building from source for dummies?

[Paul Howarth]

Tom Horsley wrote:
>> What exactly do you need to know?  Are you looking for how to install 
>> patches?  Or just build the source RPM?
> 
> I figure the first step is just getting the source rpm built so I can verify I can
> build a radeon module that is equally broken as the one that comes with FC6
> (broken for my monitor, that is).

Set up an RPM build environment:
http://www.city-fan.org/tips/CreateRPMBuildEnvironment

Once that's done, you should be able to do:
$ rpmbuild --rebuild /path/to/some.src.rpm

(provided you have all of the required build dependencies installed, but 
rpmbuild will let you know if you haven't)

Paul.