[TriLUG] RPM sources and ham radio

Tanner Lovelace lovelace at wayfarer.org
Mon Jun 2 21:37:04 EDT 2003


Dr. David Johnson wrote:
> Hi gang, this is David Johnson, a long-time Linux fan and dabbler,
> I'm nowhere near an expert but have been playing with Slackware
> and RedHat for several years. Lately I've been working with Mandrake
> 9.1 and want to get a Netgear MA401 wireless NIC playing on my
> Toshiba 325CDS laptop. Netgear provided driver for Redhat 7.3 and
> I hope this works for Mandrake. Seems like a lot of steps. First
> I found I needed source code for the kernel on my machine.
> Hey no problem I used the Mandrake RPM manager to install the
> kernel sources, and confirmed the path so I could specify this
> correctly in the the make config for the wireless card driver.
> But I found it also needed the sources for the pcmcia drivers.
> I did already install this package from the RPM manager, but I
> don't think (or don't know) this also gave me the sources.
> 
> I think my question is this (oops many questions):
> 
> How can I get the sources out of the RPM file?
> Is it possible to extract the sources from any RPM file?
> 
> How can I be sure to know the path of the sources when I do
> extract them to my system?
> 
> Ahhh, seems I am so close, I really want to try this driver!

Hi David,

The sources aren't contained in the binary rpm.  Rather, they
are located in the src.rpm file.  If you do
"rpm -qip <binary rpm file>" it should tell you what the name
of the src.rpm that was used to build that binary rpm.  Find
that file and you can find the sources.

Once you find the source rpm, you can convert the rpm file
to a cpio stream which you can then pass in a pipe to cpio like this:

rpm2cpio <source rpm file> | cpio [options, see man pages]

That will allow you to extract the source files.  It won't,
however, apply any patches in the rpm file, setup a build
environment, etc... To do that, you need to setup an RPM
build environment.  To do that, create a file in your home
directory called ".rpmmacros".  In it, put a line like this:

%_topdir /path/to/rpm/build/environment

In the path that your specify, create the following directory
structure:
BUILD/
RPMS/i386
RPMS/i586
RPMS/i686
RPMS/noarch
SOURCES/
SPECS/
SRPMS/

You can then install the source rpm like any normal rpm
using "rpm -ihv <source rpm>".  The source files (including
patches) will go in the SOURCES directory and the spec
file (which tells how to build the rpm) will go in the
SPECS directory.  Go to the specs directory and you can
unpack the sources and apply any patches like this:

rpmbuild -bp <specfilename>

That will untar the package in the BUILD/ directory
and apply any patches to it.  You can check the rpmbuild
man page for other options which include compiling the
rpm, installing it into a chrooted environment (more or less)
and packinging it up as an rpm.

> I'm a ham radio operator and interested in TCP/IP over ham radio.
> Anyone else into that?

Actually, I've been meaning to send a message about this
to the list.   Lately I've noticed several of our members
express interest in ham radio and some have even take the
test and gotten their licenses.  I was wondering if anyone
might be interested in forming a TriLUG Special Interest
Group to explore linux and ham radio.  TCP/IP over ham radio
is one aspect of that.  Other things could be using the
Linux Soundmodem driver, using GNU Radio to do Software
Defined Radio, Packet Radio, etc...  We also just about
have enough people to think about putting together a
TriLUG Ham radio Net (not to all non-hams, this is different
from the type of network you're used to :-).  Does any of this
appeal to anyone?  If so, please let me know. :-)

Tanner Lovelace
KB4TYE
-- 
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace at wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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