Re: Intstallation options (long) (WAS gnome/enlightenment problems)

[Aaron Prohaska <verdesoft verdesoft net>]

Thank you for the explanaition. I wish I could get that kind of answer
more often. I am really trying to suck up as much information as I can
find about Linux. I think most of the time people don't have the time to
sit and explain things like this. I have a couple of responses/questions
about what you have said here.

> With RPM there is an intermediate option - source rpms.  When you install
> these, nothing gets added to any database: instead, the source code is
> placed in your machine in a format that lets you easily make the changes
> you want AND build your own binary rpm from the result.  This gives you the
> best of both worlds and is the way I install almost everything these days.

 The idea of downloading the source rpms and being able to build a
custom binary from it sounds great.  But what tool do you use to do
this? The idea is good, but for a newbie it sounds diffacult.

> To return to your complaint about GNOME - it may have reached 1.0 but it's
> very much a work in progress, pulling together a range of libraries that
> are also under rapid development.  This _will_ be consolidated and
> streamlined - 2.0 will, I'm sure, be an easier install.

I have to wonder why if gnome is a fairly standard setup why can't they
produce a single rpm that will have all the needed dependencies to
install? Is this possible to do? The other thing I found that I didn't
like about the current version of rpm is there isn't a way to search
through a CD or dir for a particular rpm file by the name. This may just
be a problem that I don't know how to use the find command to it's full
ability, but it seems like this should be something built into rpm
itself.

> Finally, RPM is actually a far more flexible system than it first appears.
>  It allows you to choose exactly where on your machine you install an app,
> for example.  The problem is, you need to know to do this with the
> command-line.  None of the GUI front-ends for RPM (that I have seen) give
> you anything like its full functionality.  I'm sure this will also change.

This is something I have to agree on. The only thing I have found that I
like about the GUI 'glint' is that it tells me the dependencies and I
can go and find them right away. Hince why I want a fine tool in glint.
But for the most part I do find the command line tool much more
effective.

On a different subject, I am having problems installing some of the rpms
I need to upgrade my current version of gnome and enlightenment. Since I
don't have modem for my laptop that will work under Linux I have had to
download everything under windows and then mount my win98 partition.
This way I can copy the files from a folder on the win98 partition to
the Linux partition. But I am having problmes with the rpm files not
working. I am getting a error message saying 'this does not appear to be
a RPM packege. I think there is  something wrong with the file. Though
some of the files work and some don't and I don't know why.

Aaron
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