[Techtalk] Quirks of RH8 (was: Re: RH8--no gcc??)

[Nils Philippsen]

On Tue, 2002-10-22 at 01:39, Telsa Gwynne wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2002 at 06:37:06PM +0100 or thereabouts, Conor Daly wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 12:34:11PM +0100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
> > Telsa Gwynne thought:
> > > (a) compile it on another box of the same architecture and install the
> > > result.
> > > (b) "cross-compile it" on another box of a different architecture,
> > > telling it, "Build a compiler which will work on my architecture",
> > > and install the result.
> > > (c) find the binary for your architecture in the first place and
> > > install that. 
> >  
> > (d) build it on your own box.  AIUI, the gcc source tarball includes a
> > stage 1 compiler binary(?) which will build a stage 2 compiler which will,

No it doesn't (otherwise it would have to include stage 1 compilers for
just about any platform on the planet). To bootstrap you simply have to
get a binary compiler (needn't be gcc) to compile the stage1 (which is
then used to compile stage2, which compiles stage3 which is the final
compiler that gets installed). This has been for example quite some pain
when Sun didn't ship compilers with Solaris by default anymore... Ahh
the joys of a free OS where you get all what you need (and much more)
with the CDs...

> > in turn, build the final gcc compiler.  It's much like the way the
> > computer bootstraps itself.  There has to be a precompiled starting point
> > but after that, it builds itself.
> 
> I did wonder about that. But I was mostly trying to get around to
> "find the rpm" :) 
> 
> > >   (b) Mixing and matching package-managed apps and compiled-from-
> > > source apps can cause confusion down the line later. rpm won't
> > > know that stuff you compiled locally is there, unless you
> > > compiled it from a source rpm using the rpmbuild command. 
> > 
> > You _can_ make your own rpms from the source tarball.  It takes a little
> > work though.  goes something like:
> > 
> > 1. Install Some src.rpm or other to create the necessary /usr/src/redhat
> > directory tree (maybe it's already there, I never checked first) and to
> 
> To my surprise, I just found it isn't created until you rpm --install
> a source rpm. Or at least, it's not there on a freshly-installed box.

Hmm, here /usr/src/redhat and the dirs beneath are part part of the
rpm-build package...


> > 6. Do
> > 	rpm -bb SPECS/<rpm-name>.spec
> > to build the binary rpm
> > 	rpm -bs SPECS/<rpm-name>.spec
> > to build a src rpm and
> > 	rpm -ba SPECS/<rpm-name>.spec
> > to build both.
> 
> The original mail was about RH 8.0, I think. There's an interesting
> wrinkle there. rpm -b* has been split out into rpmbuild. Just as I
> had got the hang of rpm -b, too :) 

Hey, it's been split out for quite some time ;-). It's only that there's
been a command alias for rpm (in /usr/lib/rpmpopt-*) that has been
removed now. It should be easy to take the "offending" lines from an old
rpmpopt file and have the 'rpm -b*' functionality back.

> Those instructions hold good for all the other rpm-using distros
> around currently, as far as I know. RH 8.0 users, though, you 
> want rpmbuild. (in a package called rpm-build, just to confuse).

"rpm-build" is the "build" subpackage of rpm. "rpmbuild" is one
character less to type ;-). If we had an "rpm-build" command people
would complain about their bleeding fingers and "rpmbuild" would be a
much too ugly package name for us (ugly package names are SuSE's turf,
we don't want to be caught there ;-) (sorry couldn't resist (shame on
me))).

Nils
-- 
Nils Philippsen / Berliner Straße 39 / D-71229 Leonberg //
+49.7152.209647
   nils at wombat.dialup.fht-esslingen.de / nils at redhat.de / nils at lisas.de
   PGP fingerprint:  C4A8 9474 5C4C ADE3 2B8F  656D 47D8 9B65 6951 3011
       Ever noticed that common sense isn't really all that common?
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