[Rpm-metadata] Newbie/Neophyte

Jon Wallace jon.wallace at hp.com
Tue Jan 13 21:28:01 UTC 2009


seth vidal wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-01-13 at 14:14 -0500, Jon Wallace wrote:
>   
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm new to this list and RPM management.  Can anyone point me to some 
>> "good" documentation on how distributions such as Fedora and/or RedHat 
>> are created/packaged starting from just a collection of RPMs and nothing 
>> else.  I've done lengthy searches on the Internet and have only found 
>> info that appears either outdated or not applicable to my needs.  In 
>> other words, doesn't get into enough details.  I'm here because I know I 
>> have to do something with a comps file and probably use createrepo() at 
>> some point, which lead me to this list.
>>
>> I understand there are various tools such as "revisor" (which I am 
>> looking at now), but I need to understand how packages are put together, 
>> not just rely on a tool to do it for me.
>>
>> 1) What is .discinfo and where can I find a description of each 
>> key/value pair
>> 2) What is .treeinfo and where can I find a description of entries in 
>> it, as well as a description of how it functions.
>> 3) If I want to build something with multiple DVD's, how does anaconda 
>> know when to call for "the other disk media"?
>> 4) Lot of talk on Internet about comps.xml, but in RHEL I see 
>> comps-rhel5-server-core.xml  and there is no comps.xml shipped.
>>
>> If the ONLY thing I have is a directory of RPMs, what's next?
>>
>> If this is the wrong list to ask such questions, I would appreciate a 
>> pointer to the proper forum.
>> Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
>> Jon
>>     
>
> Jon,
>  You've got a lot of different things you're asking about in this email.
>
> Let's ask what you're trying to do:
>
> It seems like you want to do a whole distribution and install-set. Is
> that correct?
>
> Are you looking to install these packages using anaconda/kickstart as
> normal?
>
> -sv
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rpm-metadata mailing list
> Rpm-metadata at lists.baseurl.org
> http://lists.baseurl.org/mailman/listinfo/rpm-metadata
>   
SV,

Yes, anaconda/kickstart would be the preferred method of install.  I am 
familiar with kickstart files and the documentation about them seems to 
be pretty thorough.  Regarding the distro, essentially I want to add my 
own RPMs to an existing one, but I want to do it from scratch (just a 
collection of RPMs in one or more directories).  Whether it's RH, 
Fedora, or something else that uses RPMs doesn't really matter since I'm 
just trying to learn the details about the procedure.  But we can assume 
that all necessary RPMs to pass dependency checking would be in place.  
And also assume that any RPM I create will not have any dependencies.

Jon



More information about the Rpm-metadata mailing list