use Perl

Mandriva Linux is the new name of the Linux distribution formerly known as "Mandrake", and is my distribution of choice. I'm using it as a desktop both at home, and at work.

For a long time, I've been an RPM hacker and tinkered with RPMs: fixing problems, creating new ones, or updating them. Now, however, I decided to take a more active role within Mandriva and become a first-class packager. I was referred to this resource on the Mandriva wiki, and realised that before I ask for the packager bit, I should upload some packages.

Now, since I've lately been playing with Plagger, I decided to get some of its dependencies into Mandriva. Starting with XML::Feed, I created packages for its Perl modules suitable for inclusion into Mandriva. I did not use cpan2rpm, Ovid (the CPAN Module not Curtis "Ovid" Poe) or friends, but rather started from an existing RPM .spec file and tweaked it.

One thing I realised was that I shouldn't have tweaked an XS-enabled module's .spec into a pure-Perl one, because there are several fundamental differences in the packaging. I ended up fixing some modules I prepared, one after the other.

As it turned out, XML-Feed did not have too many dependencies that were not already present in the Mandriva pool of packages. Now, I should probably work on the rest of Plagger. (If I disappear for a few weeks, you know I'll be buried in hacking on RPM .specs).

The packages are available in the incoming directory but as far as I know were not included in the pool yet.