Chicken & Egg Problem with FC4 "Minimal" Buildroot

[Warren Togami]

Jeffrey C. Ollie wrote:
> This afternoon I was packaging a new Python module for potential
> inclusion in Extras.  The package builds correctly in a "standard" mock
> FC4 buildroot.  When I tried to build the package in a "minimal" FC4
> buildroot it fails in the setup stage.  This is because the Fedora
> Python specfile template uses Python dynamically to determine a number
> of parameters.
> 
> For example, the Python specfile template contains the following:
> 
> Requires: python-abi = %(%{__python} -c "import sys ; print sys.version[:3]")
> 
> When built using a "minimal" FC4 buildroot, you get the following error
> during the setup phase:
> 
> Executing /usr/sbin/mock-helper chroot /var/lib/mock/fedora-4-i386-core-minimal/root /sbin/runuser - root -c "/sbin/runuser -c 'rpmbuild -bs --target i386 --nodeps /builddir/build/SPECS/python-gnupg.spec' mockbuild"
> sh: /usr/bin/python: No such file or directory
> error: line 18: Version required: Requires:       python-abi =
> 
> This is because the "minimal" buildroot does not install Python
> directly, nor is Python a dependency of anything installed with a
> minimal buildroot on FC4.  This is not a problem on FC5 because Python
> gets pulled into the mininmal buildroot as a dependency.
> 

the mock "minimal" is not a functional minimal buildroot.  The Fedora 
defined minimal buildroot includes python as one of the expected things 
that should be there.

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com