OK, so I'm working on the Makefile magic that will build an rpm under a given distribution, releasever, basearch and pop it into a repository tree in "the right place". However, I'm discovering that the right place isn't terribly standardized -- the last two components of the path tend to be $releasever/$basearch, but even on the linux@duke servers there have been a number of different ways of forming the actual path down to the actual rpms. The question I have for the list is twofold. First, is this really desireable? While yum-arch obviously doesn't care where a directory is, and while URL's can be as complex as one likes, wouldn't it help to have a "style guide" suggesting a more or less standardized layout relative to a (still arbitrary) toplevel path? Second, even if the list admins are curmudgeonly mavericks who want to put things whereever they durn well please arr matey arr (as may well be:-) is there any interest in having a $distribution variable? Is there any way to consistently set it to a set of standard values that work for at least the primary distros that use yum? For example, parsing the first line of /etc/issue would work for RH and Fedora, but there may a better way or a different way. I ask only because I would (personally) like to use $distribution/$releasever/$basearch as the terminal URL path on wulfware (I can build it for RH 7.3, RH 9, and FC 2 locally, probably Centos whatever shortly if we keep at least one centos build host available in the department). That way one wulfware yum.conf would fit all, instead of having to distribute/maintain one per named distribution. I've had a couple of other ideas regarding yum-based distribution of software packages. Obviously, I'm still distributing the raw tarball and the source rpm. It occurred to me, though, that it would be possible to build a master noarch rpm that contains the source rpm's together with a %post that rebuilds them and optionally installs them (with suitable checks). It wouldn't be perfect or necessarily a trick that can be made general (gentoo or not:-) but it might make it really easy for somebody to update their local distribution repository from the master repository with yum even if their distribution isn't prebuilt on the master. rgb -- Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb@xxxxxxxxxxxx
