Re: Installing RedHat Linux software onto YellowDog Linux


Subject: Re: Installing RedHat Linux software onto YellowDog Linux
From: Chris Ruprecht (chrup@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun May 27 2001 - 19:50:13 MDT


>G'Day All
>
>I am interested to find out if and how hard it is to port/install RedHat
>Linux software to YellowDog Linux?
>
>I would like to trial software on YellowDog Linux. However, I can only find
>a RedHat Linux RPMs and some open source versions.

Colin,

Redhat comes in two 'flavours' (for lack of a better word). The one
is the binary rpm, which is pretty useless to YDL as it's compiled
for the Intel architecture. The other is the source code which your
should be able to install without problems. Once installed, you have
to compile the code using a combination of 'configure' and 'make'
(usually).
However, the RedHat rpm sources are not always the latest versions of
the programs you want to install and they are not always complete.
RedHat packages the files according what they think belongs into a
package and have the annoying habit to split one source tree into
multiple packages.
I usually download the .tar.gz (or .tgz) files, unpack them and start
the installation from there. The problem here is: If there is already
a previous version of this package installed, it is usually installed
in a different place than where the standard (not the RedHat
standard) wants to put it and you might land up with the package
installed twice. You therefore need to either remove the package
first of you need to manually edit the Makefile to point to the
correct directories. Of course, you can specify the correct
parameters like '--prefix=...' when you run ./configure. Some
programs, like Apache, have a directive to use 'RedHat' or other OS's
directory structures.

Usually, you can find any type of source code for which there is a
binary in RedHat/YDL. Some are a little harder to find than others,
some are not Open Source (I think you can get Adabas (a database
system from Software AG) in binary, but not in source code for
example). Just go to www.google.com and let it search for it.

Best regards,
Chris

-- 
--
Chris Ruprecht
Network grunt and bit pusher extraordinaíre



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