Is it possible to convert 'run' files to slackware packages?
 

I've downloaded a video driver for an ATI Mobility Radeon 9100 IGP card. The driver installer only comes as a .run script. If I run the script, the installer only gives me options for SUSE or Redhat distributions.

Does anyone know if it is possible to convert this to a slackware-friendly installer (or if it is possible to install anyway and it work)?

Thanks,
j0rd4n

No, there is no direct way to convert .run to slackware-friendly installer. (You could, however, track what files the .run installs by running something like paco with it ... # paco -lD "ati-installer.run" ..., but it wouldn't do you too much good)

You should follow the guide to installing the driver:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=402003

Thanks. I had figured there wasn't, but I was concerned about the script up-chucking files all over my tidy drive. I actually had an incredibly successful installation. For those of you who come across this again, this is what I did.

Compaq Presario R3000 Laptop
ATI Radeon Mobility 9000/9100 IGP (integrated)
Slackware 11 - 2.6.17.13 kernel + modules + source

1. Downloaded ATI drivers (for integrated/motherboard video) from http://www.ati.com/support/drivers.html

2. Ran the 'run' file - it "advertised" Debian/RH/SUSE/Ubuntu distros only, but it installed just fine on slackware. I just went for the automatic install. This created a log file in /usr/share/fglrx that had the paths listed for all the installed files.

3. Rebooted into runlevel 3 as root and ran 'aticonfig' using initial parameters to create a default xorg.conf file (see the end of the aticonfig help screen for parameters to do this).

And that was it! It even recognized my WXGA widescreen resolution (1280x800) without needing any seperate BIOS patches and used this as the default resolution.

I've just added such a possibility to my PkgBuild software using the 'trackinstall' program which will track nearly any command you want and create a nice tgz package for you, if at all possible. It works even with interactive scripts such as the opera installer and flash_player plugin installer. Hmm, just occurred to me that I have a program that can run a GUI installer -I should check to see what happens when that runs...
Anyway, you can get PkgBuild here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...migo-PkgBuild/
Get at least the 0.9.8 version for the mentioned features.
After installing PkgBuild, running this command should do it for you:
trackinstall -S -r=".run"
You may need to refine or specify which documents to install using the -d DOCLIST option.
trackinstall, src2pkg and PkgBuild use the installwatch libraries to track the command(s) on a system level and will detect any files or directories created and create a package from that. PkgBuild also now has a very simple utility calle 'tracklist' which does nothing but create a list of files and directories created by whatever command:
tracklist sh .run
should create the list for you in the current dir.

gnashley,

That is awesome! I'm definitley going to use this. Does it catch the files as they are installed and package them instead or does it let the files install *and* create a package from them?

The default strategy is to avoid having the package installed to your system.
Basically it goes like this:

Install the files and log the creation of all links, files, and directories.

Using installwatch gives a very detailed log of sys-calls from which we parse all that to get a FILELIST and a DIRLIST. But installwatch will also backup any file on your system which is about to be overwritten. We save these backups and use them below.

Having the FILELIST of files and links created on your system by whatever install command you ran, we copy those files into the package tree.

Right away we restore any backed up files from above to your system. (You can also save archives of these).

Remove any unique directories created by the installation on your system.

*At this point your system is back to its' original state
and all content generated by the command is in the package tree.

Package content gets checked and altered, etc

Final package creation

This provides both the most accurate way to track the creation of content and a way to immediately restore your system to the same state as before.

Hey, that's a cool tool! That is going to be a big help. Thanks. :D