[aclug-L] Re: Another Question

[Noah Romer <klevin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, bbales wrote:

> When I download and run an rpm, it installs the program in a particular place
> where the rpm's author knows it should be.
>
> When I download a tarred program, untar it and run make, sometimes it stays
> right where the untarred directory is and other times it knows where it
> should be and installs there.  How does one decide where to put the untarred
> program before running make ./configure and install?  Or does it matter?
> bruce

Traditionally, programs that are installed appart from the distribution go
in the /usr/local hirearchy. This is where the 'configure' script usually
has `make install` put them by default. This can be changed by running
'configure' with the "--prefix" option. `./configure --prefix=/usr" would
setup the makefile to install the files in the "/usr" hirearchy. Most
traditionall rpm files are setup to install into the "/usr" hirearchy.
This because it requires root access to run `rpm -i`, thus it's an
"official" part of the OS. At least that's my take on the reasoning.

As a side note, I find it useful to have even "/usr/local" installs
inserted into the rpm database (for tracking and uninstall purposes).
Since not all source tarballs come with the necessary spec file for use
with rpm, I use the "checkinstall" program. Instead of typing `make
install`, I run `checkinstall`. It allows you what to specify what kind of
package you want created (Slackware, RPM and Debian formats are supported)
and then creates a binary package based on what `make install` would have
done. You then run 'rpm -i' on the file created (usually in
/usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386 on Red Hat systems).

It's not perfect, but it keeps you from having all sorts of packages
installed in /usr/local that you have no idea of what belongs to what.

--
Noah Romer              | "I hold a firm belief in the stupidity and
klevin@xxxxxxxxxx       | foolishness of humanity, especially myself."
PGP key available       | - me
by finger or email      |

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