wrc1944

fubar::chi, Hmmmm. I was under the impression it was the same. The man rpm page says "--force Same as using --replacepkgs, --replacefiles, and --oldpackage." In my experience, it works the same. I guess you may be correct about the database and apt, but I'm not sure, as I've never used apt. I guess it needs more investigation, or can someone who knows please enlighten us (or at least me)? BTW, this might sound lame, but what's the procedure for getting those nice little quote boxes of the previous poster everybody uses? like "wrc wrote:", and then a little quoted excerpt in a smaller and lighter field. I can't seem to figure it out. wrc1944 [

Sorry to hear it went badly. I'm assuming you did do this in init 3. I did essentially the exact same thing, except used the --force option (same as --replace files --replace packages). I put all the new XFree86 packages coresponding to what I had originally installed from 9.1 into one directory (no extras), went to init 3, cd'd to that directory as root, and ran rpm -Uvh --force *.rpm Then it went ahead and installed, and I restarted x, and that was it. I can't imagine what happen to yours. You say you ran out of room on /, so maybe next time it would be good to clean out some temp stuff, get rid of whatever you don't need, and reboot your system right before trying to flush out your ram and swap. But, I get the idea from what you say that you must have plenty of ram, so I can't undersand why you had a problem. On the boxes I have done this stuff, I only have 256MB, and never have had a similar problem. In any case, this sort of thing points out the wisdom of having a separate /home partition. On this box (one of 3, all dual boot with winXP), I have as linux partitions: root- 5GB swap-1GB(need large one for serious compiling) home-2GB(next time I'll increase this) boot-125MB (I play around with lots of kernels) tmp-1GB This works good for me- I had been adding separate /usr and /var previously, but found it simpiler to just go with a larger root. I'm always upgrading, reinstalling, or playing with new distros on one box, so the /home really makes life easy. If you could go into a little detail on what exactly happened, and caused you to have to reinstall, maybe it can be prevented in the future. You can almost always fix any display and video failures without a reinstall. Are you by chance running nvidia drivers? wrc1944

Great news! However, you didn't mention if you installed the new Athlon XFree86 packages yet. Let us know how it goes. wrc1944

In /usr/X11R6/bin I have the bdftopcf executable. Do you have X11R6-contrib installed? I could email you the bdftopcf I have, if necessary- it's only 6.1kb. Then you could copy it to the same location. But first, make sure X11R6-contrib is installed- that might put bdftopcf on the system, I would think- but I'm really beyond my knowledge here, and am just going on trying to apply common sense as to why your rebuild is failing with no bdftopcf found. wrc1944

Sounds reasonable to me. Are you sure you have all the required packages installed? My MCC shows the following installed. rpm-build rpm-devel rpm-python rpm-rebuilder rpmdrake rpmlint rpmstats rpmtools I also have many many devel and lib-devel packages installed, as recommended by Texstar and other people who rebuild srpms. One other off the wall idea that I might try if nothing else worked would be to go into init 3, and try to rebuild the srpm without a GUI running. But that probably isn't the problem. You seem to be missing something that relates to the font conversion program. I also have these packages installed, which might be related to your problem: font-tools freetype-devel freetype-tools freetype2-devel libfontconfig1-devel XFree86-devel If you don't have any of these, perhaps that's it. wrc1944

The srpm directory I downloaded from doesn't have the md5sums listed, but I can run it on the srpm I downloaded. Since there were no problems with this download and rebuild, I'm assuming it is the correct sum. Here it is: [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ cd /home/wrc1944/srpms [wrc1944@localhost srpms]$ md5sum XFree86-4.3-5mdk.src.rpm b8065970f5943d06962ca5b2fce80fae XFree86-4.3-5mdk.src.rpm [wrc1944@localhost srpms]$ Hope this helps- keep us posted on your progress. I'm really curious as to what's going wrong with your srpm rebuild. If I think of anything else, I'll post back. wrc1944

Hmmmm. I saved my build output when I did this just in case, and below is the relevant section, and the end where it wrote all the new athlon rpms. This is beyond my limited expertise, but apparently my build went right on into the fonts sections OK, and yours failed to find xc/programs/bdftopcf/bdftopcf at that point. Why that is, or what bdftopcf is, I don't know. Unless somebody replies with a solution first, I would try redownloading the XFree86 srpm, removing all traces of the previous reuilding process, and starting over. Maybe you got a corrupted download the first time. If it happens again, perhaps aru can help. If a new download works, please post back. wrc1944 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- make[5]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/RPM/BUILD/XFree86-4.3/xc/doc/man/GLU' make[4]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/RPM/BUILD/XFree86-4.3/xc/doc/man' make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/RPM/BUILD/XFree86-4.3/xc/doc' make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/RPM/BUILD/XFree86-4.3/xc' make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/RPM/BUILD/XFree86-4.3/xc' Mon Mar 31 02:37:21 EST 2003 Full build of XFree86 version 4.3.0 (27 February 2003) complete. make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/RPM/BUILD/XFree86-4.3/xc' ++ basename mdk-fonts/mdk_08_koi8.bdf .bdf + LD_LIBRARY_PATH=xc/lib/font + xc/programs/bdftopcf/bdftopcf -o mdk-fonts/mdk_08_koi8.pcf mdk-fonts/mdk_08_koi8.bdf ++ basename mdk-fonts/mdk_10_iso03.bdf .bdf ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HERE"S THE FINAL SECTION: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/xterm.termcap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/etc/xterm.terminfo Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-75dpi-fonts-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-100dpi-fonts-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-cyrillic-fonts-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-libs-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-devel-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-static-libs-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-doc-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-Xvfb-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-Xnest-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-server-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-glide-module-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/XFree86-xfs-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon/X11R6-contrib-4.3-5mdk.athlon.rpm Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.41232 + umask 022 + cd /usr/src/RPM/BUILD + cd XFree86-4.3 + rm -rf /var/tmp/XFree86-root + exit 0 Executing(--clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.41232 + umask 022 + cd /usr/src/RPM/BUILD + rm -rf XFree86-4.3 + exit 0 [root@localhost srpms]#

Andrew, As I understand it, you get better performance increases by recompiling your apps for your cpu and architecture rather than the kernel. The reason is that generally less than 1% of the time is spent in kernel activity, and most is spent in user with the specific apps you are using. Thus, any performance increase gained by recompiling the kernel is hardly noticable. Of course I do it anyway, as I'm pretty obsessive about performance. In the case of a celeron 433, you will get far more performance increase by simply replacing it with a Pentium of the highest class your board will allow than any amount of recompiling software will produce. Most boards with celerons will take faster pentiums also. You can pick up used or even new PentiumIIs or IIIs dirt cheap on ebay. You could also overclock the celeron- as I understand it, some of them do overclock very well. As for recompiling your linux kernel, go ahead and do the srpm, and your apps, and I did XFree86 for athlon-xp, which seemed to help. Since the Mandrake kernel is highly modularized anyway, I've found very few items worth removing, and it is very lean to begin with. The talk about the Mandrake kernel being bloated IMHO is a myth. You might find a few items you don't need compiled into the kernel, but it's probably not worth the time doing it. Having lots of kernel modules in /lib/modules doesn't mean the actual kernel image in /boot is bloated- they are only accessed as needed. That's the advantage of a modularized kernel. As for patching a kernel srpm, aru will be able to give far better advice than I can, as I've only patched regular vanilla source kernels before. I googled for the patch you wish to apply, and among other things found the exerpt below you might be interested in. Unless you really need it, you might considered not using it, and just using the multimedia kernel as is, unless you upgrade your cpu in which case then you could rebuild the srpm easily for the new architecture. I would see what higher cpu the board could take first, if performance is the main issue. "The swsusp patch is not ready for prime time, and may also not be part of ACPI suspend eventually, but the ACPI developers _are_ talking regularly with Pavel Machek about it, and it seems probable that a large part of swsusp will eventually be incorporated into ACPI." wrc1944

Andrew, Here's an excerpt from man gcc 3.2.2. You could rebuild the multimedia kernel srpm, and specify the appropriate target for your Celeron 433. I'm not up on which one it would be, but it would be one of the Pentiums or i586, or i686, as Celerons are basically Pentiums with a smaller cache. I assume you are using Mandrake 9.1, and you might have already compiled for your kernel appropriately by default (i586) for the celeron. The command would be something like: rpm --rebuild --target (your cpu) kernel-multimediaxxxx.src.rpm I don't believe the standard Mandrake /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc file has Pentium optflag lines- the celeron 433 might be i686 or pentium2. You would need to do some research to be sure what architecture to use. Since the gcc 3.2.2 compiler has those pentium options built in, you could add a line and flags to the rpmrc file, and then specify it as the target when you rebuild. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These -m options are defined for the i386 and x86-64 family of comput- ers: -mcpu=cpu-type Tune to cpu-type everything applicable about the generated code, except for the ABI and the set of available instructions. The choices for cpu-type are i386, i486, i586, i686, pentium, pentium- mmx, pentiumpro, pentium2, pentium3, pentium4, k6, k6-2, k6-3, athlon, athlon-tbird, athlon-4, athlon-xp and athlon-mp. While picking a specific cpu-type will schedule things appropri- ately for that particular chip, the compiler will not generate any code that does not run on the i386 without the -march=cpu-type option being used. i586 is equivalent to pentium and i686 is equivalent to pentiumpro. k6 and athlon are the AMD chips as opposed to the Intel ones.

As requested by DragonMage, I put a brief summary in the tips forum. Hope it helps. http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=4655 Again, thanks to aru for hanging in there with me and helping me figure out how to rebuild as user. wrc1944

Since I started the rebuilding the multimedia kernel srpm for athlon thread in the kernel forum, and it evolved into a more general discussion, I guess I'm responsible for doing a brief summary, and placing it here(as requested by a moderator). Recompiling the kernel srpm (or any srpm) is pretty straight-foward, with no real "tricks" to it. I'll describe the steps I used as root, which is safe, as the kernel srpm is a trusted source. There are other and probably better ways, like doing it as user (more involved setup procedure), but this seems like the simplest for a basic generic Mandrake 9.1 installation. Make sure you have the rpm and development packages installed. (I don't think I left out anything- aru, will you please check this, and add anything you feel I missed?) 1. Edit (as root) your /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc file "athlon optflag line" to include the optflags you desire. You can use the given athlon flags, but if you have a different version of the Athlon cpu, use the appropriate flag (athlon-tbird, athlon-4, athlon-xp athlon-mp). I used the following flags in my rpmrc file, and it worked for me, but admittedly these might be considered pretty reckless for the kernel. I'm no real expert, and I think the kernel rebuild might override (or eliminate) some of these anyway. I did notice some -O2 flags during the rebuilding, after specifying -O3. Next time I rebuild some athlon-xp optimized srpms, I'm going to try a few other flags, and eliminate others which may be redundant. Anyway, make sure all the flags are on ONE line. optflags: athlon -O3 -march=athlon-xp -mcpu=athlon-xp -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -ffast-math -fforce-addr -fno-strength-reduce 2. Download the multimedia kernel srpm to a directory in /home. 3. Go to a console, su to root, and cd to the directory where you put the kernel srpm. 4. Type: rpm --rebuild --target athlon kernel-multimedia-2.4.21.0.16mdk-1-1mdk.src.rpm then hit enter, and it should start compiling. When it's done, you'll find the new athlon optimized kernel rpm, an smp optimized kernel rpm (for multi-cpu systems), and the kernel source rpm in /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon. I usually copy the new kernel and kernel source rpms to their own directory in /home, and then cd to that directory, su to root, and install with rpm -ivh *.rpm That should do it. Look at your lilo.conf file to see if it's OK before trying to boot the new kernel. As I recall, I had to edit my old kernel stanza to explicitly refer to the old kernel image to be able to boot it. I thought the Mandrake install script was supposed to rewrite lilo correctly so the old kernel could be booted, but apparently it didn't. When I did the edit myself, the old kernel was then available. wrc1944

:D aru, I've apparently stumbled on the rebuilding srpms as user solution! (You were correct about the macros being messed up) In the ~./.rpmrc file CyberCFO sent me for athlon optimized rebuilds (I think I posted it earlier), which is essentially the regular rpmrc file from /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc with all the irrelevant stuff removed, at the very bottom is a section for macros. (I COMMENTED OUT that section, saved, and the result speaks for itself. I got some warnings about not finding the global config files during various test suite runs while rebuilding, but it didn't seem to affect the result). Now to solve the cflags and tar source build mystery. My thinking is that rpm --rebuild as user first checks the .rpmrc file, and finding a macros section there (apparently the same as in the /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc file), doesn't check the .rpmmacros file in /home/wrc1944, and thus doesn't use the home tree top directory for rebuilding. When I comment out those macros, it then uses the little .rpmmacros file I created in /home/ wrc1944. Is that correct? If so, I have really learned a lot from all this! Thanks for hanging in there with me! :wink: Here are the results (top and bottom of the build output): -------------------------------------------------------- [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ cd /home/wrc1944/srpms [wrc1944@localhost srpms]$ rpm --rebuild --target athlon gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm Installing gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm Building target platforms: athlon Building for target athlon Executing(%prep): /bin/sh -e /home/wrc1944/RPM/tmp/rpm-tmp.48654 + umask 022 + cd /home/wrc1944/RPM/BUILD + cd /home/wrc1944/RPM/BUILD THEN: ------------------------ Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libgcc1-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-c++-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libstdc++5-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libstdc++5-devel-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libstdc++5-static-devel-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-objc-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libobjc1-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-g77-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libf2c0-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-gnat-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libgnat1-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-java-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcj-tools-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libgcj3-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libgcj3-devel-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/libgcj3-static-devel-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-cpp-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-colorgcc-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-doc-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Wrote: /home/wrc1944/RPM/RPMS/athlon/gcc-doc-pdf-3.2.2-3mdk.athlon.rpm Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /home/wrc1944/RPM/tmp/rpm-tmp.61185 + umask 022 + cd /home/wrc1944/RPM/BUILD + cd gcc-3.2.2 + exit 0 Executing(--clean): /bin/sh -e /home/wrc1944/RPM/tmp/rpm-tmp.61185 + umask 022 + cd /home/wrc1944/RPM/BUILD + rm -rf gcc-3.2.2 + exit 0 [wrc1944@localhost srpms]$ wrc1944

Well, I reinstalled all the rpm packages (the command didn't work, so I had to use --force) [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ su Password: [root@localhost wrc1944]# cd /home/wrc1944/rpms/newrpm [root@localhost newrpm]# rpm -Uvh --upgradepkgs --upgradefiles *.rpm --upgradepkgs: unknown option [root@localhost newrpm]# rpm -Uvh --force *.rpm Preparing... ########################################### [100%] 1:rpm-helper ########################################### [ 10%] 2:rpm ########################################### [ 20%] 3:rpm-build ########################################### [ 30%] 4:rpm-devel ########################################### [ 40%] 5:rpm-python ########################################### [ 50%] 6:rpmlint ########################################### [ 60%] 7:rpm-rebuilder ########################################### [ 70%] 8:rpmstats ########################################### [ 80%] 9:rpmtools ########################################### [ 90%] 10:rpmdrake ########################################### [100%] [root@localhost newrpm]# Here are the same errors When I tried rpm rebuild as user (original, and new user) [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ cd /home/wrc1944/srpms [wrc1944@localhost srpms]$ rpm --rebuild --target athlon gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm Installing gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm error: cannot write to %sourcedir /usr/src/RPM/SOURCES error: gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm cannot be installed [wrc1944@localhost srpms]$ [rob44@localhost rob44]$ cd /home/rob44/srpms [rob44@localhost srpms]$ rpm --rebuild --target athlon gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm Installing gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm error: cannot create %sourcedir / /home/rob44/RPM/SOURCES error: gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm cannot be installed [rob44@localhost srpms]$ ------------------------------------------------------------------- TAR COMPILING TESTS: I tried the cflags location in the created /etc/profile.d/cflags.sh file like you said, but it didn't work. I then put my cflags (same short format you said) at the end of my /etc/bashrc, and /etc/profile files, and at least it then picked up the flags, user or root, but the c compiler wouldn't work. The host and target still reverts to i686. Here's the error as root- the same error happens as user: [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ su Password: [root@localhost wrc1944]# cd /home/wrc1944/tar/kaspaliste-0.93 [root@localhost kaspaliste-0.93]# ./configure creating cache ./config.cache checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c checking for -p flag to install... yes checking whether build environment is sane... yes checking for mawk... mawk checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... yes checking for style of include used by make... GNU checking for gcc... gcc checking whether the C compiler (gcc athlon -O3 -march=athlon-xp -mcpu=athlon-xp -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -ffast-math -fforce-addr -fno-strength-reduce ) works... no configure: error: installation or configuration problem: C compiler cannot create executables. [root@localhost kaspaliste-0.93]# I am using the multimedia kernel recompiled for athlon-xp, but since I can rebuild sprms as root fine I assume gcc 3.2.2 is OK, and I haven't suspected that could be a problem- am I wrong about that? Everything else in 9.1 works fone with that kernel. I really like Mandrake 9.1, but if I can't recompile tar source as root or user, or srpms as user with my optflags for athlon-xp, maybe I need to think about another distro. Nothing many experts have suggested has ever worked out for 8 months. My only success has been rebuilding srpms as root. wrc1944

OK- I'll install them all. I too wondered how rpm was working at all without that main package. I guess MCC could have a problem, and isn't reporting all the packages. Hmmm. just did a locate for rpm-4.0.4, and got the following- also rpm-helper is there in the output too, when I do a locate for it, so I guess MCC just is not showing them as installed. The mystery deepens. I looked at the macros file listed below, but I would need to realy study it to make sense out of it. [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ locate rpm-4.0.4 /usr/lib/librpm-4.0.4.so /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4 /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/spec /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/GROUPS /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/triggers /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/tsort /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/relocatable /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/dependencies /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/format /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/macros /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/rollbacks /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/buildroot /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/multiplebuilds /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/conditionalbuilds /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/RPM-GPG-KEY /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/hregions /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/CHANGES /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/builddependencies /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/queryformat /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/signatures /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0.4/RPM-PGP-KEY [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$

aru, I just downloaded all the rpm packages from a 9.1 mirror, and notice there are two more that I don't have listed in my MCC from the 3 cd set, therefore not installed. (I did have rpm-python installed, but I didn't put it on that list I first posted). Could this be the problem? :? They are: rpm-4.0.4-28mdk.i586.rpm rpm-helper.0.9-1mdk.noarch.rpm wrc1944

Thanks, aru, I'll do exactly as you have instructed about downloading the rpms, and recheck my /etc/profile.d/cflags.sh file. Wouldn't it be a good idea to backup any current macro files, to compare with later in case rpm rebuilding still want work as user after I reinstall the rpm packages? If so, which files would that include? wrc1944

OK- I'll do so, but some questions. 1. Doesn't this seem strange, seeing as how this happens on 3 different machines, 5 different hard drives, many different installs, and 3 different Mandrake versions? How can I be getting the same corruption on all these machines and drives, unless all three different sets of cd's have the same errors on them. I find this highly unlikely, but at this point, I'll try anything. 2. Is that the correct line you gave me, specifically the "rpm-stuff.rpm" portion? I've never heard of a command "-stuff" included in a line. I have installed: rpm-build rpm-devel rpm-rebuilder rpmdrake rpmlint rpmstats rpmtools How about removing them all in MCC, and then reinstalling from there? Or is the command lin as root the better method? On the Cflags problem- Since I've tried the location as your first post suggested, and didn't have any luck, I'd still like to see acopy of your working file whee I can study it in context. Or, if I fix the macros problem, will that also fix the cflags in the process? Thanks much, wrc1944

Here's the exact error- it was not a typo. [rob44@localhost rob44]$ cd /home/rob44/srpms [rob44@localhost srpms]$ rpm --rebuild --target athlon gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm Installing gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm error: cannot create %sourcedir / /home/rob44/RPM/SOURCES error: gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm cannot be installed [rob44@localhost srpms]$ ------------------------------------------------ Here's the other ouput you requested, as new user, and root, and original user, and root: [rob44@localhost rob44]$ rpm --eval %_sourcedir /home/rob44/RPM/SOURCES [rob44@localhost rob44]$ su Password: [root@localhost rob44]# rpm --eval %_sourcedir /usr/src/RPM/SOURCES [root@localhost rob44]# --------------------------------------------------- [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ rpm --eval %_sourcedir /usr/src/RPM/SOURCES [wrc1944@localhost wrc1944]$ su Password: [root@localhost wrc1944]# rpm --eval %_sourcedir /usr/src/RPM/SOURCES [root@localhost wrc1944]# I guess this confirms rpm is trying to write to /usr/src/RPM/SOURCES when I try to build as the original user, and apparently is correctly doing it as the new virgin user. wrc1944

aru, I created a new user with a virgin /home, and did your example exactly (made sure I made no errors- the tree and rpmmacros file is correct), and get the same error. I created an /home/rob44/.rpmrc file using the one CyberCFO uses, since my cflags environment variable isn't set up correctly (if at all). [rob44@localhost rob44]$ cd /home/rob44/srpms [rob44@localhost srpms]$ rpm --rebuild --target athlon gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm Installing gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm error: cannot create %sourcedir / /home/rob44/RPM/SOURCES error: gcc-3.2.2-3mdk.src.rpm cannot be installed [rob44@localhost srpms]$ Here's a link to the pclinuxonline discussion where Ranger is trying to help me also. Maybe if you looked at it, something would jump out- he's having me try a few things, and I posted some outputs of some commands he said to do. http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?m...c=1080&forum=11

aru, That was the first thing I did when I first saw your post, but it didn't work. I put the exact lines below (edited with my athlon flags), as you instructed, creating a cflags.sh file in /etc/profile.d. # cflags.sh -- Compile flags for gcc3 CHOST="i586-mandrake-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-mmx -mmmx -mno-mmx -ffast-math -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -falign-functions=2 -falign-jumps=2 -falign-loops=2 -mpreferred-stack-boundary=2 -pipe" CXXFLAGS=${CFLAGS} export HOST CFLAGS CXXFLAGS[ I then tried putting those exact lines in /etc/profile, /home/wrc1944/.bash_profile, /etc/bashrc, and /home/wrc1944/.bashrc. Nothing worked. I've been trying stuff like this for 8 months, on many fresh installs of three versions of Mandrake. Could you please send me a copy of your working file where the cflag environment variable is located? Perhaps seeing that in context would enlighten me. I'll now try creating a new user, and following your exact previous example. But if I don't have the variable set correctly, how can that work? My problem with the rpm rebuilding seems to be that as user, rpm insists on trying to write to the root /usr/src/RPM/SOURCES instead of using the /home/wrc1944 tree directories. Apparently, it finds the optflags in the ~/.rpmrc file OK. Thanks again, wrc1944 (Robert Crawford

aru, This helps greatly- Many thanks for your time spent helping me. I still have some questions, as I'm not there yet. 1. All I have in my /etc/rpm/macros file is: %_install_langs en_US:en Am I suppose to add my cflags there, and in what format? And I still don't understand why if the flags are there, compiling tar.gz stuff will find them. Don't I have to have the cflags somewhere else? I have been told to place them many places before, and none of them ever work with tar.gz compiles. I have installed and uninstalled many tars before, but can't get my cflags to be adopted, no matter what I do. 2.Can I just individually add my cflags in a makefile of ANY extracted tar.gz program after the HOSTFLAGS= after I do ./configure, like you mention about the kernel? 3.In your example, that is exactly what I have done (/home tree & .rpmmacros), but it doesn't work when I do, as user: rpm --rebuild --target athlon xxxx.srp.rpm It does work as root, and uses the /usr/lib/RPM/rpmrc file athlon optflags. 4. You seem to be saying I can pass cflags to the rpm --rebuild without even needing either the Mandrake /usr/src/RPM/rpmrc OR the /home/wrc1944/.rpmrc files by inserting "--target $CHOST ~/tmp/" (instead of --target athlon), and then the srpm file I wish to rebuild. In your last post your line was:root@mandrakeusers ~$ rpmbuild --rebuild --target $CHOST attr-2.0.8-1mdk.src.rpm which leaves out the ~/tmp/ part, and confuses me. I don't understand why you mention two versions of this line. Is the ~/tmp/ added when I build as user so as to use the tree in /home/wrc1944, and omitted when I build as root? 5. I still fail to understand where the cflags should be placed so that tar compiles adopt them. Nothing anybody on many forums has said has ever worked for me. This is on generic fully functioning Mandrake 8.2, 9.0, or 9.1 installs, with all devel packages. I guess I need the exact info how to set up the system environment variable, and/or where (what file) to place the system cflags I want, because Mandrake apparently hasn't done it. And, nothing in 8 months of trying by following advice on the forums about cflags formats or files to place them has worked either. I do think I'm getting closer, with what I'm learning from your efforts. 6. AM I correct in understanding that what you are telling me is that both rpm rebuilding AND compiling tars will use the same cflags I specify in system environment variables, building as user or root, if I either use --target $CHOST, or alternately, put them in the makefile after I ./configure a tar? Sorry to be so dense about this, but nothing seems to work so far. wrc1944

aru, I don't understand your last post. I'm not having a problem building srpms as root, only as user, in the home directory tree, which I was told was the preferred procedure. Also, I thought the "cflags" stuff was referring to building from source files (not srpms). Now you are utilizing that format with rpms, which I've never seen before. In other words, I know the gcc flags are the same either way- I just thought the "optflags" terminology was used when doing rpms, and the "cflags" was used in the prifile or bash files instead of rpmrc or .rpmrc. Or, doesn't it matter? Your line: root@mandrakeusers ~$ rpmbuild --rebuild --target $CHOST attr-2.0.8-1mdk.src.rpm confuses me even more. You appear to be building an srpm as root, but now are invoking the $CHOST CFLAGS terminology used for compiling tar.gz source files, when I thought the proper way was the optflags in rpmrc. When I build as root, with rpm --rebuild --target athlon xxxx.srp.rpm, I have no problem. But, as I understand it, I shouldn't do that, and should build as user in my home directory, with a tree and .rpmrc and .rpmmacros file I create specifically for that purpose. Isn't that correct? wrc1944

DragonMage, If you mean me, I'd be happy to share the rpms, however I only have 56k dialup, so I might have a problem uploading them. I might get a burner soon, so I could send a cd if nobody else has uploaded them by then. I can report that I just installed them, and they work great on my box. I just put only the athlon versions of the same 7 I had already installed as stock Mandrake in their own directory, went to init 3, cd to root, and used: rpm -Uvh *.athlon.rpm ---force. Guess I could have used -Fvh instead, and not bothered moving the other 7 athlon.rpms out of the directory. Then just log back to user, and startx. wrc1944

johnnyv, Yeh- I just ran across that pdf a few days ago, and retried it. Same result- I just don't get it. Does Mandrake 9.0 and 9.1 hate me? I can't understand how it won't work on generic installs, when I follow the info explicitly as instructed by people who are doing it on the same distro and versions??? It works fine from root console. aru, I thought your post on the profile file had finally solved it for me with optimizing source builds, but it didn't work. I also tried putting your format for the cflags (of course changing for the xp cpu) in /etc/profile. ~.bash_profile, and .bashrc, and nothing works. Mandrake always reverts to .i686 on any source file I try to compile, and never uses the opt flags, root or user. I've tried many formats of thes cflags for 8 months, and gone back and forth with experts on the forums, to no avail. What am I missing? There has to be some global file in Mandrake I don't know about that is over riding my cflag wherever I put them. wrc1944

Hmm.. If it doesn't work with your flags, it's unlikely it will with any extra flags I put in. Can you post the last few lines of the output containing the error in context? Maybe that will suggest what's going wrong, and perhaps someone who knows more than us can offer some advice. I take it the error occurs when it is suppose to output the lines "wrote XFree86xxxx in /usr/src/RPM/RPMS/athlon," or somewhere right before that? wrc1944