I am fairly an off and on user and cant wait for the iso to be released and have noticed that there are plenty of places to get the RPMs.

Can some tell me what I can do with these files?

This thread will explain all you need to know.

RPMs are the install files for RPM based distros, for example mandrake or RedHat.

To install RPM, do I need to have linux installed already? I basically want to do a clean install.

Basically, yes. You should do a clean install of the distro of your choice, then you can go into the package manager and install whichever RPM's you like. You can also find RPM's on websites, download them and either install them manually or use the package manager to install them, just be sure to remember what folder you downloaded them too!
Hope this helps,
J

My best suggestion is to get MandrakeLinux 10 Community Download, then burn to CD. Install it, then Update to MandrakeLinux 10 Final using RPMdrake, or urpmi. You just have to add the ftp mirror addresses you wish to use for the updates in Media Mamager, or with urpmi.addmedia.

Remember to use an ftp source for each RPM directory:

Code:

Directory                              Path to hdlist

official/10.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS       ../base/hdlist.cz
official/10.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS2      ../base/hdlist2.cz
official/10.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS3      ../base/hdlist3.cz
official/updates/10.0/RPMS             ../base/hdlist.cz

Give each source the name of your choice [I used 1, 2, 3, and updates ]
At the left is a partial path to the directory. You will have to add the fromt part which is specific to the mirror you will use. The part on the right is the relative path to the hdlist file. You can us it as entered here.

HTH,