Once appropriate RPMs have been obtained, they have to be installed before the application they provide can be used. You can use the rpm command-line utility to do this. The rpmfind utility also has the capability to launch the rpm utility automatically to install any software located. In addition to these two tools, however, several graphical applications are available that provide basic RPM package-management capabilities. Most of these programs offer easy-to-use GUIs that can be used to install and uninstall packages, to query packages, and to verify installed packages.
Even though Linux and Unix fans generally aren’t bothered by command-line tools such as rpm, many newcomers to Linux fret over the seeming difficulty of the command line. They are more used to graphical applications and, in many cases, are more productive in a graphical environment. Keeping with the Linux tradition of freedom of choice, you can use the command-line tools such as the rpm commandor pick from a variety of graphical tools.
Nautilus provides a visually appealing file manager that is part of the GNOME desktop. Nautilus acts as a normal file manager that can also display some types of files, such as images. In addition, you can launch applications that Nautilus knows about when you double click files. Figure 8-1 shows Nautilus in action.
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Figure 8-1: Browsing RPM files with Nautilus.
If you double click an RPM file (a file ending with the extension .rpm), Nautilus will install the RPM file. First, though, Nautilus will prompt you for the root password, since you must be logged in as root to install RPMs. Figure 8-2 shows Nautilus prompting for a password.
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Figure 8-2: You must be logged in as root to install packages.
After some time processing, you should see the Completed System Preparation window, as shown in Figure 8-3.
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Figure 8-3: Installing RPM files with Nautilus.
When you install RPMs with Nautilus, it really runs the Red Hat Package Management tool.
Note
Nautilus only supports RPM functionality starting with Red Hat Linux 8.0. This functionality may not be supported in other versions of Linux.
The redhat-config-packages application (say that three times fast) comes new with Red Hat Linux 8.0. You can use the Python program in this package to manage the packages that come with Red Hat Linux, using an interface that is very similar to the Red Hat Linux installation program. This similarity may make it easier for many users to manage their packages, although I found the program a bit short on explanations.
To run this program, you first have to do a bit of searching to find it. It appears under the System Settings menu from the main Red Hat Start menu under the default Bluecurve desktop. Select the Packages choice to launch this program. You can also start the program from the command line with the following command:
# redhat-config-packages
This program takes a long time to read in all the information and start up. Once started, the interface provides the same categories and much the same look as the Red Hat Linux installer, as shown in Figure 8-4.
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Figure 8-4: The redhat-config-packages package manager.
The packages tool divides the packages into groups. Inside each group, the packages are divided into two sets: standard and extra packages. (Red Hat places the packages into these categories, striving to make a reasonable division among the many packages that come with Linux.) If you click the check box for a group, the tool will queue up all the standard packages within that group for installation. If you uncheck a check box for a group that was checked before, the tool will queue up all the installed packages in that group for removal, both standard and extra.
Warning
Installing or removing all the packages in a group when you don’t know what is in the group is not a good idea.
To delve into a group and see what is inside, click the Details link associated with that group. Clicking the Details link will bring up a window where you can check individual packages for installation and uncheck individual packages for removal. Figure 8-5 shows the details of the Web Server group.
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Figure 8-5: Package details for the Web Server group.
Once you have selected all the packages you want to install, and unselected all the packages you want to remove, click the Update button on the main window of the package-management tool. After some processing, you should see the Completed System Preparation window, which lists the amount of disk space required for the new packages and the amount that will be freed by the packages to be removed. Figure 8-6 shows this window.
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Figure 8-6: The Completed Systems Preparation window.
Click the Show Details button to see a complete list of all the packages to be installed and removed.
Warning
If the packages you choose to install depend on any other packages, the package-management tool will automatically add these packages to the list to be installed. More important, if any packages installed on your system depend on any of the packages you have marked for removal, the tool will add those additional installed packages to the list to be removed. Always examine the Show Details window to see what will really be installed and removed.
Figure 8-7 shows the window with the package details.
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Figure 8-7: The Show Details window.
The package-management tool worries me. It has an absolutely beautiful look, but it tries to do too much, especially when removing packages. Always use this program with care. I much prefer to just launch it with single packages from the Nautilus file manager.
One popular graphical RPM management tool is KPackage, supplied with the KDE Desktop. (You can find this product at www.kde.org). KPackage offers basic package-management functionality. It can install and uninstall packages and display information about installed and available packages’ contents and headers. In addition, KPackage supports a wide variety of package formats in addition to RPMs. Be aware, however, that KPackage cannot automatically resolve dependencies. When you are installing new software packages, any dependencies required by that software must first be manually installed.
When started, KPackage presents a basic two-paned interface.
The left-hand panel lists Installed packages already on the system, Updated packages available to update the system, New packages available for installation, and All packages (both installed and available for installation/upgrade). When displaying package lists, KPackage organizes the displayed packages into categories based on their group.
The right-hand panel lists information about the package currently selected in the left-hand panel. Information displayed includes the package Properties, listing the package’s header, and the File List of files that package owns. Figure 8-8 shows this panel on the right side of the interface.
Note: old fig 8-8 deleted; renumber all remaining to match. Chapter has been changed to reflect deletion.
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Figure 8-8: The KPackage interface, showing properties of the selected package
After packages have been selected, they can be installed or uninstalled, as shown in Figure 8-9
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Figure 8-9: KPackage installs the selected package on your command.
In addition to supporting RPM, KPackage can be used on systems that use other packaging methods. Current versions of KPackage support Debian’s dpkg and the BSD projects’ package formats as well as RPM.
The GNOME Desktop (www.gnome.org) provides another graphical RPM-management tool, Gnome-RPM. Also known as gnorpm, Gnome-RPM is very similar to KPackage in terms of its basic functionality, although Gnome-RPM can manage only RPMs.
When started, Gnome-RPM presents a hierarchical list of installed packages, arranged by group, as shown in Figure 8-10:
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Figure 8-10: The main Gnome-RPM window.
After a specific package has been selected, you can can query to see its details, as shown in Figure 8-11:
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Figure 78-11: Querying the details for a package.
With Gnome-RPM, you can also filter the list of packages to see only the list of uninstalled RPMs, as shown in Figure 8-12.
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Figure 78-12: Filtering to see only the uninstalled packages.
Like KPackage, when installing new software, Gnome-RPM lacks the ability to automatically install any dependencies needed by that software.