How do i install a rpm not being root?
 

Hi,

despite this question is probably silly, i really couldnt figure out all the --initdb, --rebuilddb and all those necromantic options that bring rpm :(

how can i install a rpm so its local only to my account?

first i tried this>

>rpm --dbpath /home/hano --root /home/hano --initdb

after that, i tried

$ rpm --root /home/hano -i gnome-vfs-devel-1.0.1-17.i386.rpm
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
error: cannot open Packages database in /home/hano/var/lib/rpm

You could create a new group of which only you are a member, then allow access to only members of that group ie just you.

?????

what i get from having my own group?

besides, for that, first i should have administrator access in the first place, isnt it?

this is quite a messy thing u want to do. go look from some RPM documentation. The .rpmmacros/.rpmc tips should give hints. You'll need to 'overried' predefined paths within the packages (but as i've mentioned - thi would be messy). Most of the packges u'll install wouldn't find some programs they need. It would just like redefing your '/' to be '/home/hano'.

good luck and post your findings here ifyou want.

let me guess...
 

hmm, let me guess; this is the reason why debian freaks say .deb is superior to .rpm , or they both stink equally at this particular task, .... which at first sight i thought it was totally trivial to do?

greets,

Do I understand you correctly? You are trying to install a program on a system that you do not have the root password to? Why would you want to do that? Why don't you ask the sysadmin for permission?

my guess is, if that's the case, it's not going to happen unless you figure out how to decipher and edit the predefined paths in an rpm since all the rpms i've ever installed go into some directory in "/". and like mentioned above, even if you did this, the program may still not work.

the only thing i can think of if you don't want to go that route is to get the source code and hopefully the author of the program will have a configure script in there where you can specify an install path with the --prefix flag.

carlywarly asks:
...trying to install a program on 'a' system no, only in my account (i thought i explained that part). Different to other popular OS, unix-like OSes like linux allow people to use its own account for security reasons, and the idea of it would be to use/install/run whatever on your account space without altering the whole system space

I just can't believethat .rpm are a administrator-only facility for installing apps.... thats absurd


About installing from source, the package im trying to install is gnome-vfs-devel for redhat 7.2 (corresponding to gnome-vfs 1.0.-17), mainly because its a dependency of the anjuta 0.1.9 (which is the latest version of anjuta that works in a gnome 1.2.0 enviroment)

... and i couldn't find a tarball for that package on ftp.gnome.org, all i could find was the really useful rpm

greets,