This is quite possibly the most embarrassing question ever besides "Mommy, where do babies come from." But being a legit FC5 newb I need to ask this.

After I install an RPM, how do I access the program that it installed?

I installed Bittorrent and AVG for Linux and now I cant find the programs. They arent in the Apps menu and I dont want to go poking around the system files without knowledge of what they are.

Please help me and try not to point and laugh too much. It hurts enough to be a newb.

If you have kpackage installed then you can type ' kpackage name_of_rpm.rpm '
If not then this will work. Goto where the rpm is and run the following commands.
rpm2cpio name_of_rpm.rpm > nameofrpm.cpio
cpio -id --verbose < name_of_rpm.cpio
or
cpio -it --verbose < name_of_rpm.cpio

If a long list use
cpio -id --verbose < name_of_rpm.cpio > name_of_rpm.txt
This will generate a txt file with the files listed.

Now once you have the list look for something in /usr/bin. Usually that is where most executable files are put. Some can be in /usr/sbin, /sbin, or others. Might see there are any readme or docs in the list and read those.

Goto the developers site and read the install docs or faq. You can also download the source file and open it and read the readme, install files in them as well.

Brian1

So this is not an easy question. Some packages don't have a menu icon. Most GUI apps come with a menu entry but it is not always named or organized in a consistent way.

will show you the files in a package; if it has one like "/usr/share/applications/blahblah.desktop" then it probably has an icon in the menu somewhere. You can use a menu editor like Alacarte to edit your menus if you want.

Also, did you install BitTorrent from Fedora Core?

rpm -q -a | grep -i <packagename>

Use that ^^ if you're not sure about the package's exact name. Just substitute "packagename" there with any part of the package's name to search through the package list with grep. For example... "rpm -q -a | grep -i bit" to search for bittorrent.

Once you've found the package, you can use "rpm -ql <packagename>" as previously mentioned. If the package has a lot of files, you might also want to pipe out the output to less (i.e "rpm -ql gaim | less").

My fault I thought I read you wanted to see the contents of an rpm package before it was installed. Then either rpm -ql and rpm -q -a | grep -i will work if the packages is installed already. Must have had another post in my head.

Brian1

FC5 doesnt have Bittorrent on its apps list. I downloaded the rpm at bittorrent.com

I may not have been installing it properly.

Do i have to type "rpm -Uhv /home/blake/desktop/BitTorrent-Stable.rpm" and is the terminal case sensitive?

Anyway Ive never been able to install through the terminal. I always pulled the double click method which apparently doesnt work. The terminal always told me "error: open of BitTorrent-Stable.rpm failed: No such file or directory"

Yes it is case senstive. Goto the directory it is in and if it is the only rpm this will work great. Once there login as root ' su '. You need to be root to install. Now use the command ' rpm -ivh *.rpm ' or if more rpms there use ' rpm -ivh B*.rpm '. Post any errors or missing dependencies. -i is for install and -U is for upgrade. You can test before installing using --test. ' rpm -ivh *.rpm --test '.

Brian1

/bin/bash: rpm -ivh BitTorrent-Stable.rpm: command not found

I get this error then i go to it's folder and do an executable command of 'rpm -ivh BitTorrent-Stable.rpm'

I see one thing you did. Do not include the ' ' symbols. I use them to isolated the complete command from the sentence so as for one to know when it begins and ends.


rpm -ivh BitTorrent-Stable.rpm

Brian1

i tried it both ways

also I found the bittorrent installer from my FC5 software selection.

Tried it both ways and got the same error?
And was root when you issued the command?
And the rpm exectuable is in /usr/bin?

If all the above is correct and in place then use this command as root in the directory it is in.
/usr/bin/rpm -ivh B*.rpm

If you still get the same error I am at a lost.

Brian1

You don't have to install the official bittorrent package. You can use Azureus which is in the FC5 repos or Ktorrent.

Thats the problem... the rpm wasnt in usr/bin

I perfer bittorrent over azureus because bittorrent takes up less resources when it runs.

My fault it my be in /bin. Is it there?

Brian1

I am the administrator (little badge in the corner says so) and it wont let me copy the rpms to that folder.

"Error while moving items to "/bin". You do not have permissions to write to this folder."