto.ca (Ben Walton)
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:44:20 -0400
Subject: [Rd] rhel5 rpm spec mods
In-Reply-To: <4624F5EB.1000200@cimr.cam.ac.uk>
References: <20070417141531.GA21970@cquest.utoronto.ca>
	<4624DDE5.8000601@cimr.cam.ac.uk>
	<20070417151604.GD21970@cquest.utoronto.ca>
	<4624F5EB.1000200@cimr.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <20070417164420.GA23131@cquest.utoronto.ca>

On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 05:29:31PM +0100, Hin-Tak Leung wrote:
+>  >Without modification, rpmbuild was looking for XFree86-devel and gcc-g77
+>  >which aren't valid packages in rhel5 (haven't looked at 4 as rpms were
+>  >already built for that).
+>  
+>  yes and no. You can do "rpmbuild --nodeps <otherstuff>" without
+>  modifying the spec file to tell rpmbuild to go ahead, I think.
+>  This is also often the technique used when one tries to
+>  build rpm's on non-rpm based systems like debian/gentoo/slackware.

That would work, but shouldn't be required, imho.  I sent the patch to
Martyn already, so hopefully it gets included.

+>  >I am aware of fedora extras but haven't gotten to the point of using
+>  >them in rhel (we do in our fc installs).  Personally, I'd prefer to stay
+>  >away from the fc rpm trees when possible as (being a devel distro)
+>  >versions can change wildly and bugs are more likely to crop up in
+>  >packaging, etc (we've been bitten in the past).  I'm moving away from fc
+>  >for production machines for this reason.  I prefer fewer surprises in
+>  >production machines when possible.
+>  
+>  Personally, I think EL4 is too old/conservative (and I don't have access
+>  to EL5), and it makes me angry when I encounter a bug or limitation
+>  that I know was already fixed/addressed a year or two ago. Can't win.
+>  :-).

Yes, EL4 is old and conservative.  EL5 will be the same in short order.
They are also stable and (mostly) surprise free.  I have encountered
bugs that are frustrating due to their age (open nfs locks and crashing
apps springs to mind) but for the most part I like it for my servers
(and lab machines/workstations, etc).  FC has it's (very important)
place and I do suggest that home users work with it (or Ubuntu/Debian).
The other issue with FC in production is the legacy support one.  I
can't be bothered to upgrade machines as often as the fc support cycle
would have me do (I miss fedoralegacy.org already).  I'm not really
saying I personally prefer RedHat, but it does meet a very important
need for me.

Thanks
-Ben
-- 
Ben Walton
Systems Programmer
Office of Planning & IT
Faculty of Arts & Science
University of Toronto
Cell: 416.407.5610

GPG Key Id: 8E89F6D2; Keyserver: pgp.mit.edu
Contact me to arrange for a CAcert assurance meeting.

Please Note: This e-mail is intended only for the use of the individual or
entity to which it is addressed.  It may contain information that is
privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law.
Any dissemination, disclosure, printing, publishing or use of this email
or the information contained herein without written authorization of the
sender is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this e-mail in
error, please notify the sender immediately and delete. Thank you.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/attachments/20070417/ee560e38/attachment.bin 


[Rd] rhel5 rpm spec mods
Ben Walton