On Fri, 17 Sep 2010, Les Mikesell wrote: > To: centos at centos.org > From: Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [CentOS] looking for cool, > post-install things to do on a centos 5.5 system > > On 9/17/2010 1:21 PM, Keith Roberts wrote: >> >>>> How to download, md5sum check, unpack, configure and >>>> compile a GPL *.tar.gz package. >>>> >>>> As SysAdmin that's something they will need to do sooner or >>>> later :) >>> >>> But it's much more important to know all the reasons *not* to do that >>> except as a last resort. Reasons that someone who has had to maintain >>> and update such things for decades will know that won't occur to an >>> inexperienced beginner. You can summarize by saying "yum update is a >>> lot easier". >> >> Of course. >> >> But what if they want/need to install a package that is not >> available in any of the repos? Maybe even just for >> testing purposes? > > Yes, that's where the 'last resort' comes in... But you are right, you > should also know how to build things that live in /usr/local or under > your home directory. Sometimes there are special purpose needs for > things that don't exist as rpms yet or you need concurrent access to > different versions. And I'm sure someone will add that you should also > know how to build your own rpm if I don't mention it, but that can be > non-trivial compared to just staying out of the way of the > system-managed space. That's almost getting into repository management. I've looked at this rpm guide: http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm-snapshot/ I found this very helpfull in understanding how to use RPM, and it also goes into details about creating rpm packages. Regards, Keith ----------------------------------------------------------------- Websites: http://www.karsites.net http://www.php-debuggers.net http://www.raised-from-the-dead.org.uk All email addresses are challenge-response protected with TMDA [http://tmda.net] -----------------------------------------------------------------