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I have started some initial experimenting with Slackware 12 and really
miss checkinstall. From the changelog:

-8<----------------------------------------------------------
extra/checkinstall/: This had to be removed because it does not work with
the latest coreutils. There is a readme in this directory with the
URL to checkinstall's homepage, so if you must use checkinstall
poll the site periodically to see if a version comes out that fixes
this issue.
extra/slacktrack/slacktrack-1.32-i486-1.tgz: Merged the newest version.
Note that this works, but must touch all the files on the system.
This is because installwatch.so does not work with the newest
coreutils. However, a new version will probably be created soon
that does, so check the slacktrack page (or here, on ftp sites) for
possible full-functionality upgrades.
-8<----------------------------------------------------------

I know that Slackware 11 shipped with checkinstall 1.6.0 in extra, but
because of some bugs I have prefered to use checkinstall 1.5.3 which was
included in older versions of Slackware.

I took the checkinstall source with the slackbuild script from the
Slackware 10.2 CDs and tried to install it on Slackware 12. From my tests
so far checkinstall 1.5.3 seems to work fine on Slackware 12. What were
the problems with checkinstall and installwatch? What problems should I
look for when evaluating checkinstall 1.5.3 on Slackware 12?

regards Henrik

--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc1(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@localhost postmaster@localhost

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:23:35 +0200, Henrik Carlqvist wrote:

> I have started some initial experimenting with Slackware 12 and really
> miss checkinstall. From the changelog:
>
> -8<----------------------------------------------------------
> extra/checkinstall/: This had to be removed because it does not work
> with
> the latest coreutils. There is a readme in this directory with
> the URL to checkinstall's homepage, so if you must use
> checkinstall poll the site periodically to see if a version comes
> out that fixes this issue.
> extra/slacktrack/slacktrack-1.32-i486-1.tgz: Merged the newest version.
> Note that this works, but must touch all the files on the system.
> This is because installwatch.so does not work with the newest
> coreutils. However, a new version will probably be created soon
> that does, so check the slacktrack page (or here, on ftp sites)
> for possible full-functionality upgrades.
> -8<----------------------------------------------------------
>
> I know that Slackware 11 shipped with checkinstall 1.6.0 in extra, but
> because of some bugs I have prefered to use checkinstall 1.5.3 which was
> included in older versions of Slackware.
>
> I took the checkinstall source with the slackbuild script from the
> Slackware 10.2 CDs and tried to install it on Slackware 12. From my
> tests so far checkinstall 1.5.3 seems to work fine on Slackware 12. What
> were the problems with checkinstall and installwatch? What problems
> should I look for when evaluating checkinstall 1.5.3 on Slackware 12?
>
> regards Henrik

Hi Henrik,
In blissful ignorance of the changelog entry I installed
checkinstall 1.5.3 from an earlier version of Slackware.
(I saw a post about 1.6 bugs too, hence 1.5.3).
I am happily using it on both Slack 12.0 and a pre12 snapshot of
current from mid May.
Haven't detected any problems at all.
Used it to install about 20 packages (grass + prerequisites) on Slack
12.0, and around 30 packages (grass and vtp + prereqs) on a
pre12 snapshot.
Also used installwatch with MPlayer (which doesn't seem to like to be
checkinstalled since wayback), GoogleEarth, Adobe Reader.
So it seems to me that 1.5.3 is quite happy on Slack 12.
Good Luck,
Peter G

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:23:35 +0200, Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com wrote:

> I took the checkinstall source with the slackbuild script from the
> Slackware 10.2 CDs and tried to install it on Slackware 12. From my tests
> so far checkinstall 1.5.3 seems to work fine on Slackware 12. What were
> the problems with checkinstall and installwatch? What problems should I
> look for when evaluating checkinstall 1.5.3 on Slackware 12?

If you use coreutils utilities such as chown, chmod, installwatch
cannot track the changes made by them because it has not been
updated to handle the new at-style functions that glibc 2.5
is providing.

For example, if you did
chmod 700 /usr/bin/foo
then installwatch would not see that change and if you were
using the filesystem translation mode (which I think is the default),
this change would not make it into your .tgz package.

This is especially noticable if you use slacktrack -- chown will
tell you that /usr/bin/foo does not exist.

I hope that makes sense.

Stuart Winter <not.a.real.address@interlude.org.uk> wrote:
> If you use coreutils utilities such as chown, chmod, installwatch
> cannot track the changes made by them because it has not been
> updated to handle the new at-style functions that glibc 2.5
> is providing.
>
> For example, if you did
> chmod 700 /usr/bin/foo
> then installwatch would not see that change and if you were
> using the filesystem translation mode (which I think is the default),
> this change would not make it into your .tgz package.
>
> This is especially noticable if you use slacktrack -- chown will
> tell you that /usr/bin/foo does not exist.
>
> I hope that makes sense.

Thanks alot for an insightful reply!

Next week at work were I am evaluating Slackware 12 I will try something
like the following:

checkinstall "echo hello > /usr/test.txt && chmod a+w /usr/test.txt &&
chown nobody /usr/test.txt"

After that I can check what owner and permissions the file get in the
package.

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc1(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@localhost postmaster@localhost

On Jul 6, 12:15 pm, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqv...@deadspam.com>
wrote:
> Stuart Winter <not.a.real.addr...@interlude.org.uk> wrote:
> > If you use coreutils utilities such as chown, chmod, installwatch
> > cannot track the changes made by them because it has not been
> > updated to handle the new at-style functions that glibc 2.5
> > is providing.
>
> > For example, if you did
> > chmod 700 /usr/bin/foo
> > then installwatch would not see that change and if you were
> > using the filesystem translation mode (which I think is the default),
> > this change would not make it into your .tgz package.
>
> > This is especially noticable if you use slacktrack -- chown will
> > tell you that /usr/bin/foo does not exist.
>
> > I hope that makes sense.
>
> Thanks alot for an insightful reply!
>
> Next week at work were I am evaluating Slackware 12 I will try something
> like the following:
>
> checkinstall "echo hello > /usr/test.txt && chmod a+w /usr/test.txt &&
> chown nobody /usr/test.txt"
>
> After that I can check what owner and permissions the file get in the
> package.
>
> regards Henrik
> --
> The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
> hc1(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
> root@localhost postmaster@localhost

I just wish that whole checkinstall package was maintained a little
bit more/better; in fact, I wish I had the programming knowledge to
help out with the project.

It seems to me, that the time between updates with the project, and
the fact that the website, changelogs, etc, don't mention anything
about the problems with the new version of coreutils.

Mike

"Stuart" == Stuart Winter <not.a.real.address@interlude.org.uk> writes:

Stuart> On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:23:35 +0200,
Stuart> Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com wrote:

>> What were the problems with checkinstall and installwatch? What
>> problems should I look for when evaluating checkinstall 1.5.3 on
>> Slackware 12?

Stuart> If you use coreutils utilities such as chown, chmod,
Stuart> installwatch cannot track the changes made by them because it
Stuart> has not been updated to handle the new at-style functions that
Stuart> glibc 2.5 is providing.

I use checkinstall in the simplest possible way. I download the source
for some program, configure, make, checkinstall make install, and then
install the package. Do these problems affect me? I just want to be able
to remove the program cleanly if need be. Also, is there a problem using
1.6.1?

--
Jim Kalb

On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:39:47 +0000, Jim Kalb wrote:

> "Stuart" == Stuart Winter <not.a.real.address@interlude.org.uk> writes:
>
> Stuart> On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:23:35 +0200, Stuart>
> Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com wrote:
>
> >> What were the problems with checkinstall and installwatch? What
> >> problems should I look for when evaluating checkinstall 1.5.3 on
> >> Slackware 12?
>
> Stuart> If you use coreutils utilities such as chown, chmod, Stuart>
> installwatch cannot track the changes made by them because it Stuart>
> has not been updated to handle the new at-style functions that Stuart>
> glibc 2.5 is providing.
>
> I use checkinstall in the simplest possible way. I download the source
> for some program, configure, make, checkinstall make install, and then
> install the package. Do these problems affect me? I just want to be able
> to remove the program cleanly if need be. Also, is there a problem using
> 1.6.1?

Hi,
I just used checkinstall1.5.3 to create and install a 42.3 Mbyte .tgz of
qgis0.8.1. The installed software works fine.
Haven't removed this package (yet), but have removed several others from
Slack 12.0. All seems clean up to now.
Good luck...

Jim Kalb <skarpheddin@gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, is there a problem using 1.6.1?

With 1.6.0 I know about at least two problems:

I haven't been able to install perl modules with checkinstall 1.6.0. Some
files get installed, but not the important .pm files.

If I remember right I also had problems installing python modules.

After running checkinstall a doc-pak directory was left where checkinstall
were run, however this is probably a minor problem for most people.

I don't think that any of those bugs were fixed in 1.6.1, at least they
were not mentioned in the changelog. For me the quick and easy solution
was to revert to version 1.5.3. However, now I must carefully check if
1.5.3 works OK with Slackware 12.0.

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc1(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@localhost postmaster@localhost

Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com> wrote:
>
> I don't think that any of those bugs were fixed in 1.6.1, at least they
> were not mentioned in the changelog. For me the quick and easy solution
> was to revert to version 1.5.3. However, now I must carefully check if
> 1.5.3 works OK with Slackware 12.0.
>
> regards Henrik

My 1.5.3 version does not work. Something is really wrong with tar
and that may be the problem.

root <NoEMail@home.org> wrote:
> Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com> wrote:
>>
>> I don't think that any of those bugs were fixed in 1.6.1, at least they
>> were not mentioned in the changelog. For me the quick and easy solution
>> was to revert to version 1.5.3. However, now I must carefully check if
>> 1.5.3 works OK with Slackware 12.0.
>>
>> regards Henrik
>
> My 1.5.3 version does not work. Something is really wrong with tar
> and that may be the problem.


I went back to the previous version of tar and my checkinstall works
again.