Re: gEDA-user: Fedora Core 5 installation notes

[Stuart Brorson <sdb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, Mark Rages wrote:
> On 7/29/06, Patrick Doyle <wpdster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Are there folks on this list who are using FC5?  If so, what is the
> > recommended approach for installing the gEDA suite on an FC5 box?
> >
> > I am asking because I tried the most straightforward approach
> > (installing from the CD) and ran into a few problems.  So far, they
> > don't seem too insurmountable, but I've learned through bitter
> > experience to start asking questions sooner, rather than later.
>
> Grab RPMs courtesy of Wojciech Kazubski
> http://www.sp5pbe.waw.pl/~sp5smk/geda.html
>
> Then install them with yum like this:

(etc. . . . .)

The one thing I'll say about this is that you only get gEDA/gaf
(i.e. schematic capture & netlisting).  If you want PCB, verilog,
spice, gnucap, etc, then you need to grab those packages (hopefully
with RPMs) elsewhere.

The vision of my Install CD is that you get *all* the gEDA-allied
programs in one convenient download, and (in principle) they are all
installed for you automatically.  The problem with that vision is that
every gEDA-allied program has different dependencies, and each distro
is different.  Moreover, the distros change over time, with each
release.  Indeed, the trend these days is for the major distros 
to not put header files or other compiler-essential files into the
base install.  It's hard for me to keep up with the changes in the
distros I test against.  And since everybody's system is differently
configured, things can occasionally break for all kinds of reasons.

Right now, for example, my CD installer works perfectly with my FC5
install except that gnucap fails since it wants Latex to build the
.pdf docs.  IMHO, Latex shouldn't be a dependency for end users and
Gnucap should just ship to end users with .pdfs installed.

Another killer I saw recently was that PCB requires the Gd graphics
library (whatever that is).  My installer used to look for the Gd
utility "gdlib-config", and if it was there, then it assumed that Gd
was present.  But no!  SuSE10 ships with "gdlib-config" installed, but
with no gd.h header files!  Thanks guys!  I presume somebody in
marketing made that decision.

Finally, I don't have kind words to say about the folks at GNU who
decided that gcc-4.x would impose strict type-checking on all
When Red Hat put this version of gcc onto FC4, at least three or four
different programs on my CD couldn't compile anymore.  When that
happened I was overwhelmed by all the whiners who blamed me for
producing a cruddy CD.  *sigh*

Anyway, the CD will work for most people most of the time.  If you are
patient with it and read the logfile it generates, you can use it to
install the entire gEDA Suite with minimal (if not always zero) pain.
At least that's the vision.

By the way, before somebody again extolls the virtues of their
favorite apt-get, yum, pkg-get or whatever, here's my challenge:  Why
don't you show us how easy it is by building an .iso with all gEDA
Suite tools aboard?  I'd personally be happy to put such a beast onto
the gEDA download page.  Even if the .iso only worked for one distro,
I think it would make a lot of users happy!  Let's see some action
instead of advice!

;-)

Stuart


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