Re: Installing XFree86 4.3 on RHL 7.3

[Stuart Swerdloff <stuarts megapathdsl net>]

Seems like I unintentionally stirred things up.

a)  I don't use my RH system for commercial stuff (its my home computer)
   I would use it for commercial stuff, but my company started  its product
   before Linus decided to write a kernel.

b) If something goes wrong, well, I'll have to start over, which is 
painful,,
   but doesn't affect others

c) RH offers a great product/service, but you get what you pay for.
   I work in the Medical Systems market.  If you want an OS supported
   for more than 18 months, one has to pay (big time), or just live 
with it.
   In other words, buy the Enterprise version (hey, at least RH offers 
it !)
   It is incredibly expensive to support multiple versions of software 
as a vendor.
   I speak from experience in the Medical Systems market.  The 
resources required
   are enormous ... from requirements through design/implementation, 
all the way to customer
   support, it all gets multiplied linearly at the least, and tends to 
grow exponentially because
   of cross version interactions.
  

d) I've been using Linux since 0.99 (Yggdrasil), and I had to recompile
   X and Motif 1.3 (and fix it to get it to work which made it sort of 
like 1.4)
   on Solaris when I was a grad student.  In other words, my assumption 
when I suggest
   that someone compile something is that they know what they are doing, or
   are prepared to learn how to do it, quickly.

e)   Be nice to Mike.  It looks to me like he's busting his *, and 
participating in this list
   as a service to the community.  Odds are, he doesn't get "credit" 
for participating on
   the list.  I'm sure he has other deliverables that he does get 
measured on.

Maybe we can try to learn how to do a proper repackaging of stuff so it 
fits into the
RedHat world.  In other words, for those of us on RedHat 7.x we should 
learn how
to repackage things like XFree86 4.3.x so that it "plays nice" in our 
OS/version.
If someone would be so kind as to point me in the proper direction to 
learn what
is needed to do this kind of thing, I'll go and read up on it.  Clearly 
one needs to understand
rpm, but apparently there are some external standards being adhered to, 
as well as RedHat
standards.  My guess is that RedHat  would have no problem with  RedHat  
customers
supporting legacy versions of RedHat in this fashion.  My hope is that 
RedHat will
provide a little guidance to help keep us on track.

Stuart Swerdloff, PhD
Nuclear Medicine
Philips Medical Systems

P.S.  All of my emails are strictly my own opinion, and have no 
connection with my employer
      in any way.