Helo, i read on Linux Forums that the command checkinstall make install makes a .rpm package from the .tar.gz file then installs the .rpm i.e. it's like u've installed directly from the .rpm. Is this true? And does uninstalling software become a bother when you install directly from .tar.gz files coz i also read that the RPM utility keeps track of what file belongs to where thus making it easier to uninstall after installinfg from .rpms as compared to .tar.gz.

Sorry, I don't use checkinstall, so I can't really comment, other than to say that it appears to be a bit of a hack.

Yes, it can do. For this reason there is a nice GNU script called stow. It should be pacakged for your distro. The basic idea with stow is that you install into a different directory for each piece of software that you compile, and then stow makes sym links in to /usr/local. When you want to uninstall you just call stow with -D to remove the sym links, then delete the directory where you installed the actual files.

Indeed rpm does.

Cheers,

Evo2.

I've used checkinstall quite a bit for debian once or twice for redhat before that.

The way I used it was as a substitute for the command 'make install'; so I unpacked the tar.gz file, read the README, did whatever it said up to 'make install' and then instead of that I did 'checkinstall' as root using 'su'.

It does install it using the RPM system and that means that when you want to uninstall it you can use the RPM system and it will get rid of all the files.

Here is where I wrote a bit about using it:

http://www.linuxbasics.org/tutorials...ackage_manager

Uninstalling stuff that is compiled manually can be very difficult to remove on a package based system. Since rpm does not know about stuff that was not installed with it, one can get into some strange situations.

Stow is hit or miss on which distros it is available on.

Checkinstall is a hack, but it is a hack that works 85%(?) of the time.

If you can compile software it is really not that much more difficult to build a rpm for it. It is well worth one's time to learn how to do this.

Ahh, but it's a single self contained perl script, so installing it by hand is simplicity itself.

Cheers,

Evo2.

Checkinstall does make an rpm package. See the README http://www.asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/c...ll/docs/README

Also note that this program has been around since 2000 and has been tried out by a lot of people. I've had 100% success with it. I do agree that it is best to use the package that has been created by your distro. Most of the problems that you have with this manual way of installing are in the compiling stage. You have to get all the development stuff required and the dependencies. But, if you are going to manually install, checkinstall will do the 'make install' part of it in such a way that you will be able to easily uninstall.

I do agree that it would be a good learning experience to make an rpm. There are lots of fun things to learn and do. All I'm saying is my opinion is that one should not run 'make install' but instead use 'checkinstall'.

If you would read your own link you will see:

Note that it says "compatible package" and not an actual rpm. IF you actually examine the "rpms"(open them up) it generates, you can see the difference. Do not get me wrong it is an ok tool and for me it worked about 85% of the time(stuff that would install manually 100%). but considering that building an rpm is really not that much more work and that it works 100% of the time(assuming you can compile it), checkinstall is just not worth the effort.

Ok, I never actually examined the inside. I just noted that it had .deb on the end of the file and could be installed with dpkg. That led me to believe I had a deb package. Ditto for the rpm.

You say that checkinstall worked 85% of the time on stuff that would install manually 100% of the time. I'm confused, because checkinstall uses a manual install basically. You compile and run 'make' manually. Then you run checkinstall instead of 'make install'. So are you saying that 'checkinstall' did not work where 'make install' worked? Maybe we are talking about different ways of using the program.

The other difference is that most of my usage was with debian; and it sounds like you used it mostly with a distro that uses rpm.

I'll let go of my defense of this program, because it has been over 4 years since I used it though I did use it for about 4 years. And it has been more than 8 years since I ran RedHat; so my information is very old.

I hope the original poster got something out of the discussion.