Refresher course.
1. Name your specfile - pclos-name-of-package.spec (example: pclos-doxygen.spec)
Why? - This makes it handy if you are updating a package and encounter a build error. You can install another distributions source package and kompare their spec file with yours to see if they added a patch or a different build option to make the new version build.
2. Convert your source tarball to tar.xz from tar.gz and tar.bz2.
Why? The public server ibiblio does not have infinite space and bandwidth. By re-compressing your source tarball with tar.xz you will generate a much smaller SRPM. This saves space on ibiblio and makes uploading the SRPMs from the build server to go much faster as there is less to upload.
3. Use proper versions of your package release.
Why? If this is a new package going into the PCLinuxOS repository even if it has been based on another distributions specfile then your release macro for PCLinuxOS is %mkrel 1
4. Make a complete changelog
Why? This gives me information as to when the package was built, who built it , an email contact, version number. and a description of what you did to the package. If you are importing a package from another distribution then all you need to do is add in the description area based on original specfile from fedora, Opensuse, mdv etc...
Example:
* Mon Mar 28 2011 Texstar <texstar at gmail.com> 1.7.4-1pclos2011
- 1.7.4
- add requires for new glibc
5. gcc/glibc updates needs additional requires.
Why? When you update your gcc/glibc you will need to add the following to your specfile to force the user to update the following 2 packages to ensure the new programs compiled with gcc 4.5.2 will install and run properly on their existing system.
Requires: glibc >= 2.12.1
Requires: libstdc++6 >= 4.5.2
Thanks for assisting our members with PCLinuxOS packaging. It is very much appreciated by me and the members of this distribution.
Tex
