Building RPMS from Source

Building RPMS from Source

If you usually use the atrpms or rpmfusion repositories to obtain mythtv rpm files, but need to make some changes to one or a few files, it is not difficult to amend and re-create an rpm.

You will need the rpm-build utilities, the source rpm for the package you wish to revise and the specific directory layout used by rpm.

1. yum install rpm-build

2. Download the source SRPM to your computer. Use a browser to find it at atrpms or rpmfusion and 'save as' to your computer at, say /tmp

3. Create a build tree in a user home directory:

       cd /home/mythtv
       mkdir rpm
       cd rpm
       mkdir SOURCES SPECS BUILD SRPMS RPMS
       mkdir -p RPMS/i386 RPMS/athlon RPMS/i586 RPMS/i686 RPMS/noarch

4. Create an rpm-macro to point to this spot, whichever login user you are:

       echo  "%_topdir /home/geoffrey/rpm" > /home/mythtv/.rpmmacros
    or 
       echo  "%_topdir /home/geoffrey/rpm" > /root/.rpmmacros

   (The latter will fail if you are not root, of course.)

5. Cd to whereever the source rpm is:

       cd /tmp

6. Install the source rpm.

       rpm -i whatever.fc12.i386.src.rpm

7. cd to /home/mythtv/rpm/SOURCES and make whatever changes are required.

8. cd /home/mythtv/rpm/SPECS

9. Build the revised rpm

       rpmbuild -bb whatever.spec

10. Change to the correct architecture folder.

       cd ../RPMS/i386

11. Install the revised rpm.

       rpm -Uvh *rpm