RPM and tarballs

[Tony Nelson]

At 1:13 PM -0500 5/8/07, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>Tony Nelson wrote:
>> At 10:39 AM -0500 5/8/07, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>>  ...
>>> In the long run, I feel it is worth the extra effort to build an RPM
>>> for the tarball package. It makes managing the packages on your
>>> system easier. That is what packaging systems were designed for in
>>> the first place.
>>
>> ISTM that a tool could make a reasonable RPM from a tarball, as long as the
>> tarball doesn't have an install script, as all that is needed is the list
>> of files.  Checkinstall is more dynamic and dangerous than just looking at
>> the output of tar -t, in order to be able to handle install scripts.  Are
>> there tools to make RPMs from tarballs that I haven't found?
>>
>> For that matter, RPM could install tarballs directly, if given an install
>> root.  RPM could even usually tell when a file conflict could be treated as
>> a config file and do the .rpmnew or .rpmsave thing.  Perhaps in the history
>> of RPM there is a reason this did not happen, or existed and was removed?
>
>As far as RPM installing from source,
 ...

You are the first to mention "source".  We're talking about /installing/ a
tarball, not /building/ from a tarball.


>I am not sure that trying to build the option of installing from a
>tarball is a good idea. Even though it would involve extra steps,
>improving the tools that will create a .spec file from a tarball,
>building the RPM, and then becoming root to install it still looks
>like a better way to do it. It gives you an extra chance to look at
>just what you are installing. (I can picture a few ways to hide
>nasty scripts inside a make file, or in the RPM install scripts.)

There is no makefile.  It is a binary tarball, so make would not be
invoked, only "cd / ; tar -xf <tarball>" (or wherever one decides to
install it).
-- 
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