On Wed, 2003-01-15 at 14:17, Ryan Babchishin wrote: > > RPM stands for RedHat Package Manager. An rpm file is an archive of > files, sometimes binary or sometimes source code. The rpm file contains > all steps required to install, upgrade, uninstall or compile the package > on your system. It also contains a list of what other packages it is > dependent on. They also include a description and stuff like that. > Managing rpm's is done via the "rpm" command on a system. e.g. "rpm -i > some.rpm" installs an RPM, "rpm -ql some" lists the contents of a > currently installed RPM called "some". >
Additionally, rpm based distributions maintain a database of installed packages that is used for queries such as the one above and a list of depencencies for each package as defined by the packager. It is these dependencies that cause problems sometimes and is the topic of this thread. Im my experience, the vast majority of these dependency issues arrise when a package designed for a specific system/version is incorrectly attempted to be installed. In that case, rpm is doing exactly what is was supposed to do :) It gets sort of hairy when many dependencies exist between packages and they all need to be installed/upgraded at the same time. The solution is to enterthem all on the same command linen and let the deps be checked all at once. While not perfect it is still an extremely powerfull and useful feature that RedHat has contributed to the linux world. Bret -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
