Problems installing RPM on Linspire
 

Hi,

I'm trying to install RPM on Linspire 5.0, so that I can use Alien to convert the OpenOffice Beta 2.0 .rpm installation files to .deb files to run on Linspire. However, when I run Alien I get a message saying "sh: rpm: command not found", which I gather means I need to install RPM. I've downloaded RPM 4.4.1, and extracted it from the tar.gz it arrived in. I took a guess at running the ./configure to set it up, as I couldn't find any installation instructions on the rpm.org website. However, halfway through I get the following message:

Gateway:/tmp/rpm/rpm-4.4.1# ./configure
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking target system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for g++... no
checking for c++... no
checking for gpp... no
checking for aCC... no
checking for CC... no
checking for cxx... no
checking for cc++... no
checking for cl... no
checking for FCC... no
checking for KCC... no
checking for RCC... no
checking for xlC_r... no
checking for xlC... no
checking for C++ compiler default output file name... configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details.
Gateway:/tmp/rpm/rpm-4.4.1#

I can post the contents of 'config.log' if that would help. I'm guessing the above message means I need to install all the packages that have a 'no' next to them - g++, c++, gpp etc. I've already ended up downloading RPM and Alien just to convert a few installation packages - do I really have to download all these extra packages too? And if so, is there some way I can find out ALL the required packages, and download them in one go?

I should point out that I have had Linux installed for approximately 27 hours now, so I may be on *completely* the wrong track here - please let me know if I am because I'm going mental trying to untangle all this! :)

Thanks,
h

edit: I should point out that I have done loads of searching about this, both on this website and the interweb in general, but have had no joy

"I've downloaded RPM 4.4.1, and extracted it from the tar.gz it arrived in."

You are trying to install the rpm program from the source code. To do that you need to compile the source code using the gcc compiler. When you run ./configure it checks to see if you have everything you need to compile the rpm program. ./configure does not get very far before it says that it cannot find the gcc compiler under any of its many possible names. Do you have gcc installed? If you don't know then type in the command:
which gcc
which will tell you where gcc is if it is installed.


------------------------------
Steve Stites

I have a feeling that Linspire ships without GCC, but it should be available from Linspire's Click n run repository. But don't quote me on this - I've never used Linspire..