186 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
186 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Overview</TITLE
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><META
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.76b+
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"><LINK
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REL="HOME"
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TITLE="RPM HOWTO"
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HREF="index.html"><LINK
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REL="PREVIOUS"
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TITLE="Introduction"
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HREF="intro.html"><LINK
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REL="NEXT"
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TITLE="General Information"
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HREF="gen-info.html"></HEAD
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><TR
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><TH
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COLSPAN="3"
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ALIGN="center"
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>RPM HOWTO: </TH
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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><A
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>Prev</A
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><DIV
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CLASS="SECT1"
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><H1
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CLASS="SECT1"
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><A
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NAME="OVERVIEW">2. Overview</H1
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><P
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> First, let me state some of the philosophy behind RPM. One design goal
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was to allow the use of "pristine" sources. With RPP (our former
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packaging system of which <EM
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>none</EM
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> of RPM is derived),
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our source packages were the "hacked" sources that we built from.
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</P
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><P
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> Theoretically, one could install a source RPP and then
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<EM
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>make</EM
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> it with no problems. But the sources were not
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the original ones, and there was no reference as to what changes we had to
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make to get it to build. One had to download the pristine sources
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separately. With RPM, you have the pristine sources along with patches
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that we used to compile from. We see this as a big advantage. Why?
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Several reasons. For one, if a new version of a program comes out, you
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don't necessarily have to start from scratch to get it to compile under
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RHL. You can look at the patch to see what you <EM
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>might</EM
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>
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need to do. All the compile-in defaults are easily visible this way.
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</P
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><P
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> RPM is also designed to have powerful querying options. You can do
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searches through your entire database for packages or just certain files.
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You can also easily find out what package a file belongs to and where it
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came from. The RPM files themselves are compressed archives, but you can
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query individual packages easily and <EM
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>quickly</EM
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> because
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of a custom binary header added to the package with everything you could
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possibly need to know contained in uncompressed form. This allows for
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<EM
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>fast</EM
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> querying.
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</P
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><P
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> Another powerful feature is the ability to verify packages. If you are
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worried that you deleted an important file for some package, just verify
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it. You will be notified of any anomalies. At that point, you can
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reinstall the package if necessary. Any config files that you had are
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preserved as well.
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</P
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><P
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> We would like to thank the folks from the BOGUS distribution for many of
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their ideas and concepts that are included in RPM. While RPM was
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completely written by Red Hat, Inc., its operation is based on code
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written by BOGUS (PM and PMS).
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</P
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></DIV
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><TR
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><TD
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="intro.html"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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><TD
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HREF="index.html"
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>Home</A
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><A
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HREF="gen-info.html"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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>Introduction</TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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> </TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
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>General Information</TD
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></TR
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></TABLE
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></DIV
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></BODY
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></HTML
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> |