Building from Source RPMs

The tool used to rebuild RPM packages is the same command-line tool used to manage them: rpm. This section gives an overview of the build process, starting with a little history to explain why the packaging system works the way it does. (For an introduction to RPM, see Chapter 16.)

Why Would You Want to Rebuild an RPM Package?

There are many good reasons for rebuilding RPM packages. You might not be able to find a binary RPM that works well with your distribution. Source RPMs (also called SRPMs) are often much more adaptable to different distributions and architectures than binary RPMs. You might also want to change the options that the software was compiled with, or even change the software itself. Finally, using SRPMs ...

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