[Rd] rhel5 rpm spec mods

[Hin-Tak Leung]

Ben Walton wrote:
> The only changes I've made (taken from the fc6.src.rpm) are in the
> initial detection of which linux/rpm-based distro it's being built on.
> This allows detection of gcc version, pdfviewer, etc.  These changes are
> all similar to what happens in the fc line of detection, but weren't
> being done for rhel.

Yes, those sounds reasonable.

> Without modification, rpmbuild was looking for XFree86-devel and gcc-g77
> which aren't valid packages in rhel5 (haven't looked at 4 as rpms were
> already built for that).

yes and no. You can do "rpmbuild --nodeps <otherstuff>" without
modifying the spec file to tell rpmbuild to go ahead, I think.
This is also often the technique used when one tries to
build rpm's on non-rpm based systems like debian/gentoo/slackware.

> I am aware of fedora extras but haven't gotten to the point of using
> them in rhel (we do in our fc installs).  Personally, I'd prefer to stay
> away from the fc rpm trees when possible as (being a devel distro)
> versions can change wildly and bugs are more likely to crop up in
> packaging, etc (we've been bitten in the past).  I'm moving away from fc
> for production machines for this reason.  I prefer fewer surprises in
> production machines when possible.

Personally, I think EL4 is too old/conservative (and I don't have access
to EL5), and it makes me angry when I encounter a bug or limitation
that I know was already fixed/addressed a year or two ago. Can't win.
:-).

HTL