Introduction to RPM

Richard Keech,   rkeech@redhat.com

Background

RPM = Red Hat Packaging Method

Used by Red Hat, Turbo Linux, Caldera, SuSE, Mandrake, Yellow Dog, Red Flag, et al

Designed by Eric Troan and Mark Ewing

Current version:  4.0  (new with Red Hat 7)
 
 
 

Features

• Upgradability
• Powerful queries
• System verification
• Pristine sources

Philosophy

• Package installation is completely hands-off.
• Installs with reasonable default settings.
• Additional package configuration is done after installation.

 
• No distinction between core OS and add-on software.

• No such thing as a package patch.

Tools

text:  rpm
 
 

Package types

binary:                       foo-2.1-4.i386.rpm, kernel-smp-2.2.16-22.i686.rpm

no architecture:        foosh-1.0-2.noarch.rpm

source:                       foo-2.1-4.src.rpm

One source package file can produce multiple binary package files.
 
 

Documentation

Maximum RPM  (pkg: max-rpm-en)

RPM Howto  (pkg:  howto)