I am new to Linux and I want to like it. Linux seems to be very powerful. I’ve use RPMS and I have installed software from code. It is really neat all thought it has its share of problems. Some times every thing goes ok but there have been times when it seams I have to install something else because it’s a dependencies But before I can get it installed I have to install more packages because they are dependencies
Of the dependencies. This can be a headache if there is many dependencies of the dependencies!

My question is “ Is There a better way ” The big thing that gets me is not compiling the source code but its all the dependencies after dependencies that I hunt and hunt for that gives me such a hard time.

Is their one big web site with packages out there?

And if there is a web site with a bank of packages out there why cant the software we want to install just go get what it needs. And save us the headaches.

Is there a better way to install software?

apt-get or yum there are others search this forum.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hlight=apt+yum
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hlight=apt+yum

portage (Gentoo's package management tool) is very powerful. It resolves all the dependencies without fuss.

freshrpms goes a long way towards it, but most of the time your distro's website has a package search tool on it to help you find the current official rpms, and generally they also have a tool lobbed in with that, where you can run searches for particular files.

ie you can search for a program, contents or files.