[NCLUG] rpm not recognizing library

[Bob Proulx]

bsimpson at att.net wrote:
> I did a search for libstdc++.so.2.8 on rpmfind.net and got some
> hits for Fedora Core 1, 2, and 3, but no 4.  Would I be taking
> a risk if I installed a libstdc++ library for 3 on my FC4 system?
> If it doesn't work, would my system be back to "normal" if I
> uninstall it?

I think that should work.  With all of the warnings that I don't have
an FC4 system to try this upon and have not tried it.

As far as risk goes, if the rpm installation fails then it won't have
installed.  So you should not need to do anything in that case.

It might not install because of a file conflict.  If a file belongs to
a package you are trying to install but is also belonging to another
package (and it has different content (e.g. md5sum)) then rpm will
detect the conflict and complain at installation time.

It might not install due to missing dependencies.  Also in this case
it won't have been installed.

The libstdc++ library is used by C++ software.  Fortunately most core
components of a system (e.g. mv, cp, ln, cat, grep, awk, rpm, etc.)
are written in C and will continue to work even if the C++ library is
broken.  Therefore risk is yet again reduced that your system would
have a problem that could not be recovered from.

If it installs then you will have the new library on your system and
it would be just as if you had had it installed previously on FC3 and
then upgraded to the later FC version.

> I would like to know how to make an rpm containing just the
> libstdc++.so.2.8 file.  Is this easy and reasonably painless,
> without having to become an rpm expert?  There is probably a
> few "howtos" on the web.  Any recommendations?

Without becoming an rpm expert?  No.  I think I will say that by
definition in order to make an rpm package you would need to learn
about rpm.  And there is not much difference between using it at the
basic level and using it at the expert level.  But packaging a single
is very easy.  Learning about rpm is also quite easy.  There are lots
of tutorials on the web.  This one is a good starting point.

  http://www.gurulabs.com/goodies/guru+guides.php

And of course the latest rpm documentation is available here:

  http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/drafts/rpm-guide-en/

Bob