Actually, it is the absolutely truth :-)
It take an evening or so to set-up your first package environment in a VM, but from there on it's just fun and very rewarding - you are on first row to learn something new every day about Linux and about PCLinux in particular :-) and tons of users will be able to use your work.
For an easy start, just pick small packages from Package Suggest that are requested for update - download the current PCLinux src.rpm and update the source you have downloaded from the program's website - recompile, install and test it - and send the fresh src.rpm to contribs. Then you learn the basics and what-goes-where - and after a handfull or two src.rpm (or SRPMS) you automatically take on more and more complicated programs.
If a package has been built for another distribution (some distributions are more suitable than others) you just proceed like described above, but more work is often required to set up menu entries and fixup the requirement package names to the ones we use here.
That said, packaging also can be brutal..now where is the fun if it's too easy all the time :-) but there is great help from the forum (and google!)
it's quite like brewing beer.... every detail/part of the build can always be improved - but a very special feeling when uploading your work to contribs and see it available for download in Synaptic after a short while :-)
Just for fun, the specfile for this package is inserted below. Here, you need to amend the names in the %buildrequires line to the PCLinux ones. %buildrequies are the packages needed to compile the package (usually -devel files).
Also change the "Group" entry to match the most appropriate entry in the Synaptic 'sections' list.
Just ask away, I'll (and others) will happily answer :-)
cheers,
MBantz
Name: wizardpen
Version: 0.7.0
Release: %mkrel 1
Summary: Wizardpen Driver for Linux
Group: User Interface/X Hardware Support
License: BSD/MIT
URL: http://code.google.com/p/linuxgenius/
Source0: http://linuxgenius.googlecode.com/files/wizardpen-%{version}-alpha2.tar.gz
Patch0: wizardpen-xorg-1.7.patch
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}
BuildRequires: xorg-x11-proto-devel xorg-x11-server-devel libXext-devel xorg-x11-utils xorg-x11-apps
%description
Wizardpen Driver for Linux
%prep
%setup -q -n %{name}-%{version}-alpha2
%patch0 -p1
%build
%configure --with-xorg-module-dir=%{_libdir}/xorg/modules
make %{?_smp_mflags}
%install
rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
make install DESTDIR=$RPM_BUILD_ROOT
%clean
rm -rf $RPM_BUILD_ROOT
%files
%defattr(-,root,root,-)
%doc
%{_libdir}/xorg/modules/input/wizardpen_drv.la
%{_libdir}/xorg/modules/input/wizardpen_drv.so
%{_mandir}/man4/wizardpen.4.gz
%changelog
* Mon Feb 28 2010 Izhar Firdaus <izhar@fedoraproject.org> 0.7.0-2
- added patch http://code.google.com/p/linuxgenius/issues/detail?id=5 to compile on Xorg 1.7
