Reinstalling Package modules on Madriva 10.2 after removing gtk 4652

into the Black Sun and said:

OK. On Redhat-derived distros, if you want to compile programs that link against $FOO, you need to install the $FOO-devel RPMs. It seems a little strange to me that you had to compile wxpython from source, though. There are ebuilds and debs for it, so there should have been an RPM for it somewhere.

Note that on a Debian or Gentoo system, all you would've had to do is "emerge wxpython" or "apt-get install wxpython", and all dependencies would've been taken care of automagically. They tell me that the yum-apt4rpm-urpmi frontends to RPM now have automatic dependency resolving, so you should've been able to "urpmi --install-deps wxpython" or something.

Whoa. Yeah, this is one thing that you probably *don't* want to do, ever. Multiple versions of shared libraries can exist on a Linux system. If you are trying to compile something that requires libFOO-4.5.6 and the latest distro package available is libFOO-4.4.0, then you get the source for libFOO-4.5.6 and install it tousr-local.

? The only distros that depend on a running gcc to install things are Gentoo and LFS. All other distros just unpack a tarball-RPM, put the files from that tarball-RPM in appropriate spots, and update the package manager database.

Yep. Lots of graphical things depend on GTK.

You don't. You unpack a prebuilt compiler from a tarball-RPM. Gentoo handles this by providing a prebuilt gcc in a tarball on the LiveCD. Then you unpack this gcc, install it, and use it to compile itself.

Cross-post to no more than 3 groups, make sure your message is on-topic cross-post without generating complaints.

Vague reference. Expand "this aspect"? The package manager hell you experienced seems to be specific to RPM-based distros. Debian and Gentoo have packages for damn near everything, so there's very little reason for normal users of those distros to ever compile packages from source.

Depends on the gurus and the specific tasks involved. Stuff you may think is simple may have unexpected ramifications or things you weren't taking into account. Or you may need better gurus :-)

Been There, Done That, Got The T-Shirt. OK, I had *some* experience with the command line, because I'd been using Solaris machines to learn C, but lots of stuff was completely new to me. I also didn't know about the local LUG until ~4 months after I'd figured most of the difficult parts out on my own. If you're interested in learning stuff about Linux, you should Google for a local LUG--I hear they have some of those in .uk, and it's very useful to be able to talk to people in person.

When you're doing something new, do it on a non-critical system if at all possible. "Always mount a scratch monkey", in other words.

Outsourcing programming has not been as wonderful as the beancounters say it has. You may get *code* from developers in Chennai, but that code is as likely as not to be a festering crock of unmaintainable kludges. The time differences also cause communication problems, and it can be a pain to manage people who are ~2000 miles away.

I'm waiting for the outsourcing of plumbers and car mechanics, myself.

No problem.

-- Matt GThere is no Darkness in Eternity-But only Light too dim for us to see Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong ----------------------------- penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL