[plug] Recompilation fo the whole box and fluffy dice...

[Anthony J. Breeds-Taurima]

On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, John Summerfield wrote:

> > EverythingLinux has a pack for RH6.1 including BIN(i386), SRC, and Updates
> > (including ISDN, Freshmeat, SSH, and other security updates)
> > I'd like to recompile every package for i686 (naturally). Has anyone here
> > had experience compiling each package one by one, from source?
> > I've also got the Mandrake 6.1 BIN i586 CD and it is noticably faster so the
> > optimizations do work (that and the hard disk speed up as described on this
> > list - thanks :-)

Building the whole system won't be easy .... you'll need to build each rpm in
the correct order.  Not something for the faint hearted :)

> I've not tried to recompile a whole distribution, but I have tried to 
> rebuild a lot of rpms. Many are broken; I suspect Red Hat builds 
> everything as root, which I do not wish to do.

They do .... with a little tweaking you can build packages as a normal user
BUT it you trust the software enought to use it then surely you tust the 
makefiles to not do "bad things"(tm).
 
> I have found rpms that try to update the running system when one runs
> 	rpm --rebuild
> That's probably okay in Red Hat Software's environment, it's not here 
> where building a package does NOT mean I want it installed on the build 
> system.

Building an rpm doen't install it in the host system .... it creates a tempory
"root" directory in "/var/tmp/rpm-build/<package>-<version>/" (or where ever
is specified in the in .spec file)  when the "make install" happens it
installs to there.  This can cause problems when docs are contructed to point
to the "real" locations of files and symlinking.   

I just wanted to clarify that building an RPM doesn't install it on the build
host.

> There's at least one bug in rpm (on RHL 6.1) where it can, in some 
> circumstances, package from the running system's libraries having built 
> correctly into another location.

This happens  RedHat have always fixed it when I brought errors to their
attention .... it helps if you fix it on your system and give them the new
.spec/pactches.

Yours Tony.