Re: Newbie/Neophyte

On Tue, 2009-01-13 at 14:14 -0500, Jon Wallace wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm new to this list and RPM management.  Can anyone point me to some 
> "good" documentation on how distributions such as Fedora and/or RedHat 
> are created/packaged starting from just a collection of RPMs and nothing 
> else.  I've done lengthy searches on the Internet and have only found 
> info that appears either outdated or not applicable to my needs.  In 
> other words, doesn't get into enough details.  I'm here because I know I 
> have to do something with a comps file and probably use createrepo() at 
> some point, which lead me to this list.
> 
> I understand there are various tools such as "revisor" (which I am 
> looking at now), but I need to understand how packages are put together, 
> not just rely on a tool to do it for me.
> 
> 1) What is .discinfo and where can I find a description of each 
> key/value pair
> 2) What is .treeinfo and where can I find a description of entries in 
> it, as well as a description of how it functions.
> 3) If I want to build something with multiple DVD's, how does anaconda 
> know when to call for "the other disk media"?
> 4) Lot of talk on Internet about comps.xml, but in RHEL I see 
> comps-rhel5-server-core.xml  and there is no comps.xml shipped.
> 
> If the ONLY thing I have is a directory of RPMs, what's next?
> 
> If this is the wrong list to ask such questions, I would appreciate a 
> pointer to the proper forum.
> Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
> Jon

Jon,
 You've got a lot of different things you're asking about in this email.

Let's ask what you're trying to do:

It seems like you want to do a whole distribution and install-set. Is
that correct?

Are you looking to install these packages using anaconda/kickstart as
normal?

-sv