mixing packages for different Linux distributions
 

Hi, everyone! I am just curious if I can use rpms for let's say Mandrake or Fedora with my RH Enterprise linux.

The question is aroused by my "bad" experience with xmms. After I followed different instructions in different postings and sites, I finally managed to mess up my xmms and now it opens mp3s but plays them too fast (actually I don't hear anything from the song whatsoever) and creates stupid .wav files in my home directory.
Bad plugin someone may say, I tried several different plugins.

But I am a newbie and who knows what I've messed up :)

10x I'll appreciate the comments

For the XMMS problem open preferences, then change the output plugin from "disk writer plugin" to one of the others. OSS will work, as will eSound (esd).

You cannot safely use RPMs built for one distro version against another, sorry. They aren't built with that use in mind.

Hi bikov_k,
short answer: no!
longer answer: maybe.
Generally if you are lucky, the binaries (and libraries) were built against the same files you have already installed. The idea behind RPMs is that you can drop them onto your system and it will find all files it depends on (those it is missing are also packaged in the same RPM).
So, if you install an RPM on a system it wasnt built for you can end up with unsatisfied dependencies. (You may be able to fix some problems by creating symlinks to newer versions of the libraries it needs, not all though.) What you have stumbled into is what developers sometimes call RPM hell (and they do that for a reason :)).
In cases like that programs usually either work or they dont. So a malfunction of xmms is probably not because of RPMs from another distribution.

Hope this answers your question,
- drowstar

Re: mixing packages for different Linux distributions
 

Thank you for the replies! I changed the xmms preferences and :) miraculously it works :) Otherwise, I guess the next logical alternative to rpms, is compiling the programs myself. Here comes the fun :)


Thanks,
Kaloyan

You could try either YUM or APT4RPM, both of which will automatically resolve depndencies for you.
If not installed, have a look on your CDs.

Re: Re: mixing packages for different Linux distributions
 

You say that, but compiling from source is far from difficult (just read the INSTALL and README files in whatever you download) and usually has far fewer problems than RPM. I install all my programs from source...much much easier.