[Techtalk] RPMS vs. SRPMS vs. source

[Conor Daly]

On Thu, Dec 26, 2002 at 10:28:37AM -0500 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
Brenda Bell thought:
> When I started running running Linux (Mandrake 7), I pretty much stuck to 
> upgrading my system from RPMS and Mandrake Update (urpmi).  But when I 
> installed 8.2 and started migrating key network services from W2K to Linux 
> (Apache, qmail, LDAP, etc.), I found myself building my own source more 
> often in order to have more control over my configuration.  Now I find 
> myself in a bit of a "upgrade methodology" confusion.  My updates are now a 
> mixed bag... e.g., sometimes RPM, sometimes source RPM and sometimes 
> source... which means my RPM database isn't necessarily accurate.
> 
> I have a feeling this is one of those subjects where there is no single 
> right way of doing things... but I'm curious as to how other people 
> approach keeping their systems up-to-date without getting confused.  I keep 
> accurate notes on what I've done, but somehow that doesn't seem to be 
> enough and I often feel like I'm backing myself into a corner as I try to 
> keep track of all of the dependencies.

I (who almost _only_ use binary RPMs) would suggest using SRPMs.  If the
SRPM isn't quite set up as you'd like, add your config switches to its
spec file.  If you have a plain source .tgz in the first place, use the
extensive experience you'll have gained from modifying SRPM spec files to
write your own spec file and build an (S)RPM from that.  Some source
tarballs already contain a spec file already.  Hmm, I wonder has anyone
come up with a Makefile2spec converter yet?...

Conor
-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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