[olug] rpm Howto

[nate]

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not reading the right howto.
What prompted this search in the rpm Howto is that I was downloading a file 
and trying to install it with RPM.  I could not get it to install and could 
not figure out why.  I have now forgotten which program I was trying to 
install, it will come to me later.  Ha!  
Can you steer me in the right direction?  I thought, and maybe correctly, that 
rpm was not installed on my (MANDRAKE 9.1 ) System because I could not get it 
to work.  
I have certainly, though learned a LOT from this thread,  THANKS,  I need all 
the help that I can get

thanks,
Nate



On Friday 12 September 2003 06:21 am, Kenton Brede wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 01:53:33AM -0500, nate wrote:
> > This is a sequence of commands and results after running the location
> > sequence you showed me Kent!
> >
> > [root at localhost home]# updatedb
> > [root at localhost home]# $ locate BUILD
>
>                          ^
> I was just using "$" to indicate running "locate" as a regular user.
>
> > bash: $: command not found
>
> As you found out:)
>
> > [root at localhost home]# locate BUILD
> > /root/rpm/BUILD
> > /usr/share/doc/freetype2-devel-2.1.3/BUILD
> > /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/BUILD
> > /usr/src/RPM/BUILD
> > [root at localhost home]#
> >
> > I ran the-  mkdir-p ~/rpm/BUILD-  which should have put the directory
> > into /home.   Why did it put it in the /usr/src/RPM/BUILD  directory?????
>
> I don't know what distro you are running but I imagine /usr/src/RPM/BUILD
> was there by default.  For example one of our machines running AS has
> the following directory by default, /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/
>
> These directories are utilized while logged in as a root user.  The HOWTO
> you are following is recommending you do most of the work while logged in
> as a regular user.  In order to do that you need to create the directory
> structure /rpm/BUILD in your home directory.
>
> The reason you have no /rpm/BUILD directory in your home directory is you
> were logged in as root when you issued the command, "mkdir -p ~/rpm/BUILD".
> This placed the directories in the root user's home directory,
> /root/rpm/BUILD
>
> > Also you prefaced one command with # and another with $  Is this a
> > different shell that I have to be in ????? I did everything with the #.
>
> I indicated the "$" above to denote being logged in as a regular user.
> "#" should be your prompt when you are logged in as root.
>
> What is prompting you to build RPMs from source anyway?  Is the program
> you want not available as a RPM package?  Most programs you should be
> able to install from your CDROM media or download from rpmfind.net
>
> Also you may find http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/index.html.gz
> helpful in learning some Linux basics.
> hth,
> Kent