wxWidgets - so near and yet so far..

[sandman]

My first attempt at packaging: patch wxWidgets and rebuild (yeah, it sounds easy when you say it like that...)

So I've created my patch and modded my spec file accordingly.

When I go to build my rpm I get the following output

Code: [Select]

[pork@localhost SPECS]$ rpm -ba wxWidgets.spec
error: Failed build dependencies:
        OpenGL-GLU-devel is needed by wxWidgets-2.8.10-1.src
        cppunit-devel is needed by wxWidgets-2.8.10-1.src
        libmspack-devel is needed by wxWidgets-2.8.10-1.src
        xorg-lib-libXext-devel is needed by wxWidgets-2.8.10-1.src
I'm not finding the above in the repository. Any ideas or am I completely on the wrong track?

[Neal ManBear]

Use Synaptic search with the Provided Packages function to find out if the package you need is included in another package. The BuildRequires can then be changed (or added) to include that package.
Also, sometimes the package you need may be a lib. For example, cppunit-devel would be libcppunit-devel, and your spec entry for it would be -->

BuildRequires:    libcppunit-devel

If a dependency can not be found, package it. If it's found but is an older version than needed, update it. That's the simple answer.

[sandman]

Thanks, Neal. That took care of libcppunit-devel.  The others don't appear to be as handy.  I'll have a look at your advice for those shortly.

[sandman]

Gah, the other three are leading me ever deeper into a dependency-hell cascade, so time to back out and tackle this from another angle. While it looked like a quick patch-and-rebuild method was the easy way (minimal work with the spec files and the patch was like 3 lines of code), whoever built the original file obviously had a very different system to PCLOS. Some of the packages I'd need to rebuild are so far off this fork that I'd probably just get bogged down in those and it's uncertain even if I did get them working if they'd be of any benefit to any appreciable number of people.

Oddly enough (I did this last night out of curiosity) I can grab the latest version (ok, a 2.9.0 dev ie non-stable) of wxWidgets and compile it here easily. So, my spare time now will be focused on trying to make an rpm out of that.

Plan B is that I can just about write a windowed app with a quit button using wxWidgets and if I have to I'll try packaging that - just to prove I haven't borked my build environment in the meantime.

Anyone else share my sinking feeling that comes from having spent 20-odd years getting really good at working on the wrong OS, including programming (Borland C++ Builder rocked for that, btw...)?

[Neal ManBear]

Sandman,
Your experience is transferable. It may take some time getting used to the differences, but you can do it.

[sandman]

Yeah, bet on it.  I'm forced to use 'The Beast of Bill' at work (further hampered by all the sodding corporate bloody spyware they bog the poor machines with, just to make sure they're secure - right....result = x286 on dial-up).

Fortunately, the basics of any kind of decent programming language are mostly platform-independent (Thank you C, C++, etc) as is networking, databases, webservers and so on.... I probably haven't entirely wasted the last 20 odd years of my life, but I sure as hell wish someone said to me a long time ago - "try Unix - honestly, it's the way of the future" - at least if you want to use your computer, as opposed to being a slave to keeping it working and just keep paying and paying and... (I'm not a freetard. The last bit of software I had to buy cost me over 650 euro - and I'm now pretty hacked off that wxWidgets can probably do pretty much the same thing for free, albeit with a bit more effort from me....)

I'll stop now, before I go on the full 50-page rant. 

In a way, I'm glad I've hit so many problems in trying to do what I'm trying to do. Now I'm learning.

[Neal ManBear]

Revisit your spec file. Look at what dependencies you have listed. Now look at the wxWidgets tar file (it is readable with your file browser). Compare what you find out there to what is in your spec.
Next, have a look at their website. Search it for info. You should be able to expand your understanding of wxWidgets enough to make more adjustments, I believe.

A question -- Are you using KDE4 as your packaging DE? If not, you probably should. Maybe Gnome.

Re coding: There are some good tools in the repos. For C++, QT Designer is available and Qt Creator, which may be a good one for you. These are KDE IDEs. There are GTK (gimp tool kit -- Gnome, XFCE and LXDE) tools available, also, like Glade Interface Designer. There are more. I won't try to give you an exhaustive list. PM me, if you want to discuss this further. I'll help where I can.