With version 4.6.0 RPM supports noarch subpackages. This means that adding "BuildArch: noarch" to a subpackage section makes this subpackage noarch even if the main package is arch dependent. This allows to make documentation, language or data subpackages noarch without packaging the same sources twice or other workarounds. Compatibility: Spec files using this feature cannot be built on previous RPM versions. The resulting binary rpms are fully backward compatible as they are just normal noarch packages. Though packagers that need to build their spec files on different and older distributions should avoid using noarch subpackages . Distributions that build their spec files with a defined version of RPM or software vendors that target different distributions but use only on version of RPM for building should consider noarch subpackages. RPM based distributions should check their build systems whether they can cope with builds on different architectures returning the same noarch subpackages. Benefits: Noarch subpackages allow to increase the percentage of content packaged in noarch packages with very little changes to spec files. For distributions that build for several different arches this can reduce the overall size of their repositories as long as noarch packages are shared between the different arches. Distributions that want to make massive use of this feature should also consider how they can make sure that this benefit does actually apply. Possible solutions are using hard links or to introduce a noarch repository that is used by all arches. For multilib installations noarch subpackages can also reduce the amount of data that has to be stored, downloaded and installed twice. Outlook: All - or at least most - arch independent content should be in noarch packages. Expect more features to make that possible in future releases of RPM. _______________________________________________ Rpm-list mailing list Rpm-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.rpm.org/mailman/listinfo/rpm-list
