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RPM

• This document covers the installation of RPM, the RedHat Package Manager. More advanced configuration is covered in many online documents. A good place to start is the RPM website.
• Although a lot of people dislike RPM, its prerequisites and RedHat's non-standard location of files, a lot of people on the Core Linux forum ask about RPM and how to install it. Hence this page.
• This page uses RPM and other packages from the RedHat Linux 8.0 distribution. Of course, RPMs designed for other distributions may also work, but it is not possible to test them all.
• The setup resulting from following this guide has not been extensively tested. You may find that in further use, you encounter other problems using RPM. Sorry, but I can't test every RPM out there for installation problems.
• It is generally held that RPM is not a sensitive program from a security perspective. It does not act as a server, and so isn't vulnerable to remote exploits. However, if you install this software it is recommended that you watch out for important information about RPM at the RPM website.
• If you spot any major errors on this page, please e-mail me using the link above.

• It is assumed that this installation takes place on a computer on which Core Linux has been successfully installed.
• No software other than the packages bundled with Core Linux have been installed.

Preparation

1. Download the RPM i386 precompiled binaries from www.rpm.org.
2. Download the following RPM files from www.rpmfind.net for the RedHat Linux 8.0 distribution or copy them from the RedHat Linux 8.0 Disc 1 CD-ROM:
   libelf-0.8.2.i386.rpm
bzip2-libs-1.0.2-5.i386.rpm
glibc-2.2.93-5.i386.rpm
glibc-common-2.2.93-5.i386
basesystem-8.0-1.noarch.rpm
setup-2.5.20-1.noarch.rpm
filesystem-2.1.6-5.noarch.rpm
   These files are essential for RPM to initialise and maintain its database of installed packages.
3. Burn the file rpm-4.1.i386.tar.gz and the RPM files to a CD. This page assumes that the subdirectory /apps is used for the .tar.gz and RPM files. The CD-ROM can be a multi-session disk.

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Booting

1. Boot your Core Linux PC.
2. Login as root. You will need to enter the password at the prompt.

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Extract the binaries

1. Place the CD-R in the CD-ROM drive. Mount the CD-ROM drive under /mnt/cdrom.
2. Change to the /apps directory on the CD-R.
3. Copy the rpm-4.1.i386.tar.gz file to the root directory.
4. Change to the root directory and extract the data from the .tar.gz file.

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Install essential RPMS

• It is important to install the RPMS in the order given here, to ensure that the package dependencies are satisfied. Details of the package dependencies for the RPMs needed to run RPM can be seen here.

1. Change to the /mnt/cdrom/apps directory.
2. Install the setup-2.5.20-1.noarch.rpm RPM.
3. Install the filesystem-2.1.6-5.noarch.rpm RPM.
4. Install the basesystem-8.0-1.noarch.rpm RPM.
5. Install the glibc-common-2.2.93-5.i386.rpm RPM.
6. Install the glibc-2.2.93-5.i386.rpm RPM.
7. Install the bzip2-libs-1.0.2-5.i386.rpm RPM.
8. Install the libelf-0.8.2-2.i386.rpm RPM.

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Initialise the RPM database

1. Initialise the RPM database using the command rpm --initdb

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Checking RPM

1. Check the list of installed RPMS using rpm -qa.

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Using RPM

• You should now be able to use RPM for package installations and upgrades.
• Ensure that you are consistent in using RPMs for one distribution only. (This document uses RedHat Linux 8.0 RPMs.)
• You may find that some dependencies fail for software (or Core Linux packages) that are already installed, eg ncurses.
  • You can choose to force installation when a dependency fails but you know that the required software is installed. The packaged software should function properly, provided it can locate the binaries. You can check the expected location of many files by searching for them at www.rpmfind.net and noting their path in the RPM file listing. You can then create a symbolic link between the actual file and the location that the Red Hat package expects.
  • You can choose to install the required software from RPM which will then register its presence with the RPM database.

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The text of this page is licensed under a Creative Commons License.