Installing kernel-<version>.src.rpm under my own build root

[Kenneth Porter]

On Monday, January 09, 2006 7:00 PM -0500 Robert L Cochran 
<cochranb at speakeasy.net> wrote:

> I have this kernel file downloaded to ~
> [rlc at bobcp4 ~]$ ls -al kernel*
> -rw-rw-r--  1 rlc rlc 40523094 Jan  9 18:53
> kernel-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4.src.rpm
>
> Which I want to install in the rpm build root in my home directory (so it
> is not in /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES):
>
> drwxrwxr-x   7 rlc  rlc       4096 Jan  5 00:36 rpmbuild
> -rw-rw-r--   1 rlc  rlc        135 Jan  5 00:36 .rpmmacros
>
> For a kernel build, does doing this make sense? Or should I be installing
> to /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES and /usr/src/redhat/SPECS?

It depends. ;) Why are you installing the kernel source RPM?

For a single-user box, you can just chown /usr/src/redhat to your packaging 
identity and do all packaging under the system default packaging tree. If 
you have multiple packagers sharing a host, give each his own packaging 
tree in his home directory.

"Installing" a source RPM is conceptually the same as unpacking a source 
tarball, in the sense that it's unpacking an archive that must then be 
passed through translators to convert it into a binary object suitable for 
installation. There's nothing special about the kernel source RPM that 
justifies giving it special treatment.