[ILUG] Debian, rpm's, xfree86 and xi graphics?

[Gary Coady]

On Fri, Mar 29, 2002 at 05:29:02AM -0600, Gay, John wrote:
> Unfortunately, these are only in RPM format. I know alien 'should' be able
> to convert these to .deb's, but I've never had much luck before. I was
> hoping to be able to 'open' these rpm's and then be able to move what I
> needed to the proper locations. Rather tricky, considering that Debian and
> RedHat are notorious for having incompatible file system layouts.

Try running
alien --generate <file>.rpm
(preferably as root to preserve permissions)
This will generate a folder of the name <file> - and you can go in here
and tweak the file locations by moving files and editing scripts. The
debian subdirectory is where all the interesting stuff happens - like pre-
and post-installation scripts.

If you want to make this new rpm 'provide' packages that other Debian
packages on your system depend on, you should add them into the
'debian/control' file - below the 'Depends:' line - for example
Provides: xserver-base, xutils
This is very important for keeping your package management working if you
decide to keep the new server - though I don't know if it'll always work.
Only Provide whatever you absolutely HAD to remove to get the new server
installed. e.g. xlibs needs to be still around or else you'll have to
recompile all X-based packages...

When moving files around, it's pretty trivial to convert /etc/rc.d/init.d
into /etc/init.d - just move the folder, and change 'debian/conffiles' to
point to the changed location of any configuration files, if the startup
script was marked as such. Changing other things depends, of course, on
whether paths were hard-coded into the binary.

Then run 'fakeroot debian/rules binary' (or 'debian/rules binary' as root)
and this should generate a Debian package.

> But this is not a perfect world. When/If the server does not work or is not
> worth the $129.00, I want to be able to restore my old XFree86 and OpenGL
> back. I should have enough room on my /opt to move X and OpenGL for safe
> keeping, I just need to know what I need to save, both X and OpenGL, how to
> translate from the rpm-centric xserver to install the Accelerated X server
> on my Debian system?
> 
> And of course I'll need to be able to put everything back again.

Well all the configuration files should be stored in /etc/X11 so you
should certainly save everything from there. Just in case. Besides that, I
think the easiest way to try it out would be to run
dpkg --get-selections > saved-packagelist

The file 'saved-packagelist' will now contain a list of the
installation status of all packages on your system. Do whatever you must
to install the new server, and if you want to rollback to the old list of
packages, run
dpkg --set-selections < saved-packagelist

Restore any changed files into /etc/X11 and things _should_ be back to
normal...

Hope that helps :)
Gary.

-- 
You are your own light, through the darkness.