gEDA-user: Fedora Core 5 installation notes

[Mark Rages]

On 7/29/06, Stuart Brorson <sdb at cloud9.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Jul 2006, Mark Rages wrote:
> > On 7/29/06, Patrick Doyle <wpdster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Are there folks on this list who are using FC5?  If so, what is the
> >> recommended approach for installing the gEDA suite on an FC5 box?
> >>
> >> I am asking because I tried the most straightforward approach
> >> (installing from the CD) and ran into a few problems.  So far, they
> >> don't seem too insurmountable, but I've learned through bitter
> >> experience to start asking questions sooner, rather than later.
> >
> > Grab RPMs courtesy of Wojciech Kazubski
> > http://www.sp5pbe.waw.pl/~sp5smk/geda.html
> >
> > Then install them with yum like this:
>
> (etc. . . . .)
>
> The one thing I'll say about this is that you only get gEDA/gaf
> (i.e. schematic capture & netlisting).  If you want PCB, verilog,
> spice, gnucap, etc, then you need to grab those packages (hopefully
> with RPMs) elsewhere.
>

Wojciech also has PCB:
http://www.sp5pbe.waw.pl/~sp5smk/pcb.html

And gerbv:
http://www.sp5pbe.waw.pl/~sp5smk/gerbv.html

And spice / gnucap:
http://www.sp5pbe.waw.pl/~sp5smk/spice.html

For a while, I was mirroring the files in a yum repository.  I think
it would be better for Wojciech to do this.  I may ask him agin --
last time there were some technical issues IIRC.

> The vision of my Install CD is that you get *all* the gEDA-allied
> programs in one convenient download, and (in principle) they are all
> installed for you automatically.

To a yum or apt user, downloading an ISO is a sub-optimal way to
install software.

I have used your CD install before (a year ago perhaps).

My impression was that it seemed somewhat brittle and would run for a
long time and then fail hopelessly.  I remember thinking that it would
be more convenient to have a big Makefile instead of a frozen Python
script. This would make it easier to fix a problem and resume
compiling where you left off.  I'm sorry this criticism isn't more
constructive.

>
> By the way, before somebody again extolls the virtues of their
> favorite apt-get, yum, pkg-get or whatever, here's my challenge:  Why
> don't you show us how easy it is by building an .iso with all gEDA
> Suite tools aboard?  I'd personally be happy to put such a beast onto
> the gEDA download page.  Even if the .iso only worked for one distro,
> I think it would make a lot of users happy!  Let's see some action
> instead of advice!

Like I said above, the proper means of distribution would be a
repository rather than an .iso. Wojciech Kazubski almost has
everything together.  I will email him again about this.

Regards,
Mark
markrages at gmail
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