On the link above you will find all the info for the project, so let’s start. We will build the release version of Pinax (for development versions I have a side project, which I will show you at right time). Please note – all the release used are current for the day this entry has been written.

Download pinax version 0.5.1 from here and put it in rpmbuild/SOURCES. After that:

cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS

rpmdev-newspec -t python pinax

Rpmdev-newspec creates the skeleton for a new spec file named pinax. The -t python option tells to create a skeleton with some python definitions in it (python definitions are laid out according to this wiki entry on the Fedora Project Wiki); you can see which skeletons are available looking in ‘\etc\rpmdevtools’.

Why Python? Well, my guess is that being DJango a Python framework, you know….

Let’s look at the spec file and put some info into that. You can use any editor for the file (I use geany, fast and lightweight).

# sitelib for noarch packages, sitearch for others (remove the unneeded one)
%{!?python_sitelib: %global python_sitelib %(%{__python} -c “from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib()”)}
%{!?python_sitearch: %global python_sitearch %(%{__python} -c “from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib(1)”)}

Name: pinax
Version:
Release: 1%{?dist}
Summary:

Group: Development/Languages
License:
URL:
Source0:
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}-root-%(%{__id_u} -n)

BuildArch:
BuildRequires: python-devel

I am assuming that Pinax is a pure python package, so we use the sitelib for noarch packages (first line of the two provided). After that we have to insert some descriptive info of the Pinax project.

But, of course, before going ahead we must check some of the Pinax dependencies.

Continuing tomorrow…

For Java on Fedora, I rely on Paul Howarth excellent wiki entry regarding rebuild of Sun Java Package on Fedora Linux.
As a side note, OpenJDK is possibly the best thing that could happen to Java, but:

• as a developer, I need the target vm on my development environment
• as a user, a lot of applets have issues with the OpenJDK plugin

Unfortunately, Paul’s entry refers to version 7 of Java 6, while, at the time of this writing, Java has been updated to version 14. Furthermore, since release 12 of Java 6, a 64 bit version of the java plugin exists (which follows new plugin apis available from mozilla version 3 forward, by the way), so Paul’s notes regarding 64 bit plugin are not valid anymore.

Well, enough said. I just put up a new spec file to help any of you out there setting up the correct java version for your fedora. The thing is set for Fedora 11, but should work for version 10, too.

You can donwload the spec file here . Also download this xsl file and this one .

If you need to startup with rpm packaging (easier than what you would expect) see my previous post regarding packaging setup. You can skip the installation of development-tools, anyway.

After completing the initial steps, put the spec file above in the SPECS directory under rpmbuild in your home directory, and the xsl files in the SOURCES directory (still under rpmbuild).

Download Java (as of today, spec file is for version 6 update 14) 64 or 32 bit as needed. As I was saying, from version 12 forward there is the 64 bit plugin and Java Web Start. Choose the bin file, and download it in ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES.

In case you are wondering, the ~ symbol in Linux stands for “the user’s home directory“, so, if the username you adopted on Linux is “jsmith”, your user home directory will be “/home/jsmith“, and the above directory will be”/home/jsmith/rpmbuild/SOURCES” and the previous one will be “/home/jsmith/rpmbuild/SPECS“

Now insert the following commands:

cd rpmbuild/SPECS
rpmbuild -ba java-1.6.0-sun.spec

Take your time here (it takes a bit to unpack and repackage all). After a while, if all is OK, the command prompt will be back and you will find some files in the RPMS and SRPMS directories.

Depending on your architecture, you will find a i586 (for Fedora 11) or X86_64 directory with rpms in it. To have the Java runtime environment, just do:

sudo yum localinstall java-1.6.0-sun{,-alsa,-fonts,-plugin}-1.6.0*.rpm –nogpgcheck

answer y(es) and go ahead. But now the default Java will still be set to OpenJDK (if installed) the gcj. Just do

sudo alternatives –config java

There are 3 programs which provide ‘java’.

Selection Command

———————————————–

* 1 /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.6.0-openjdk.x86_64/bin/java

2 /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.4.2-gcj/bin/java

+ 3 /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.6.0-sun/bin/java

Enter to keep the current selection[+], or type selection number:

In this case, selecting 3 you would select the sun java runtime we just installed.
As an additional benefit, an entry in the administration menu of Gnome (do not know about KDE) will be present to set all things related to Java. Also the Java Web Start should work. You can try with (ex)TrollTech’s Qt Jambi Demo Page or at Sun’s Java Web Start Demo Page.

I hope all this becomes obsolete quickly – it looks like in b16 of the OpenJDK the plugin source code is included, so we should see it appear in the Fedora infrastructure for F12.

Update Fabio comments that KDE menu entries work correctly, too. Also, to have the development environment you have to:

sudo yum localinstall java-1.6.0-sun{,-demo,-devel,-src,-jdbc}-1.6.0*.rpm –nogpgcheck

to install compilers, profiler, and all of the JDK elements.

The not so original name derives from the fact that the software will be loosely based on the Prince2 Project Management Methodology. For the uninitiated, Prince2 is based on a set of rules and processes to manage projects, more lightweight (apparently) than PMP.

From my point of view, processes and workflow management go hand-in-hand, and so a background task in my brain has been polling (and googling) about workflow libraries in Python.

A week ago, while searching other stuff, I met OpenERP which, at a first sight, has an interesting workflow management component. Also, the entire project is evolving from a complete application to a set of components, so my hope is to leverage the power of FLOSS here, adopting a component from another, gpl licensed software. Further licensing investigations are on the way.