RH9 s/w install - rpm vs. other install methods
 

I've got a two-week-old install of Red Hat 9 and I wanted to install Firefox 1.5 last week.

Just for giggles, I downloaded firefox-1.5.0.4.tar.gz from FF's web site. I double-clicked the file and the "File Roller" GUI tool in RH9 extract the files. I double-clicked the "firefox" file and the app started.

Later, in an attempt to "do it right", I downloaded firefox-1.5-dnssec.3.i386.rpm from www.rpmfind.net. At a command line I ran "rpm -ivh firefox-1.5-dnssec.3.i386.rpm". This gave me a list of 10 failed dependencies.

How can the application run without being installed by rpm but fail installation with rpm?

Do I have the wrong rpm file? There were about 80 results for my search of "Firefox" at rpmfind. I picked the first one.

Apparently rpm isn't required to install apps (at least not Firefox), so what purpose does it serve?

First let me say this, RHL9 is out-dated and Red Hat ended support over two years ago, On top of that by the end of this year Fedora Legacy will stop supporting it also, they are one of the few places where one can bring this dying OS current, please do so ASAP;

http://lwn.net/Articles/192524/

Please visit and learn how to use apt/yum and bring your system current;

http://www.fedoralegacy.org/

This should (hopefully) solve your dependency issue.

Second rpm is Red hat's Package Management tool which in part maintains a database for (cough) easy package installation/removal/updating. Yes, you can install software by other means but this does not keep the database updated. In fact you may end up with two versions of firefox-1.5.0.4, the one you installed and the rpm your trying to install.

Since your installation is only a couple of weeks old my I suggest that you install something that has a bit more life then the end of this year. If staying in the Red Hat family please consider Fedora Core 4 or 5 or maybe CentOS (longer support life then Fedora). Both are freely available for download and are as easy (really easier) to install as RHL9 and supports more hardware, since they are newer and actively supported.

http://www.centos.org/
http://fedora.redhat.com/

First, I appreciate your taking the time to respond.

I've got FC5 on order but I had RH9 lying around from an attempt to learn Linux a few years ago. I'm assuming the knowledge I gain at the command line with this distro will apply equally to new distros. That's why I'm playing with rpm.

But I can't figure out why the un-tarred install runs but the attempt to install with rpm crashes. I assume the necessary dependencies are there; wouldn't the un-tarred install crash if they weren't? Why can't rpm find them? I don't know what browser comes in FC5, but I assume I'll have to go through this again to get FF installed. I'm trying to understand why doing it "wrong" works but doing it through the package manager doesn't.

I thought apt was for Debian-based distros. What's yum, and should I worry about either of them when FC5 arrives? And will I be able to install either, given my rpm problems with FF?

Thanks.

Yes the commands are basically the same, but if you want to learn some more about rpm type 'man rpm' minus the single quotemarks in the console or xterm session.

Well to start with the version of rpm that came with RHL9 is not the best tool to use to solve dependency issues, that why both apt and yum have been ported to the Red Hat Family.

Many times for various reasons when the binary rpms are created the creator(s) want to make sure you have all the needed libs for something to work right and sometimes they go a bit overboard, as in the case for firefox. You can build your own rpm for firefox-1.5.0.4 if you want, I tell you how at the end of this, but first bring the RHL9 current by visiting Fedora Legacy.

The firefox installation from the tar file only requires libstdc++.so.5 which part of the standard installation.

FC5 comes with a version of firefox and the current version is;

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pu...2.fc5.i386.rpm

Yes apt was for (just) Debian-based disros, but has been ported to other distors now. Yum is short for Yellow dog Updater, Modified and has a web page to explain itself, this has been ported also. In fact the Fedora Core family makes use of this for updating rpm packages now.

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/yum/en/



OK, as promised here's howto create your own firefox-1.5.0.4 rpm file;

You already have the firefox-1.5.0.4 tar file so you need to visit;

http://www.fedoranews.org/tchung/firefox/1.5.0.1/

and download all three files. The spec file goes in /usr/src/redhat/SPECS
The other two and the firefox tar file goes in /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES

The firefox.spec file needs a little editing, just enough to relfect the firefox version change. Any text can used to make and save this change. If not already installed install the rpm-build-4.2-0.69.i386.rpm (as root of course). When ready type something like; rpmbuild -bb firefox.spec

Please check the rpmbuild command, I'm not 100% sure this is the right command for RHL9, as it has been a long time since I have used RHL9.

FYI: If you choose to install either apt or yum then installing rpm packages in many cases be comes as simple as, for example;

yum -y install rpm-build
apt install rpm-build