This page contains information about how to install Alexandria in Fedora Core. The problem is that this application’s dependencies cannot be satisfied by the usual RPM repositories.
Fedora Core 5 Instructions
Installing Alexandria by following these instructions requires much — not that much though — manual work.
In order to resolve the first wave of dependencies, it is required to install:
RubyandRuby-devel– These are available on the Fedora distribution media or in thebaserespository.- Ruby-GNOME2 – FC5 RPM package exists here (
ruby-gnome2-all) - YAZ – FC5 RPM Packages exist here
Next come the following Alexandria dependencies. You will need to compile them manually, but this will be easy if you use the provided SPEC files.
- ruby-amazon
- ruby-racc
- ruby-gettext
- ruby-zoom
As a side note, for general instructions about how to build RPM packages refer to my How To Build RPM Packages on Fedora article.
Finally, build an RPM for Alexandria itself.
All SPEC files have been updated by Leeksoup. Thanks dude! :)
Unfortunately, I do not have the resources to provide ready RPM packages for these files.
Fedora Core 4 Instructions
First of all, download the Ruby-Gnome2 FC4 RPMs from here [UPDATE: SPEC files for FC4 removed]. I suggest that you download the ruby-gnome2-all tar file (only 2MB), which contains all the rpms. Alexandria needs ruby-gnome2, ruby-libglade2, ruby-gdkpixbuf2 and ruby-gconf2, but these have their dependencies too. The needed packages are shown at the picture below:
Next comes YAZ. This is needed for installing ruby-zoom (this comes later). The FC4 RPMs can be downloaded from the project’s site. You will need the yaz and libyaz packages.
For the following Ruby libraries there were no FC4 rpms. So, I built some RPMs myself. They are listed below:
- ruby-amazon
- ruby-racc
- ruby-gettext
- ruby-zoom
These can be downloaded from my packages page [UPDATE: SPEC files for FC4 removed]. Alexandria fc4 rpm package is there too. The rest of the dependencies include Ruby and GTK2, but these are included in the Fedora Core 4 base repository.
So, that’s it. You can finally install Alexandria. If you maintain a local repo, then things are pretty simple. Throw all these RPMs in there, update the repo metadata and do a
# yum -y install alexandria
If you don’t have a local repo, then you should install things in the order that they are listed in this post.
The road to Alexandria… by George Notaras is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright © 2005 - Some Rights Reserved
I’m wondering if there is a similar tutorial for installing Alexandria on FC5, or if the steps are the same.
Probably, this would be the same, provided that the required packages exist. As far as I know there are no FC5 RPMs for the ruby-gnome2 bindings yet. This is a lot of work and I have neither any SPEC files nor enough free time right now.
On the other hand, I have no clue if the ruby-gnome2 RPMs for fedora 4 would do for a fedora 5 system. I didn’t have the time to test this either.
There are FC5 rpms for YAZ though and the SPEC files I have written for the rest of the dependencies and Alexandria itself are still there. The real problem is the gnome bindings for ruby. When I have more info about this, I will update this page. I’ll also do some searching just in case somebody else has built RPMs for ruby-gnome2.
It seems that some people have built RPMs for FC5. You can check the repository here. I’ll update this page about how to build Alexandria on FC5. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or the resources to provide any packages, but this will probably change in the near future.
I managed to build and install for Fedora Core 5 and have now run it (once!). Thanks for the help. I had to change a few things and found a few “gotchas”. Let me know if you are interested in posting the RPMs and / or the fixes to the problems I found.
Yes, i am interested in your fixes and cleanups. I have no free time at the moment. You can send the SPEC files to the following address:
xraoul [ A.T ] g m a i l [ D.O.T ] c o mUnfortunately, I cannot host any RPMs.
On the other hand, if you decide to upload them on a web site of yours I would be glad to link to you.
Thanks for your comment.
I have mailed you the updated specs and info.