Re: tlug: rpms

[shimpei@example.com]

> I'm surprised the .spec file isn't in the binary RPMs.  

<AOL>Me too.</AOL> One reason why I refused to use RPM for the first year
or so after seeing it for the first time.

> I guess that
> would be unwieldy, given Red Hat's habit of having patches that are
> bigger than the original source.  (Which Debian is starting to do,
> too. :( )

Patches aren't in the .spec file; the .spec file just contains references
to them and (maybe) how to apply them if it's different from the default.
Patches are in the .src.rpm files only (or .nosrc.rpm, if your distributor
is smart and distributes tarballs separately). You probably know that, though,
so I'm not sure what you are trying to say here.

rpm is still much friendlier than it was three years ago, when you had to
rebuild the entire package from scratch if you had built the package
successfully but screwed up one line in your final install script.
--short-circuit now allows you to skip the compilation phase, which saves you
some time when you're building packages like teTeX, XFree86 or gcc on
anything less than a quad Xeon.

nosrc.rpm is also a great concept: distribute tarballs from the rest of the
files contained in the .src.rpm file. Not only does this keep certain anti-
RPM people happy, it also makes downloading RPM updates so much less painful,
as the patches for big packages are (usually) miniscule relative to the main
source tree. Too bad Red Hat doesn't use its own idea....

Shimpei.



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