[plug] When is the next installfest?

[William Kenworthy]

One way around this for older rpm systems is to install from source
rpm's.  Download whatever version you need as source, and build/install
as per docs.  It may (usually does) require a few update dependencies to
be done as well, but they are usually manageable (and get less as the
system stabilises).  Its best to grab just the earliest ones that work
rather than pick the latest latest which may create too many problems. 
In many cases you can build from pure source, but that can mean major
breakages elsewhere unless you know what you are doing.  Abiword should
be easily buildable like this (I have done it on mandrake in the past
for one version a long while back).  The camera software may need some
LD_PRELOAD magic if its a propriety binary.

Where it does cause a problem is when newer versions of a package change
the configuration in incompatible ways, but that can usually be sorted
out.  Older systems may also need care with gnome2 and later kde for
example as they require some magic to enable peaceful co-existance with
older, required libs.

Or for a permanent fix, install gentoo and leave rpm/dll/binary distro
hell, and regular format disk and reinstall sessions behind.

The source be with you ...
:)
BillK


On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 19:57, David & Lisa Buddrige wrote:
> >Anyway, have you tried the new Debian installer? I have just has a look
> >at the Debian web site, and, the Beta 2 of the new Debian installer,
> >which instals Debian testing, is now available (as of yesterday, I
> >believe). It may be worth trying.
> >
> 
> When I first bought the laptop 18 months ago, I had initially planned to
> install it with Debian.  I went down to UCC, but after several hours of
> messing around trying to get the video drivers to work, I gave up and later
> installed Mandrake 9.
> 
> I am now wanting to install Abiword 2.0 and also to install software for my
> new Kodak EasyShare CX6230 Digital Camera- both of which require later
> libraries than those that came with bog-standard Mandrake 9.
> 
> I tried downloading the various software it required, but got in this loop
> where it would say "need X", so I'd attempt to download X and it would say
> needs "y".  But I already had a (too early) version of y, and since KDE (and
> just about everything else) depended on it, it was a bugger to try to
> upgrade (although I was probably going about it the wrong way - installing
> from source).  Anyway, the apt-get system seemed a much easier way to fix
> this.  I was thinking if it ran Debian I could just connect it to the
> network, apt-get the main package I wanted and Debian would do all the hard
> work of getting the dependencies sorted out for me.
> 
> Perhaps there's a better way, but as a Redhat user since 5.0, the only tool
> that I was familiar with was rpm -i for installing, and rpm -e for
> uninstalling.  Mandrake, being an rpm distro, seemed sufficiently like
> Redhat to be familiar to me.  But I must admit, I haven't kept up-to-date
> with the install tools - does Mandrake have an equivilent to apt-get -
> preferrably one where you don't have to pay to connect to the Mandrake
> website to get the packages down.
> 
> thanks heaps everyone for their help on this. 8-)
> 
> David.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> plug mailing list
> plug at plug.linux.org.au
> http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug
>