There are actually a couple of ways to get through the process of installing a new software package from a source rpm ('.src.rpm'), but nowhere in the man pages does anyone actually explain it.
In this example, I'll use the source RPM for the ncftp command-line ftp program. You can find it by searching for it on freshmeat.net. I have downloaded the file 'ncftp-3.0beta19-2.src.rpm' into my home directory. The process that I go through to build this should be exactly the same for all source rpms.
The first step is to install the source code and the SPEC file (the file that RPM uses to figure out how to build the binary). This is done by executing the following commands as root:
cd /home/jason
rpm -Uvh ncftp-3.0beta19-2.src.rpm
Once this operation completes, you need to tell rpm to build you the binary version of the RPM by processing the .spec file that got created in the last step. You can do this with the following commands (run as root):
cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS
rpm -bb --target i686-redhat-linux ncftp-3.0beta19-2.spec
That rpm command will build a binary RPM (-bb) for a 686-class CPU (Celeron or greater, I believe), using the .spec file you specify. Note: That on redhat v9 systems, the command is 'rpmbuild -bb'. After starting that command, you'll see the compile process scroll by on your monitor. Once it has completed, you can now install the ready-to-run software by issuing the following commands as root:
cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686
rpm -Uvh ncftp-3.0beta19-2.i686.rpm
Your newly installed software should now be ready to run. For archival purposes, you can save either the source rpm or the binary rpm, the choice is yours. To verify the installation, you can use this command:
rpm -q ncftp
You're done!
