Hi all,

I have been using a couple of programs under Fedora which are compiled using GTK, notably aMule and Lopster. Under Core 2 and Core 3 test 1 and 2, they compiled and ran fine, but something broke in test 3, and these programs don't compile anymore, saying that they cannot locate gtk-config, which is obsolete. I found a copy on the net at interopsystems.com and copied it to my /usr/bin directory, but that is not sufficient because apparently it needs to be adapted for my configuration. Looking at the file, it is not obvious how. Has anyone here figured out how to deal with this?

Perhaps the aMule devs will fix the package in a future release so that this isn't an issue any more, but the developer of Lopster seems to be in hibernation and I would nonetheless like to be able to use that program.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Who said it's obsolete? It's part of the gtk+-devel package.

Yep, I guess so. In any case, I managed solved the problem earlier this afternoon with the assistance of one of the aMule devs on IRC. Apparently, for reasons I don't entirely understand, when I installed FC3T3 ten or so days ago, gtk+-devel and [b]glib-devel[b] got left out.

Packages for Software Development are not included in every type of installation.

Indeed! I am going to look very carefully at the package lists when it comes time to install FC3 in a week or so

I used to think, not being a programmer, that the development packages were only for programmers. Then I found out I could save myself a lot of grief, as a mere computer user, by specifying installation of the development packages during the distro installation process. I found out through experience that a lot of packages won't install correctly, if at all, without the development packages for their respective languages being present. (Even then, sometimes they're in a location the new packages don't expect, etc. Oh, well...)

That would be a package bug which you should report at http://bugzilla.redhat.com -- socalled -devel packages ought to be truely optional. If they contain something which is needed by a non-devel package (e.g. a non-versioned *.so file which is neede at run-time rather than compile-time), then that is a package bug. Please report such issues.

I would be very happy to report these things (I didn't know they were bugs, though, till you told me--just assumed it was a packaging inadequacy of some kind). But I get totally frustrated by the reporting process at Bugzilla and gave up on it long ago. I get asked for all kinds of information I know nothing about. It's for far more system-savvy folks than me.

But your suggestion is the right one: they should be reported if they're bugs, else they will take much longer to get noticed and fixed.

Revisit bugzilla and give it another chance. Long ago it has been much worse than it is currently.

The bug submitting procedure consists of multiple steps and is pretty easy:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/easy_enter_bug.cgi

Some find the standard bug form easier, where everything is on one page.

Thanks. I promise next time I find what appears to be a bug, packaging or otherwise, I'll give the new simplified reporting process a try. I do like to be helpful if I can. I once notified a programmer (quite a respected one in the astronomy field) by personal email of a problem related to the latest version of Mandrake Linux, and he was unaware and within hours had a fix posted for download on the Web!

That's one of the things I love about open-source programmers. They are usually grateful for corrections and suggestions. Try that with Microsoft! You might get a pleasant surprise now and then, but I bet usually you'd get either no response at all, or a form letter.

Done!

Hmmm? This one? https://bugzilla.redhat.com/137735 -- If so, close it as WORKSFORME before the developer will do that. You have misunderstood what was written in this thread. gtk+-devel and glib-devel are included with Fedora Core 3 Test 3, of course.