Subject: Regarding fvwm-2.4 RPM

From: "Dmitry Yu. Bolkhovityanov" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 10:38:03 +0700

Hi!

    First, the package is named "fvwm", not "fvwm2", which prevents
it from being a drop-in replacement for RedHat's RPM.  It "-provides"
the "fvwm" capability, which is a bit wrong, since there's no "fvwm"
binary inside.  Additionaly, some people still use fvwm-1.24, and
naming the current version simply "fvwm" will confuse them (since
recommended "rpm -Uvh" will remove fvwm-1).

    Is it possible to rename the package to fvwm2?  (Yes, fvwm2-2.4
looks a bit weird, but it is an existing practice).

    Second, the fvwm-2.4.0-2.rh7.rpm doesn't include any config files
in proper places, so that when a freshly installed fvwm2 is run, it
complains:

[FVWM][main]: <<ERROR>> Cannot read startup file, tried:
        /export/viper/rabbit/.fvwm/.fvwm2rc
        /export/viper/rabbit/.fvwm2rc
        /usr/share/fvwm/.fvwm2rc
        /usr/share/fvwm/system.fvwm2rc
        /usr/etc/system.fvwm2rc

    BTW, it should also try /etc/X11/system.fvwm2rc and/or
/etc/X11/fvwm2/system.fvwm2rc (see FHS section 3.7.5.2).

    If nobody else bothers, I can make appropriate patch for spec
file.

       ___________________________________________________________________
       Dmitry Yu. Bolkhovityanov  |  Novosibirsk, RUSSIA
       phone (383-2)-39-49-56     |  The Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics
                                  |  Lab. 5-13
--
Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.fvwm.org/>.
To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm-workers" in the
body of a message to [email-masked].
To report problems, send mail to [email-masked]

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 00:14:54 +0000

On 07 Jul 2001 10:38:03 +0700, Dmitry Yu. Bolkhovityanov wrote:
> it from being a drop-in replacement for RedHat's RPM.

Should our rpm be a drop-in replacement for the RedHat's rpm?
In fact both may coexist happily together. Then a user has 2 fvwm versions
2.2.x and 2.4.x and may use one or another or uninstall RedHat's one.

Think about this, if we follow your path and have fvwm2 package which is
compatible with the current RedHat's rpm, we end up with rpm incompatible
with the SuSE one, which includes icons together with fvwm2 rpm, unlike
RedHat, which has them in a separate package. It will also be incompatible
with the Mandrake one, which adds a menu entry to some place.

The only good solution for us is to have the rpm, which is fully
distribution independent and let distributions to do what they want.
Optionally we may add more distribution specific rpms, which use the same
distribution independent file naming convention (this is important).

> It "-provides" the "fvwm" capability, which is a bit wrong, since
> there's no "fvwm" binary inside.

The fvwm rpm provides "fvwm" capability, I don't see anything wrong.
"rpm -ql fvwm | grep fvwm | grep -v fvwm2 | wc -l" gives 100 files.
"rpm -ql fvwm | grep fvwm2 | wc -l" gives only 5. Sounds reasonable?

> Additionaly, some people still use fvwm-1.24, and

Well, by this logic, some people still use RedHat's fvwm2-2.2.x; if we
name it fvwm2-2.4.x, this will uninstall an older rpm and confuse people.
>From the developers point of view 1.x is not preferable over 2.2.x,
both are old versions of the same program.

> looks a bit weird, but it is an existing practice).

This practice is not good. There is only one supported fvwm version,
the package with it should be called fvwm. If a distribution for some
reason wants to keep fvwm-1.24r, it may call the package fvwm1-1.24r,
which _is_ an existing practice for many other packages.

> /etc/X11/fvwm2/system.fvwm2rc (see FHS section 3.7.5.2).

Ok, I may change sysconfdir to be /etc instead of /usr/etc.
But this is not really important, because we suggest to use
/usr[/local]/share/fvwm for all system wide configs, not /etc.
Compare with emacs package, it also does not search in /etc.

The rpms that we provide are clean, they don't include any current
distribution additions. If you install from tarballs "make install" does
not install any config file, rpm does the same.

Initial rc files are not needed for most of people, who may:

  * use their existing rc files
  * create initial rc files using FvwmForm-Setup (try an initial menu)
  * create initial rc files using FvwmScript-Setup95 (also in menu)
  * install fvwm-themes rpm and run fvwm-themes-start instead of fvwm2

> If nobody else bothers, I can make appropriate patch for spec file.

Feel free to suggest changes, but I would keep them clean, not to be
RedHat specific or Mandrake specific or SuSE specific and so on.

If you want to help, you may create libstroke and libstroke-devel rpms
for RedHat 6.x and 7.x, which RedHat does not package. By comparison,
Mandrake, Polish(ed) and now SuSE do package it.

Regards,
Mikhael.