1. Overview

 

YUM extends RPM functionality by downloading and installing packages directly from online repositories. As well as all the advantages of RPM, YUM provides a few more handy features:

• version compatibility: YUM will automatically locate the latest package version on that repo suited to your kernel
  
  
  
• pre-requisites satisfied: any dependencies are automatically downloaded and installed first - solving that bugbear of "RPM dependency hell"
  
  
  
• supports local installation: YUM can attempt to install a locally-held RPM package, satisfying pre-requisites online if necessary.
  
  
  
• package updates: YUM can be instructed to update all installed software with only a few simple commands - or even scheduled to perform this automatically at regular intervals
  
  
  
• repo index caching: YUM caches an index of repo packages, which can be interrogated to determine repo contents without going online - this can be used to search for packages, or determine what packages provide a required command - or even what are the dependencies for a specific package.
  
  
  
• repo reports: YUM can report what repos are in effect, which is a bit clearer than trawling through directories of config files.
  
  
  
• cache management: YUM downloads RPM packages into a cache area prior to installing; a few options to YUM can flush this cache to tidy up after itself
  
  
  

• outdated header files: since YUM caches repo headers locally, these files could contain incorrect information. Use yum clean headers to flush this information out first.
  
  
  
• flushing caches: if yum STILL seems to be ignoring config files and insists on using older information, use yum clean all to purge yum of cached packages, headers etc - then try again.
  
  
  
• automatic package updates: the yum-updatesd service (yum-updates-daemon) can keep packages automatically updated - checking, downloading and installing without any manual intervention, rather like Windows Updates. However, some problems may be encountered on production servers with unchecked newer software being upgraded without any testing or evaluation, breaking an already-running system (dovecot - I'm looking at YOU!). For that reason, many admins prefer to set their updates to "notify" rather than automatically upgrade: check the /etc/yum/yum-updatesd.conf file for details on modifying yum-updatesd behaviour
  
  
  

(based upon posts originally written by anyweb, kZo, Oroshi, grep420)

 

1. Overview

 

RedHat invented the RedHat Package Management system to ease installation and maintanence of software. Although you can still download raw source code and manually compile applications yourself, using a package management system like RPM provides a number of advantage:

• no compiling: someone else has already done all the hard work of compiling, which saves you the hassle of getting a compiler and various libraries (Shared Objects)
  
  
  
• package pre-requisites: the RPM package contains information about dependencies, so won't install if the pre-requisite files are missing or too old
  
  
  
• package configuration: the RPM package usually contains some default/example config files - helps setting up the package from new
  
  
  
• installation locations: paths in the RPM package conform to the standard Linux filesystem hierarchy (/usr/bin for binaries, /etc for config files, /var/log for logfiles, etc)
  
  
  
• the RPM database: details of RPM-installed software are stored in an RPM database that can be interrogated to list all installed software, what files the package contains, etc.
  
  
  

• Upgrade over install: it is possible to "upgrade" a package that doesn't exist, so many people stick to using the -Uvh rather than -ivh options when installing.
  
  
  
• erasing leaves detritus: uninstalling a package usually leaves behind data files (logs, etc) as well as config files, which may need to be manually cleared out. On the other hand, don't assume that erasing will leave behind modified config files - make a backup first if you wish to preserve them!
  
  
  
• finding RPMs: there are many RPM download sites out there - try www.rpmfind.net for a good start, google for others. Some sites dedicated to the development of specific applications often have pre-build RPMs on their download pages for fast install - search around.
  
  
  
• distro-specific RPMs: Some RPMs are suited to specific distros, for example those that end in .fc7.rpm are for Fedora7, those ending in .mdk.rpm are from Mandrake Cooker (for Mandrake/Mandriva).
  
  
  
• "noarch" RPMs: some RPMs ending in .noarch.rpm are not distro-specific and can be installed on any Linux distro, kernel version permitting. Webmin is a good example.
  
  
  
• SRPMs: some RPMs with src in the filename are the source code, not compiled binaries. Installing these will only extract and copy the source code to development areas, not provide you with the actual binaries or applications - ensure you get the right file!
  
  
  
• dependency hell: occasionally an RPM will require some pre-requisite packages, which themselves require other pre-requisites... you'll need to search around for those, or use something like yum (described elsewhere).
  
  
  
• module/library dependency: occasionally RPM will complain about dependency upon a missing package, but a quick rpm -qa shows it is there. Look at installing packagename-devel, which contains library functions not essential to the normal operation of the package but others that depend upon it. It won't affect your original package, but should satisfy the dependency requirements.
  
  
  
• compiled packages: it is still possible to download and compile packages outside of RPM but since they won't be included in the RPM database, RPM won't know they exist - and may still complain about missing dependencies.
  
  
  

A bit on the old side, but a forum search didn't uncover it to be posted already, so:

 

"Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible." [img]<___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_ohmy.png[/img]

 

Read the article here

 

Yes, he's just GOT to be a troll. Nobody can be THAT uninformed... can they?

"Fedora moves a little too fast and we were not happy about some of the configuration management features."

 

More news:

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/13/wi...ia_goes_ubuntu/

hi ive just installed linux 5.0 and when i go to download a movie its keeps you need to install a decoder plugins whats that mean please can you help me been trying for days doing me head in. thankyou

Hi,

my goal is to substitute two mirrored IDE disks, 160GB each, for 2x 500GB SATA drives - keeping the /dev/md0 layout for rootfs (Suse 10.1) and the Data partition /dev/md1 will just have more space.

 

I'm failing in making the new drives bootable.

(see below, end of the post:

mdadm: no devices found for /dev/md0.)

 

Here's what I did:

 

 

Connect the new disks additionally (sda und sdb)

 

## 1st is to backup the drive partition tables:

 

Hi i have a acer aspire 1 with linux i love chatrooms but when i log in i can see the whole chat room apart from the txt where everyone chats.?/

its says im missing plugins so when ad them its java thats missing so i try downloading but i wont download what is going on plz help its driving me mad

 

manymany thanks ian

I have installed latest xmms. I built it. I dont have permissions of "root". So I am using complete path to open it (because it is not installed in /usr/bin). It opens but problem is it is showing plugins that are already available in /usr/lib/xmms. The reason is there is already old version of xmms available(installed by "root"). But it is not showing the plugins in my local directory. The old directory for plugins do not contain libmpg123.so because of which it is not playing mp3 songs. So how can I add libmpg123.so when I am not "root".

How to create zombie process in SCRIPT using sh

 

please help!