OK, I admit it, I'm confused.

I've downloaded several RPM's for installation on my Mandrake 9.0 machine.
I've had various dependencies issues, which I kind of understand.

I'm confused on the proper command line to get RPM to install a package, and
I have several questions about the install and RPM in general.  I've looked
through the message archives and Google, and I'm more confused... :-(

- RPM's are precompiled packages, correct?  So once I get a package
installed, that should be it... ready to run?

- When I do "rpm -i *.rpm" assuming I have all the dependent rpm's in the
same directory, shouldn't they all install gracefully and wonderfully?

- If I have, for example, "application1.5" running on my system and I
download "application1.6.rpm" and install that package, should it install
right over the 1.5 version?  Or will I wind up with two installations, 1.5
and 1.6?

- Does rpm magically know all the correct installation paths, so will it
install over the top of a previous version of an app?  i.e., how do I update
an application and is that safe to do?  Or do I have to shut down and
uninstall an older app to then update it?

Mandrake 9.0 comes with Apache 1.3.26 pre-installed.  After downloading the
1.3.27 update RPM's, what would be the best way to install the update?  I
guess what I'm asking is does the following work or am I living in utopia...

- load all the rpm's into a single directory
- type 'rpm -i *.rpm'

which should install 1.3.27 over 1.3.26 in all the right locations...

- reboot the box and Apache 1.3.27 will be running.

Once I understand this, I'm sure I'll make it to the next plateau! :-)

Oh- one last question- is there a good web page (either on my system or on
the 'net) that explains the use of RPM in general- not how to build rpm's if
you are a programmer- more how to use it if you want to install packages.
All the web How-To's that I've looked at go into detail on how to build
rpm's from scratch... I don't really care about that since I'm not a
programmer- I just want to get packages installed on my system.

Thanks in advance for any help.


Marlo



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