Rpms for 'Other' distributions

[Craig White]

On Sun, 2006-03-12 at 15:30 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> When I can't find a package with yum, I wonder whether it is safe to install a 
> package simply designated 'Other' such as 
> 
> Other 	
> ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/sourceforge/i/im/imgseek/imgSeek-0.8.2-1.i386.rpm
> 
> I assume these packages are safe enough, but does it mean that they are so 
> generic that they will work, but not necessarily be optimised?
----
how can we evaluate whether a package is 'safe' if we don't know the
package? If you believe that all binaries on sourceforge are 'safe' -
then by all means install it.

If you are looking for a generic rpm, that is a source rpm which you
rebuild on your system - which is always the best thing to do.

There are things such as 'noarch' rpms which are typically
php/perl/text/shell scripts or other compiled on the fly programs but
binaries by nature are compiled by specific versions of the C compiler
and not generally mobile between OS's unless they use something 'known'
as in compat-libstdc++ (which is how the 'proprietary' software vendors
would likely supply their binaries).

Craig