[newbie] A general question about dependency

[Wei Wang]

I am a total newbie to Unix/Linux world. Using the rpms recently, I get lost in the way packages are installed. Sometimes when I try to install a certain package on my system via an binary rpm, I get lots of unsatisfied dependencies. For example, a recent attempt to install kdelibs-3.1.rpm on my Mandrake 8.1 gives out around more than 100 failed dependencies involving around 30 files needed. Do I have to install all these required packages manually, one by one, which is what I've been doing? Is there an automatic tool that installs all the required packages and thus automatically resolve all the failed dependencies? I understand that it's been more than a year between the kdelibs-3.1 and the libraries in Mandrake 8.1. In that case, do I have to keep very closely up-to-date with the new version of packages? Otherwise I would end up facing lots of failed dependencies due to the rapic software/package development? This may sound like a very naive and primitive question. But I have been exhausted by manually iron out the sometimes chains of failed dependencies one by one. Please give a newbie some hint on this. Bunch of thanks.