64 bit and installing libraries.

[Gilboa Davara]

On Thu, 2005-12-08 at 12:11 +0000, Paul F. Johnson wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > > Is there any harm in this or a way to prevent the libs being placed in
> > > the /lib as opposed to /lib64 directories automagically?
> > 
> > If the software uses autoconf, the --libdir parameter to the configure 
> > script will specify where shared libraries should be installed.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> > You should always be installing software with rpm.  If the software doesn't 
> > have a specfile, write on yourself.  If you don't know how to write rpm 
> > specfiles, learn it.
> 
> What? Are you serious? I've been compiling code on various Linux boxes
> for years now and very rarely do I use rpms. Simple reasons are that I
> don't want optimisation for i386 (when I used i386) and that a lot of
> the time, code I compile doesn't have an RPM (I have a patched version
> of wxWidgets 2.6.2 - the patch isn't in the main branch yet [it has been
> submitted] and I have a specific need for it)

Download the SRPMS and compile them.
When you're done, you'll have platform optimized RPMs that you can use
without fearing RPM hell.

Oh... and BTW, Fedora RPMs are tuned for P4 (-mtune) but compatible with
i386. (-march).
In general, I found that even on AMDs (Athlon XP/MP/64/Opteron)
switching to -march=k7/k8 adds negligible performance increase.


> I know how to write spec files.
> 
> > Otherwise you:
> > 
> > • Maybe accidentally overwriting files installed by other packages
> 
> Correct. I've done that with Cairo which is required for Mono.
> 
> > • Have nothing that would prevent an ordinary upgrade of other system 
> > packages removing critical files required by your manually-installed 
> > software, without notice.  rpm cannot track required dependencies by 
> > software that you did not install with rpm.
> 
> Correct. However, if I know something is available in rpm, I tend to use
> it (saves time). If I inadvertently break something, fine - I'll fix it.

BTW, I know I'll get bashed for offering this.
If you're looking for highly optimized packaging (again, I doubt that it
makes much of a difference, but to each his own), I'd suggest you switch
to Gentoo.
While I don't like it myself, it has excellent source package building
management.
/Flame on :)

Gilboa