rpm --rebuild - unknown option?
 

I want to install the game IceBreaker. There's no package available for Fedora 4, so I was going to compile it from source. Here are the instructions from the site:

> In most cases, you should be able to grab the source rpm and rebuild.
>
> This is really easy: run "rpm --rebuild icebreaker-1.2.1-1.src.rpm", which will make a new
> binary RPM in /usr/src/rpm/RPMS/arch/ (with rpm possibly replaced by the name of your
> distro, and arch of course being the architecture of your system).

Of course, as usual, it's just not that simple. My rpm returns this error: "--rebuild: unknown option"

What's the deal?

error: File /home/futz/Download/icebreaker-1.2.1-1.src.rpm does not appear to be a specfile.

Sorry, force of habit, its:

Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!! Here's what it says:

Installing icebreaker-1.2.1-1.src.rpm
warning: user mattdm does not exist - using root
warning: group src does not exist - using root
warning: user mattdm does not exist - using root
warning: group src does not exist - using root
error: Legacy syntax is unsupported: copyright
error: line 6: Unknown tag: Copyright: GPL

So much bullshit to go thru for a little game. There are times when I really really love my windoze xp box. Not so fun to tinker with as Linux, but so simple to do stuff like this.

On most distros its simply a matter of going into the software installer, typing 'icebreaker' and clicking install, its available for both Debian and Mandrake like this. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be packaged for Fedora, and that RPM you've got has been badly written.

Anyway try doing (all as root)
then go to /usr/src/redhat/SPECS and comment out line 6 in the icebreaker SPEC file. Now run:

Yup. It's that simple in Ubuntu, which uses Synaptic. I just did it.

---------------------------------------------

Back to Fedora 4:

Tried commenting out that line. That either doesn't work, or I'm not using the right character as a comment symbol. Tried all the usual ones.

Tried removing the line. Of course that won't work.

Read up on spec files. Saw this line,

So I tried various other entries like "public domain" and "distributable", in place of the original "GPL". All attempts got me messages like this:

Try replacing 'copyright' with 'license':

That did it. Thanks for the help.