[CentOS-docs] Re: Create page about rebuilding SRPMS and preparing RPM environment

On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 3:25 AM, Alan Bartlett <ajb.stxsl at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 18/07/2008, Filipe Brandenburger <filbranden at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Note that none of these articles are about building RPMs anyway, one
>> is a kind of FAQ on Yum and RPM and the second one is on building your
>> own kernel.
>
> Perhaps you would care to draft out what you have in mind.

> Russ, Ralph and Akemi - do you have any comments, please?

My view on this is as follows.

I and many others use Wiki articles to help users.  A good example is
the Repositories page:

http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories

Just checked the CentOS forums and found we have referred to this URL
18 times this month alone. That's about once a day.  I see the same
thing on the CentOS IRC - frequent citation to that Wiki.

As a matter of fact, quite a few Wiki articles were created out of
demand - demand by helpers rather than users.  We get tired of typing
the same thing over and over again.

So, when I want to assess if a new Wiki page is worth writing, I base
it on the past record and see if that article would have helped if
existed.  Here, I picked up some threads in the forums that are
related to "building from srpm".

(1) This is the latest one.  In there, Ned gives a brief description
as the "theory".

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=15267&forum=37&post_id=53624#forumpost53624

(2) In this thread, a user asks "Is there some howto to do that on
Centos...?"  Alan answers with the correct command.  But no one
responded with a howto.

 http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=15002&forum=28

(3) Another regular helper and now a Wiki author, pjwelsh, also
provides an answer with the rpmbuild command to use.

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=15184&forum=31&post_id=53235#forumpost53235

(4) Yet another case by pjwelsh.

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=15161&forum=45&post_id=53115#forumpost53115

(5) Here is mine as toracat :-D

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14195&forum=38&post_id=48562#forumpost48562

Except for mine which was in May, all other examples are from this
month and from "highly knowledgeable people".  I personally feel (my
selfish thinking) that a single point of reference to a CentOS wiki
would have helped *both* the helpers and the users in all these cases
and many others I have seen not only in the forums but in the mailing
lists and IRC as well.

Akemi