Introduction
RPM is a very complex package management tool. Take a look at www.rpm.org for additional documentation. Very important is the concept of dependencies; that is, some RPM packages require other RPM packages to be installed prior to their own installation. This can get confusing considering that YDL 3 binary RPMs ship on 3 CD-ROMs. In the most simplistic example, however, say you wish to install the image manipulation program, GIMP. GIMP is contained on 2 of the 3 YDL Install CDs. This means that one CD will need to be inserted first, the associted GIMP RPMs installed, and then the other. All binary RPM packages are in the directory 'Yellow Dog/RPMS' on the Install CDs.
Installing
We are going to use the GIMP as an example. Insert the Install CD #2 in your CD-ROM drive and type as root:
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom [ENTER]Now, Install 2 is accessible under the /mnt/cdrom directory. If you look in /mnt/cdrom/YellowDog/RPMS should find a file named: GIMP-1.2.3-9.ppc.rpm:
cd /mnt/cdrom/YellowDog/RPMS [ENTER]To verify that this is in fact GIMP, you can use rpm to query the file by typing:
ll [ENTER]
rpm -qip /mnt/cdrom/YellowDog/RPMS/GIMP-1.2.3-9.ppc.rpm [ENTER](the -q flag tells rpm to query; -i tells rpm that the query mode is 'package information'; -p tells rpm that you are querying a package not presently installed)
This query should convince you that this file is actually GIMP. To install it, type as root:
rpm -ivh /mnt/cdrom/YellowDog/RPMS/GIMP-1.2.3-9.ppc.rpm [ENTER](-i means install; -v means verbose; -h means show hash marks to indicate progress)
If all dependencies are met, rpm should happily install GIMP and it should show up in your YDL Menu -> Graphics menu in KDE.
Otherwise, rpm will indicate if a dependency (or a few dependencies) are not fulfilled. In this case, you will need to install these dependencies before installing the GIMP file (or you may specify all dependency-fulfilling files AND the GIMP file on the same rpm -ivh command line. RPM will automagically sort the order by which it installs files to satisfy dependencies.
As you can see, the dependency business can become hairy. That's why tools like yum exist to do much of the leg work for you.
This HOWTO was written by Dan Burcaw, Terra Soft Solutions
