Author: Ximenes Zalteca
Email: ximenes@null.net
Summary: I want xxxx, but how do I get it?
Date: Jun 28 1997
FQQ: I want to install a particular program, but I don't really know how to find
it, get it, and install it.

Answer:

     Find it:
     	  The best place to look for RPM'd programs is at ftp.redhat.com (or a
     	  mirror site). There are two trees where useful packages may be living.
     	  One is the 'supported' stuff from RedHat themselves, and lives in
     	  /pub/redhat/current. The other is 'contributed' stuff from people
     	  other than RedHat, and lives in /pub/contrib. Before we go on, I feel
     	  a warning coming on:
     	  
     	       *** NOTE: contributed files may not work well/at all ***
     	       
     	  Once you're on ftp.redhat.com (not always an easy task), there's a
     	  useful command to help you locate packages. This is 'site exec
     	  locate'. This performs an operational equivalent to running 'locate'
     	  on your own machine. Let's say that we were looking for an RPM of
     	  plan (a scheduler for X Windows):
     	       > site exec locate plan
     	       locate plan
     	       /ftp/pub/contrib/i386/plan-1.5.4-1.i386.rpm
     	       /ftp/pub/contrib/readmes/plan-1.5.2-1
     	       /ftp/pub/contrib/readmes/plan-1.5.4-1.README
     	       /ftp/pub/contrib/SRPMS/plan-1.5.4-1.src.rpm
     	       (end of 'locate plan')
	       
     	  We're in luck! Someone has made a plan RPM and uploaded it :)

     Get it:
     
     	  Since we just want to install the binaries and start using plan right
     	  away, let's grab the i386 binary RPM (plan-1.5.4-1.i386.rpm).
     	       
     	       > get /pub/contrib/i386/plan-1.5.4-1.i386.rpm
     	  
     	  You'll notice that I left off the beginning /ftp; this is necessary
     	  due to the way that 'site exec locate' works. For any file name that
     	  it gives you, you'll need to strip off the begining /ftp.
          
     Install it:
     	  
     	  Now that we've gotten plan's RPM to our local system, all we need to
     	  do is install it. We do this with 'rpm'. There are two ways to install
     	  a binary RPM, which one you use depends on whether or not you have a
     	  previous version of that package installed.
     	  
     	  If you don't have a previous version of plan installed, then you
     	  would:
     	       rpm -ihv plan-1.5.4-1.i386.rpm
     	  From the directory where the RPM was living.
     	  
     	  However, if you *do* have a previous version installed (say,
     	  plan-1.5.2-1), then you would issue this command:
     	       rpm -Uhv plan-1.5.4-1.i386.rpm
     	       
     	  If all goes well, you should now have a working installation of plan.
     	  
     Troubleshooting:
     
     	  If rpm complains when you try to install the RPM, it can mean a couple
     	  things:
     	       
     	       - A dependancy isn't satisfied, and you need to download another
     	       package
     	       - The package is already installed (doh!)
     	       - A newer package is installed (doh doh!)
     	       - The package didn't download properly
     	            - Remember to download in BINARY mode, not ASCII
     	            - Maybe the download didn't finish?
     	            - Netscape doesn't always do a good job
     	       - The package wasn't good to begin with
     	            - This happens sometimes with contributed packages

Author: Stefan Volker
Email: volker@uiuc.edu
Date Submitted: Fri, May 22, 1998
Status: Updated Entry

Response

Try the rpm repository at http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/