Chris Tyler - Fedora Linux

Standard definitions distributed with the RPM software.

/etc/rpm/macros

Site-specific macros. Definitions that are local to your system and that should apply to all users should be placed here.

~/.rpmmacros

Per-user configuration information.

rpmbuild uses the spec file to create a script. This script contains an expansion of all of the macros (such as %configure and %makeinstall ) used in the spec file and is executed to prepare the RPM for packaging. (If rpmbuild is aborted or encounters a serious error, you will find the script in ~/rpm/tmp/ ). This script, in turn, references scripts found in /usr/lib/rpm to perform some of the processing involved in building a package.

When packages are built by the root user, the default RPM directories are used:

/usr/src/redhat/ BUILD

Temporary build files

/usr/src/redhat/ RPMS

Binary and debug RPMs that have been built

/usr/src/redhat/ SOURCES

Source tarballs (as well as patches, RPM icons, and related files)

/usr/src/redhat/ SPECS

Spec files

/usr/src/redhat/ SRPMS

Source RPMs that have been built

Since these directories are writable only by root , and it is not recommended that RPMs be built by the root user, it's best to use a set of directories within your home directory.

To create an entry in the menu, you will need to create a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications and (ideally) an icon in /usr/share/icons .

In the case of Critical Mass, there is an icon available in the top level of the tarball, so it can be fairly easily copied over to /usr/share/icons in the %install section of the spec file:

mkdir -p %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/icons

install -m 744 critter.png %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/icons/critter.png

Creating the .desktop file is almost as easy. Here are the contents of a .desktop file for Critical Mass:

mkdir -p %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/applications

echo "[Desktop Entry]

Name=Critical Mass

Comment=Shoot-em-up Game

Categories=Application;Game

Encoding=UTF-8

Exec=critter

Icon=critter.png

StartupNotify=true

Terminal=False

Type=Application" > %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/applications/CriticalMass.desktop

The .desktop file identifies all of the information necessary to create an additional entry in the desktop menu (whether KDE or GNOME):

Name

The name of the menu entry

Comment

The comment displayed as a tool tip message if you hover over the menu entry with the mouse pointer

Categories

The menu categories under which this entry will appear

Encoding

The character encoding used for this entry

Exec

The name of the command to be executed when this menu entry is selected

Icon

The name of the icon file

StartupNotify

Whether this icon supports the xdg startup notification protocol , which is used to manage a visual indication that the application is in the process of starting up

Terminal

Whether the application should be run in an terminal window (for nongraphical programs)

Type

Indicates that the program is a standalone application

The extended %install section looks like this:

%install

rm -rf %{buildroot}

%makeinstall

mkdir -p %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/icons

install -m 744 critter.png %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/icons/ critter.png

mkdir -p %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/applications

echo "[Desktop Entry]

Name= Critical Mass

Comment= Shoot-em-up Game

Categories=Application; Game

Encoding=UTF-8

Exec =critter

Icon =critter.png

StartupNotify= true

Terminal= False

Type=Application" > %{buildroot}%{_datadir}/applications/ CriticalMass.desktop

It is also necessary to modify the %files section to include the icon and .desktop file:

%files

%defattr(-, root, root)

%doc COPYING TODO

%{_bindir}/*

%{_datadir}/Critical_Mass

%{_mandir}/man?/*

%{_datadir}/applications/*

%{_datadir}/icons/*

This can be done by specifying a %pre , %post , %preun , or %postun section. The difference between these sections is in when they designate the script to run: before installation ( %pre ), after installation ( %post ), before removal ( %preun ), or after removal ( %postun ).

As a simple example, if your script contains shared object libraries ( .so files), you should run ldconfig after installation and after removal:

%post

/sbin/ldconfig

%postun

/bin/ldconfig

In this case, you should add a Requires tag to the preamble:

Requires: /sbin/ldconfig

A package icon can be included; graphical installation tools can pick up this icon and display it instead of a generic package icon. Place the icon in the same directory as the tarball, and create an Icon tag in the preamble:

Icon: CriticalMass.xpm

The icon should be in XPM format. You can use convert to make an XPM file from a file in another format:

$ convert critter.png critter.xpm

This is an excellent way to learn about writing advanced spec files. You don't even need root privileges to open and view the files!

After downloading the source RPM for a package ( .src.rpm file), install it in the normal way:

$ rpm -ivh ImageMagick-6.2.2.0-2.src.rpm

1:ImageMagick ########################################### [100%]

The files will be installed into ~/rpm/ name in this case, ~/rpm/ImageMagick :

$ ls ~/rpm/ ImageMagick

ImageMagick-5.5.6-mask.patch

ImageMagick-6.2.0-compress.patch

ImageMagick-6.2.1-fixed.patch

ImageMagick-6.2.1-hp2xx.patch

ImageMagick-6.2.1-local_doc.patch

ImageMagick-6.2.1-pkgconfig.patch

ImageMagick-6.2.2-0.tar.bz2

ImageMagick.spec

magick_small.png

 The Fedora RPM guide: http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/drafts/rpm-guide-en/ (that's a draft version; the final version is expected to be posted at http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/rpm-guide-en/ )