RPM

Introduction
RPM stands for RedHat Package Manager. RedHat was one of the first Linux distributions which began its journey in 1994. At that time, there was a huge need for a software management system as Linux was relatively new (Linux was created in 1991) and installing software on Linux was nothing short of hell. So RedHat, a Linux-based enterprise, came up with the concept of RPM.

RPM represents two things:
 * 1) Package Management system
 * 2) A software packaged with this system

The RPM system eases the software installation on Linux by maintaining a list of dependencies. So, when a user tries to install a rpm manually, he is given warning messages if the subject rpm requires some others softwares (dependencies) that are not already installed. The warnings include the list of dependencies needed by the subject rpm.

Source RPM
To give respect to the GPL (General Public License), a rpm has always a corresponding srpm, also called the source rpm. The srpm contains the source code of the software it represents. This source code can be edited and the srpm recompiled to produce a modified rpm package.

Linux Distributions with RPM system
There are quite a lot Linux distros today that use the RPM system to manage software. Some examples include: and many more...
 * Granular
 * Mandriva
 * Fedora
 * RedHat Enterprise Linux
 * SuSE
 * PCLinuxOS

Some RPM commands
rpm -ivh location-of-rpm/ - -. .rpm
 * To manually install a RPM package that you have saved on your harddisk, issue this command

For example: rpm -ivh /home/john/gimp-2.4.3-1granular2008.i586.rpm rpm -Uvh location-of-rpm/ - -. .rpm rpm -qa rpm -qa | grep firefox
 * To manually upgrade an installed package to a newer version:
 * To list all the installed rpm packages on your computer:
 * To find all those rpms, from the list of all installed rpms, that have "firefox" in their name: