Trying to compile Balsa on Mandrake

[Paul Dickson]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 09:38:17 -0700, Vaughn Treude wrote:

> Thanks for the feedback.  I have heard about yum, so I decided on your
> suggestion to try it, and downloaded the latest version, yum 3.0. 
> Unfortunately, it's a bit baffling.  To begin with, the INSTALL file was
> not encouraging:
> 
> 	For usage information, please see the README.
> 	
> 	run make
> 	run make install, if you're a masochist.
> 
> 	you're better off making an rpm and installing it
> 
> If "make install" is so bad, why do they provide it?  And how should I
> make this rpm?  And what will making the rpm accomplish?  I haven't a
> clue!  OK, so I tried the "make install" anyway. It _seemed_ to work.
> Running yum gives this message:

You haven't built any RPMs have you.  :-)

Rpmbuild runs the "make install" and then reaps the results into a
package (the rpm).  You can try "rpmbuild -tb --clean yum-VERSION.tar.bz2"

What version of python are you using?  For that matter, how old is your
system's software (Mandrake version if not Mandriva)?

I updated an FC3 system to FC5 with "yum update yum" and it updated about
40% of the system's packages.  I would worry about NOT already having yum
on your system though because not having yum will likely mean there's no
repository of software for your distribution's version.

Unless you can find an rpm for balsa compiled for your distribution's
version, you will likely need a version of balsa from the same era,
otherwise you might as well upgrade to the latest version of your
distribution due to all the library upgrades you'll need to do.

You need software from the same era if you're not staying current.  This
is true for all software, whether free or propriety.

	-Paul