[wellylug] scribus

Wood Brent pcreso at pcreso.com
Tue Sep 28 07:01:12 NZST 2004


--- ianandhannah at xtra.co.nz wrote:

> Hi all, 
>  
> I have just switched to linux and am using mandrake 10.  I 
> am very much a newbie! 


Hi Hannah.....


Not entirely. You obviously got your email working OK :-)

What you downloaded was the source code to compile Scribus from scratch. To do
this you'll need to have the compiler installed & all the prerequisiste
libraries that Scribus needs to compile. Not the best approach for a newbie....

If you download an RPM specifically for Mandrake 10, it should work fine. (I
know, you asked here coz it didn't, but I'll describe & explain the process
anyway, as it will work for SUSE as well if you go that way)

I believe one of the best online sources for Mandrake (& a goodly no of SUSE)
applications is http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/  
   (seems faster and more reliable than www.rpmfind.net)

On this site, click on search,
enter scribus in the search field & mandrake (or SUSE as appropriate) in the
system field.

You'll get a list of matches. The URL on the left is to a web site to get the
package or get info, the link on the right should start the download directly.

Note: Mandrake cooker is Mandrake's development repository. It's where
developers & helpers "cook" the programs to a nice golden brown so they are
ready to install :-) rpmfind is frequently updated with what is available on
cooker, so it is pretty current.

Some comments on naming,
a ppc package has been built for a Power PC architecture. Similarly, sparc is
for the Sun systems, alpha is for the Digital alpha computers, AMD64 is for
AMD64. All incompatible with a "normal" PC.

A src package is source, which you generally don't want to play with untill you
upskill a bit :-)

A typical Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon system will run i386 & i586 named files. 
(an i586 simply means the program has been optimised for later cpu's, so tries
to use functionality not available in earlier chips, and won't work in
computers using the earlier chipsets. i386 doesn't make best use of newer
hardware, but it will still work fine)

Version numbers go up, & you probably want the latest version of the program as
an i586 rpm, so the file you want is scribus-1.2-2mdk.i586.rpm. (for templates,
if you check scribus docs, you'll need at least v1.2, so this is fine)

When you try to install this, it will tell you it needs some other files. This
is known as dependency hell. Tracking down all the prerequisites & installing
them in the correct sequence. Package management technology still leaves a bit
to be desired, even Debian's apt-get isn't foolproof, though supposedly better
than the generic rpm system used by SUSE & Mandrake. It is getting better
though.

So go to rpmfind again, but search for libscribus, pick a file to match the
version of the other. You'll find libscribus0-1.2-2mdk.i586.rpm.

Download this & install it, then the scribus one.

You can install an rpm just by clicking on it, but this won't resolve any
dependency problems, just tells you if there is a problem, and what files are 
needed.

You can search on rpmfind for the name of a file that is still needed, it
should locate the package you need to install to get the files, so grab that &
install it first. Generally, forcing an install despite having a dependency
problem is not a good idea. 


That is prob enough to digest right now :-) If you have any problems, let us
know the actual preoblem, with the messages you get describing it & we should
be able to guide you through....



Spotcha,

    Brent




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