FYI, LibreCAD 2.0-beta Fedora build process.

[Richard Shaw]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Steve <linuxguy123 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was successfully, happily running LibreCAD
> (librecad-2.0.0alpha4-2.1.x86_64) when I encountered the problem of not
> being able to scale a drawing prior to printing it.
>
> After checking the website (http://librecad.org/cms/home.html) and the wiki
> (http://wiki.librecad.org/index.php/Main_Page) and Source Forge, I came to
> the conclusion that this issue had been addressed in the current release,
> but that no public release had been made since 2.0.0alpha, even though there
> are some indications that a beta was released.
>
> So... in an effort to resolve my issue, I was forced to build librecad from
> source.   As there are no public instructions on doing this, especially on
> Fedora, I thought I'd share mine.

This isn't true 100% of the time but you're USUALLY better off
downloading the source RPM for the version you have and updating the
source and spec file to build a new version that is RPM installable.
Packagers often have to modify through patches or other methods the
way packages install to make them meet the Fedora guidelines so it's
good to take advantage of this if you can.

The few caveats are:
1. If the previous version was patched, the same patches either may
not apply properly and need to be updated, may no longer be necessary,
or new patches are needed.
2. If there is a significant change to the build method or options
(usually only happens on major version bumps).

So I would try:
1. $ yumdownloader --source LibreCAD
2. $ rpm -ivh <srpm>
3. download new sources to ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES
4. edit spec file to point to new sources, sometimes the only thing
you have to change is the Version: tag if the source format hasn't
changed
5. try $ rpm -bp ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/LibreCAD.spec to see if any patches
that may be there apply cleanly.
6. If all goes well $ rpm -bb ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/LibreCAD.spec

You should already have the build dependencies installed but the spec
may specify optional ones you don't and will error out until you
install them.

Also keep in mind that the package owner may eventually update the
package so make sure you name the package consistently and even
better, change the release tag to something like "Release:
0.1%{?dist}" so if/when they do, the package will be updated
automatically.

HTH,
Richard