On Fri, May 01, 1998 at 09:08:12AM -0400, Kenneth.Scharf@coulter.com wrote: > I've seen the term mentioned here many times, I've looked in the docs but > can't find the meaning (so it must be slang). What is a tarball? A .tar.gz file => > On the thread of .deb vs .rpm.... From Maximum RPM I see that rpm will > actually build the package from original sources ie: apply patches to the > source, then build from your makefile the binaries, and make the .rpm > package file. I get the idea that dpkg should do the same, right? (Or is > it not quite as automated?) Sorry but Redhat's book is better written than > dpkg documentation. Maybe that's why Bruce wanted to use rpm? Generally, if you know how it works, Debian has a better way. Let's take my favorite source-only package, the qmail package whose qmail-src is said to be redundant (and kinda is) but how else would you KNOW there WAS a qmail package? So, lets go build it. I go to my favorite mirror (hi johnnie) and go to /debian/hamm/non-free/source/mail and I do this: > ls qm* qmail_1.01-5.diff.gz qmail_1.01-5.dsc qmail_1.01.orig.tar.gz Well, seems qmail is out of date---there's a qmail-src 1.01-7, but that's probably in slink, so I go to /debian/dists/slink/non-free/source/mail and look... > ls qm* qmail_1.01-7.diff.gz qmail_1.01-7.dsc Well now I see one of those "Problems with the source package system". THat .orig.tar.gz file should at LEAST be symlinked to slink! but it's not. We'll deal, though. You would get the .orig.tar.gz file and the two 1.01-7 files and you'd drop them in a directory, like /usr/src/qmail-src for example. now you go in to the directory and you type: /usr/src/qmail-src# dpkg-source -x qmail_1.01-7.dsc it'll run and then you go in to the directory it created for you and build the .deb file... /usr/src/qmail-src/qmail-1.01# dpkg-buildpackage -B -uc It goes on compiling for awhile.. When it finishes, go up a level and /usr/src/qmail-src# dpkg -i qmail_1.01-7_i386.deb Enjoy your new qmail! Whelp, apt could do this for you and then even clean up after itself. It COULD. But the point is, it DOESN'T. Until it does, I don't mind redownloading the .orig.tar.gz file in a new qmail-src .deb just so I know there is a new version. There is no Packages.gz for the source directories. > Other than one is free and the other is not quite... what are the tradeoffs > between Qt and Gtk? (I'm slightly leaning toward Gtk right now). Qt is perhaps a bit nicer-looking IMO. Other than that, not much =>
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