Simple HowTo

[Les Mikesell]

Gene Poole wrote:
> Craig:
> I'm not raising up against RPM packaging.  What I am concerned about is the
> 'migration' to a 'C:' drive in Linux.  Let me explain:
>    Since you aren't telling me ahead of time where and how much space Java,
>    Tomcat, or Apache is going to need, I have no choice but to make a very
>    large '/' (root) partition which is the same as a 'C:' drive.  Except
>    with M$, I can tell it to install on the 'D:' or 'E:' drive if I have
>    one.

You don't need that in Linux.  If you need more space in an existing 
partition, just replace some large directory with a mount point or 
symlink to a directory where you do have some space.


>    Normally, since I haven't seen much go into /usr/local or /opt in the
>    past (RH8-9, FC1-4), I usually make them around 512 MB in size.
>    But now without any warning or documentation I may need a /usr/local or
>    /opt of maybe 2-GB.

/opt and /usr/local are good candidates for mount points.

> Les:
> I use the standard 'sudo yum update' today without problems.
> What I have learned is that , unless it was installed with a RPM package (I
> download the Apache, Tomcat, and Java binaries as tar.gz packages), it
> doesn't get updated.

My question was, why?  What do you get that the RPM doesn't include?  In 
addition to having to maintain your own builds yourself, you will also 
be missing the RPM 'provides' that the packages supply, so if you 
attempt to install some other packages that need apache, tomcat, or java 
they will fail due to missing dependencies.  Java is sort-of an 
exception here in that the disto doesn't package a working Sun java, but 
there are jpackage-style rpms around or ways to build your own that 
supply the dependencies and set up paths correctly for you.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com