RedHat RPM issues with amaya 8.1b

Overall, Amaya is a nice freeware tool. However, the .spec files
included with it need some work as described below.

	1: amaya.spec refers to the wrong version of amaya and
prevents the "rpmbuild -ta amaya-src-8.1b.tar.gz" from working. (I've
got a patched .spec for this).

	2: The "rm -f /usr/bin/amaya" in the compilation stages of the
amaya.spec is completely inappropriate and should go the way of the
Dodo. That's a %post and %postun behavior, not a compilation
step. (I've got a patched .spec for this).

	3: The "cd linux; ../configure" step should occur in the
"%setup" phase, not in the "%make" phase.  This will enable the use of
"rpmbuild -bp" for debugging.) (I've got a patched .spec for this).

	4: There are a bunch of non-relevant differences between the
.spec files and commented out old steps. They should be flushed. (I've
got a patched .spec for this).

	5: The .spec files use "--exec" instead of "--exec-prefix" for
the "%make" options. This is a clear error and results in installing
the Amaya binaries on the local system instead of the RPM pre-build
locations, and can over-write current installations. (I've got a
patched .spec for this).

	6: %changelog is usually last in the .spec files. (I've got a
patched .spec for this).

	7: Some of the spec files are noted as including the amayadoc
tarball. Should this be re-integrated into the .spec, or is the
documentation in the source tarball include a recent enough version of
amayadoc? There are lots of differences between amayadoc's contents
and the Amaya/doc files, so I can't assess easily which should be
used.

	8: The source tarball insists on including the redland and
libwww tarballs as well. This goes against the basic idea of modular
RPM compilation and installation. There are good RPM's available for
both redland and libwww, and I don't see why you insist on including
it in the source tarball for amaya.  (I won't pursue this unless
others want it.)

	9: Compilation for "gl" and "gtk" versions could be done as a
.spec option, rather than using. This would allow "rpmbuild -ta"
compilation with a build-time flag set, and only one .spec file to
maintain. (I won't pursue this unless others want it.)

	10: Because Amaya is system dependent set of binaries and
configuration files and *NOT* a sharable set of tools, with its own
documentation and libraries not integrated into
"/usr/local/{lib,bin,include,share}" compilation, I think it should
really be in "/opt", not in "/usr/share". But that's a matter of
taste. (I won't pursue this unless others want it.)

If you want them, I'd be happy to submit my patched .spec files to
you. amaya_gl compilation is still failing for RedHat 8.0, but I'm
looking into that now.

-- 

				Nico Kadel-Garcia
				System and Networks Administrator
				Mitsubish Electric Research Lab
				<nkadel@merl.com>

Received on Tuesday, 30 September 2003 11:37:42 UTC