[Slackbuilds-users] Checking Dependencies

[Rich Shepard]

   I'm just starting to use SlackBuild scripts, primarily to make life easier
for me when upgrading applications I use.

   One application that has always (even back when I used Red Hat) a PITA to
keep running with distribution upgrades is Gnucash. When I upgraded from
-10.2 to -11.0 it stopped working. Over the past week or so I've spent too
much time trying to get either a package (from Ken's submission to
linuxpackages.net) or source to successfully build and run. However, to make
a long story short, only this morning did I realize that the gnucash tarball
contains a README.dependencies file. I'm working my way through that now,
checking that everything is here or building new packages (using
checkinstall) of the latest versions. For a minor application it certainly
is a time consumer to keep it working.

   I have a working gnucash.SlackBuild, modified from Ken's by using
components from another one (perhaps the sqlite.SlackBuild). To make this
really usable, I would like to learn how to include dependency checking in
the script and, when necessary, to update/install missing gnome stuff first.
Of course, with a working script, I'll be happy to share it with you folks
as well as the freerock and dropline folks, if they want it also.

   Where should I start reading?

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |    The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.        |          Accelerator(TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax: 503-667-8863