[Yum] $distribution ???

[Robert G. Brown]

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 at 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 at phy.duke.edu