built pspp for Centos; question about package dependencies

[Paul Johnson]

I administer a computer lab of Linux systems and we sometimes need to
access data distributed in SPSS format.  pspp has been a very valuable
way to "get a look" at what is in there!

On a Centos 5.4 system, I wanted to build an RPM for pspp 0.6.2. I
eventually succeeded, but it required quite a bit of system
excavation.

Building that pspp requires glade3 of a relatively recent vintage. I
found that in order to install glade3, I needed newer glib, gtk2,
pango, gsl, and a few other things.  I couldn't use the newest glade3
from fedora 11 because that would require a glibc update. But I was
able to find a version from Fedora 8 that worked.  I was able to build
all of those and install them without breaking anything (that I've
found so far).  So that's a happy ending.

I will rebuild the repository and upload the packages on my site, which is

http://pj.freefaculty.org/Centos

pspp will be under the "5/i386/kups" folder.

Here's the thing that really surprised me.  In order to build pspp, I
had to have the newer glade3 and that required all those foundational
updates. To install pspp on another Centos system, however, I was
surprised that the only required new package update for pspp was
gsl-1.11.  I did not need to fiddle with glade3, gtk, or any of that
other stuff. So glade3 is needed only to build, but not run pspp?
What is glade3, anyway?

I'm wondering if you have the same experience. On Centos 5.4 or RedHat
5.4, would you try to install:

http://pj.freefaculty.org/Centos/5/i386/kups/packages/pspp-0.6.2-1Centos54kups.i386.rpm
http://pj.freefaculty.org/Centos/5/i386/kups/packages/gsl-1.11-4Centos54kups.i386.rpm

As far as I can tell, psppire  "seems to work" after installing just
those 2 elements.

In case you want to try,  my security key is here:
http://pj.freefaculty.org/Centos/PaulJohnson-BinaryPackageSigningKey

-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas