Newer version use yum(RHEL and Centos) as well as yumex(gui front end for yum and smartPM (personal favorite as it is much faster than yum). You can even use Centos's repos on RHEL4(there is a howto somewhere).

It takes a little while to learn how to make your own rpms but it really is worth the time. You can then install your own rpms via yum (or however you feel). Unless you install via a rpm, no package manager will see it.

As some have already stated the freshrpms repository seems to be out of sorts causing software updater not to update successfully.

Until freshrpms is back up a temporary work around would be to disable /etc/yum.repos.d/freshrpms.repo. This will allow all the other repos to get updates. To disable the freshrpms repo you can edit it directly changing enabled=0.

Another way to do this is to use the Package Manager GUI. Follow the path Applications => Add/Remove Software. Then Edit => Repositories and uncheck the freshrpms repo.

Bill