Obtaining 2.6.8-1.541 source code

[Aaron Gaudio]

On Tue, 2004-09-14 at 16:52 -0500, Gregory G Carter wrote:

> I see lots of reasons to treat kernel source code differently.
> 
> I do not agree, especially in the context of a devlopment release of an 
> Operating System product.
> 
> One source tree should be in root context, the other in userland and the 
> two should not be shared as you suggest, for the same purpose.

Why do you need to build a kernel srpm tree in root context? I mean, if
you're leaving a source tree sitting around, unpackaged, then yes, but
realize it's not doing anything other than providing reference (or
convenience if you decide you really did need that module you disabled).
When I have a source tree sitting around in /usr/src/linux, yes of
course it is owned by root. But what does that have to do with the
kernel srpm? In that case, the source tree is blown away after the
binary rpms are built.

> 
> As for the "not spec'ed properly" arguement, if you do not understand 
> how to pull configuration information out of a source rpm before 
> installing it, you should probably wait for the binaries or do some 
> prudent reading.

No, the problem is typically with 3rd parties who produce sprms without
fully understanding or realizing the principles governing various
aspects of rpm building. For instance, a package not properly using
autoconf may have makefiles that install into /usr/local and don't use
the standard PREFIX variable to redirect them during install. Or, more
esoterically, when installing scrollkeeper files, even when
under /var/tmp/%{buildroot}, scrollkeeper seems to want to update the
global indices, which normal users don't have write access too. Maybe
there is an option to prevent this, but in my experience not many
packages which use scrollkeeper use such an option.

Now, why would I want to go to the bother of scanning every possible
srpm and source tree to catch these instances just because for some
reason I decided to build all my sprms as root, when I can build as a
user and be relatively sure that my system won't get fscked up?

-- 
Aaron Gaudio <prothonotar at tarnation.dyndns.org>