Simple RPM Question
 

I'm pretty new to linux, but I was wondering about system rpm's. More over do all rpm's work with every linux dist, or just with redhat. I became confused looking over rpmfind, and seeing different labeled rpms like mdk for mandrake, but didnt' see any labeled for suse or other distribs, and what not. What's the general idea?

rpm's are precompiled bianry packages. each distro which support rpm have their own. the labels you see in rpmfind are based on them. you have to choose your distro and version too when you are downloading the rpm

Sometimes you get the source rpm from another distro and use "rpmbuild --rebuild" to compile it. But that often doesn't work because of dependency problems.

generally your pretty safe with rpms for redhat/mandrake/suse, since they all are redhat based they tend to work for each other. not guarenteed tho, so if you get wierdness goin on, try to find one for you distro, or compile the source.

Matt