Les Mikesell wrote: > On 9/17/2010 2:15 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us 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". >> >> Excerpt when a user comes to you and asks you to install a package for >> which there isn't any rpm... or, for that matter, when you're force to >> use CPAN to install a module for which there's no .rpm, and then the build >> fails, but works if you cd into /root/.cpan/BUILD/<pgmsource> and >> make.... > > Agreed that it's good to know how - but 'there isn't any rpm' should > really mean there isn't any rpm at any well-maintained location, not > just in the base system or that you didn't bother to look. Every time > you build something yourself you are taking on the job of maintaining it > forever and probably leaving people in a lurch when you leave and > someone else has to figure out what non-standard things you did. Um, no. Sometimes users want stuff that no one *has* built a package for, and I'm certainly not going to. Perhaps you work in a more structured environment, where all the servers are the same. Ain't the case in a lot of places I've worked, and certainly not here (here being where I work now, and who I ->may not<- imply that I speak for, contract regs, federal regs...). And, of course, you'd *better* document what you did and how you did it, and put that in a well-known location, such as the organization's wiki.... mark