Re: Supported Linux Versions

[Leland Ray <elray544 yahoo com>]

>For example, don't hard coded paths to /bin/basename
or 
>/usr/bin/grep and others in scripts and other places.
 >(Why do people feel the need to do that?  

Unfortunately, no accepted standard that I am aware of
maps installed utilities to rpm capabilities. 

This makes life difficult for a package developer.
Here is an example.

My %post requires tar. How can I require it?

Requires: rpm-that-contains-tar

Obviously, that dog won't hunt.

But, the FHS says that tar must be present in /bin/tar
if it is installed, thus I can do:

Requires: /bin/tar

Now, you might ask -- who in their right mind wouldn't
have installed tar? One answer is that my rpms are
often installed during initial installation, and yum
(hence, anaconda) loves to install things as early as
possible. I have had cases in practice where my rpm is
installed before these utilities.

It would really make life easier if 1) I had a
standard that mapped utilities to rpm capabilities,
and 2) I had a way to query the prefix of a
relocatable installed package in the event the utility
I need in a scriptlet is not expected to be on the
normal PATH.


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