[Mageia-dev] A question about BuildRequires and other RPM questions.

AL13N alien at rmail.be
Fri Mar 8 13:06:44 CET 2013


> On 08/03/13 11:18, Robert Wood wrote:
[...]
>> I still don't get this whole trial and error thing. It seems that you
>> might submit something to the repositories that someone finds doesn't
>> install because of a missing dependency and you redo it. Then you can
>> retry that for up to five goes before it finally works? That seems
>> crazy. I must have misunderstood.

well, if we submit packages, the buildsystem uses the buildrequires and
such to build the packages. if the package fails to build (due to missing
buildrequire) the package is never submitted and we get an email back to
us or we can follow the built packages on the buildsystem: see
http://pkgsubmit.mageia.org/ for examples.

also, buildrequires have nothing to do with regular requires or what
normal users come into contact with.

thus finding buildrequires is trial and error for the packager if he's
making a new package, but only the first time and even then, after you
acquire the skillset, this only takes maximum a few hours (unless it's
java :-) ).

but the best way to understand is to just try it.

the simplest way to start making a package is to first make a src.rpm out
of a tarball (with a spec in it) and then rebuild it.

1. find a tarball which includes a spec file. (or put one in it)
2. rpmbuild -ts file.tar.gz
3. rpmbuild --rebuild file.src.rpm

starting small is the way to get there.

>> I have no problem learning stuff, I do it every single day in my work
>> and it's what makes it so enjoyable, but maybe I need to take smaller
>> steps first? No idea where to start or how to go about doing that
>> though. As I might not have any work in a week's time it would
>> potentially be an ideal time to learn, but maybe I'm just not the right
>> person to do this?

a mentor would definately help, i assume noone has stepped forward for you
yet?



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