 |
|
2. Tools and Repositories
Modern Linuxes are rapidly moving towards a world in which physical media are used for OS installation only, with updates being fetched and installed by tools querying Internet repositories. You'll need to know a bit about three of these tools:
- apt-get
Grandaddy of the network package installers. Originally from Debian, later ported to RPM-based distributions. Not shipped with Fedora Core, but sometimes useful to have around because some repositories don't support the other tools. The procedures in this HOWTO no longer require you to use apt-get, but you should know it's there.
- yum
yim (the Yellow Dog Updater, Modified), comes installed with Fedora Core. It will help you download updates from the Fedora repository, and from other repositories that carry Damned Things that Fedora won't. I like it a bit better than apt-get (a s), as it seems to grab package list updates automatically that apt makes you do manually.
- up2date
This is a shell around yum/apt (it can also query a local directory on your hard drive). Most convenient of the three; watching it is informative.
You also need to know about some repositories:
- rpm.livna.org
A site, located outside the U.S. and beyond the reach of the DMCA, that is dedicated to providing Damned Things that Fedora Core won't carry. There is no official connection, and in fact the Fedora people won't mention livna in their web pages or documentation for fear of being slammed with a speech-suppressing lawsuit by the evil shitheads at the DVDCCA, but the livna people track what Fedora does very closely. Accessible via both yum and apt.
- FreshRPMs
Best known of the alternate-RPMs sites. Carries a lot of stuff that hasn't yet made it into Fedora Core, but also supports older Red Hat distros as well. The main source for apt-get. Accessible via both yum and apt. Unfortunately, it's known to have some serious library clashes with livna and I do not recommend mixing the two.
- http://macromedia.mplug.org/
The main source for packaged versions of Macromedia Flash. Accessible via both yum and apt.
- http://dag.wieers.com/apt/
The only place I've found pre-cooked Java and Java plugin RPMs. Accessible via both yum and apt.
To set up your tools, you need to do the following steps:
To enable up2date, add the following to /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources:
yum fedora-us-stable-fc1 http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora/1/i386/yum/stable yum fedora-us-testing-fc1 http://download.fedora.us/fedora/fedora/1/i386/yum/testing yum livna-stable-fc1 http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/1/i386/yum/stable yum flash-plugin http://macromedia.mplug.org/apt/fedora/1 yum dag http://apt.sw.be/redhat/fc1/en/i386/dag
You might have to change "1" to the latest Fedora Core version number, if that's 2 or more.
To enable yum, add the following to /etc/yum.conf:
[livna-stable] name=Livna.org Fedora Compatible Packages (stable) baseurl= http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/yum/stable gpgcheck=1 [livna-unstable] name=Livna.org Fedora Compatible Packages (unstable) baseurl=http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/yum/unstable gpgcheck=1 [livna-testing] name=Livna.org Fedora Compatible Packages (testing) baseurl=http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/yum/testing gpgcheck=1 [flash-plugin] name=Macromedia flash-plugin site baseurl=http://macromedia.mplug.org/apt/fedora/$releasever [dag] name=Fedora Core 1 Dag Wieers' repository baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/fc$releasever/en/i386/dag
Hosting by: Hurra Communications Ltd.
Generated: 2007-01-26 17:57:51