[Pan-devel] Re: Unable to install pan-0.133 by "missing gmime-2.0"

[Duncan]

Julien Michielsen
<address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Thu, 09 Oct 2008
12:21:54 +0200:

> Trying to install pan-0.133 I was not able to pass the configure-script.
> It ended with the error message
> checking for GMIME... configure:
> error: Package requirements (gmime-2.0    >= 2.1.9) were not met:
> 
> No package 'gmime-2.0' found
> 
> However, I do have gmime installed:
> rpm -q gmime
> gmime-2.2.18-28.1
> and in addition libgmime-2_0-3 is installed. I noticed the gmime-package
> has few interesting files (gmime-uudecode and gmime-uuencode), but still
> it is the package it asked for. What else does it ask for?

>From a different thread, answered on pan-user, it appears you run SuSE, 
correct?

I don't (FWIW I run Gentoo) so I can't say for sure this is the case, but 
many distributions, particularly binary distributions (as SuSE is), split 
packages such as libraries into two parts, the normal part needed for 
support of binary packages, and a libwhatever-dev package, needed only if 
you are going to be compiling stuff against that library.

So I'd suggest you see if there's a gmime-dev (and possibly a libgmime-
dev as well) package, and install it if so.  That should provide the rest 
of the "gmime" package, the part actually detected and used in build 
scripts.

Note that as you're compiling from source on a normally binary 
distribution, it's reasonably likely that as soon as you fix that 
dependency, you'll be hit with an error for another one, requiring some 
other package where the binary half is installed but the -dev half 
isn't.  Unfortunately it's not unusual for these requirements to be 3-5 
layers deep, and some may be more.  However, the alternative would be not 
splitting the packages, therefore requiring more space for a distribution 
where many users never compile a single thing from source, and thus don't 
need all that extra stuff that's therefore just wasting space, for them.

FWIW, distributions like Gentoo, that are designed to compile from source 
at the user end, often won't split the packages.  If it's installed, it's 
installed, meaning less hassle tracking down packages just to compile 
something.  However, the tradeoff is that you generally compile 
/everything/ from source.  It's not bad on a powerful machine and there 
are definite additional advantages, but there's certainly users that 
don't want to ever touch a compiler and a place for distributions that 
make that possible and easy, just as there is for users that like the 
extra control compiling it one's self gives, and for distributions that 
make /that/ possible and easy. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman