RPM

Karl Larsen k5di at zianet.com
Thu Nov 1 15:08:28 UTC 2007


Andrew Kelly wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-10-31 at 13:54 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>   
>> On Wed, 31 Oct 2007, Karl Larsen wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Wed, 31 Oct 2007, William Hooper wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> It's still available now:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.redhat.com/docs/books/max-rpm/
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>> given that that book appears to have not been updated since 2000,
>>>> i'd suggest that it doesn't have much value these days, given all
>>>> the rpm-related developments that have happened since then.
>>>>
>>>> rday
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>    I take rday you know of a newer book in pdf form that we can all
>>> make a book of that was written this month
>>>       
>> i'll tell you what, karl.  things will go much more smoothly around
>> here if we have a clearly-defined separation of responsibilities.
>> now, in *my* case, having been around fedora for years, having used
>> rpm for quite some time, and having actually *owned* the
>> aforementioned book in treeware form, it will be *my* job to recommend
>> that it might not be worth the time or money to get into it given that
>> it's seven years old and almost certainly out of date, given
>> everything that's happened with rpm since then.
>>
>> similarly, it will be *your* responsibility to do stupid things to
>> your system, complain when it breaks, then offer to write worthless,
>> error-filled "tutorials" that will almost certainly inspire readers
>> who take you seriously to cause untold damage to their computers.
>>
>> how about it, karl?  are you good with that?  does that work for you?
>>
>> rday
>>     
>
> That, right there, is the best damn reading I've done in more'n'a
> fortnight! Brilliant!
>
> It's a bit unfortunate that it was Karl and not somebody else, 'cuz
> there'll be a bunch swelling up and running to defences and whatnot and
> the whole beauty of it will be lost. But, we can't script life, can
> we...
>
> Regardless of whose feelings may or may not be hurt, or whose shiny
> armour will now be donned and brought to the frey, (or for that matter
> the contents of the dozens of posts I still have yet to read), that was
> a fantastic and wholly accurate vignette.
>
> Just lovely.
>
> And for what it's worth, the book is indeed rather aged, but the package
> building side of rpm hasn't really changed so much as to make the book a
> bad idea. I still thumb through mine occasionally, in fact, and was
> really stoked to be able to download an e-version yesterday. 
> Actually, my thanks go to Karl for making me aware of its existence.
>
> Andy
>
>
>
>   
    This thread stsrted when I was told about using #rpm -q 
--whatprovides (full file name) to get Nvidia out of init. It worked 
fine. Then I looked it up in my printed out Maximum RPM and there it was 
just as expected.

    Then we talked about getting the book and another person found it 
still available on the Red Hat web. Then rday said the book is no good 
because it is too old and that rpm has been updated many times in the 
past 10 years.

    My opinion is the book is just as good today as it was 10 years ago. 
The updates have been to solve bugs and make the code better at doing 
what it does. And the way to make a rpm file has not changed in 10 years.

    So if your interested in rpm you MUST d/l the PDF version of the 
book Maximum RPM. If your an old college Prof you print it into a paper 
book. As someone said, a man page might be great but if your computer 
will not start you can't read it :-)

-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.




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