Using Red Hat Network and Alternatives for Software Management

For the Red Hat 8 and 9 releases, the only command-line application for the management of system software provided by Red Hat was RPM; the only GUI tool for management was the Red Hat Packages graphical client (system-config-packages) now identified as Add/Remove Software. For the average person, RPM is hopelessly complicated; it includes extra complexity to allow it to be used as a general .rpm file-building and development tool, features not normally used by many people. The graphical software management client has been improved for Fedora Core to enable the use of local and remote Yum (that stands for YellowDog Updater modified, first used in the YellowDog [PPC] Linux distribution) repositories.

Not previously covered in this book is the Red Hat Network (https://rhn.redhat.com see Figure 7.4). RHN has not been covered because it is not free to the users of this book (or to users of the freely-available FTP download version) and it is limited to managing only the software that is provided by Red Hat. Other alternatives are now available.

Figure 7.4. The Red Hat Network provides automated update subscription services. It only works with software provided by Red Hat and is designed for commercial users.

The RHN service is a client-server mechanism through which a user subscribes to a channel on the server (a repository of software for a specific release of Fedora Core). The local client (identified by a round icon at the right of the desktop panel) can manually or automatically connect to the Red Hat Network server, obtain a list of updates, errata, and security fixes and install them; one subscription is required for each client.

NOTE

If this client-server model appeals to you and you want to use it for your network, you can sign up for subscriptions or consider one of two Open Source Up2Date server alternatives: Current at http://current.tigris.org/, or NRH-up2date at http://www.nrh-up2date.org/index.html. These two projects are attempting to provide RHN-like services under your control so that you can use non-Red Hat and non-Fedora packages with the service. Bear in mind, though, that Fedora is in the process of deprecating up2date as a method of package management in favor of Yum.

Although there are several alternatives for rpm/system-config-packages, two of the most useful are apt and Yum. These package management applications go a long way toward solving dependency problems and easing the use of RPM to manage software. Both can install software from either local or remote repositories. Interestingly, the Yum application is now provided in Fedora, and system-config-packages has been modified to be used as a graphical front end for it.

The benefit to installing and using either of these two applications is that they allow you easy access to and installation of programs that Red Hat nor Fedora Core cannot or will not provide (such as multimedia and non-GPL licensed applications). Since the apt and Yum mirrors for Fedora all have current Fedora updates, it is not necessary for you to use up2date or RHN to keep your computer software current. The following sections discuss the apt and Yum applications in more detail.

apt

Originally developed for Debian Linux and modified to use with rpm packages by Connectiva Linux, apt and its GUI interface Synaptic are easy to install and use. There are two primary providers of apt packages and repositories; either provider is a good choice. However, because of version conflicts between packages, the two projects' files should not be used together. FreshRPMs at http://www.freshrpms.net/is one provider; the Fedora Project at http://fedora.mplug.org/is the other. The Fedora Project has now been integrated into the briefly lived Red Hat Linux Project and renamed Fedora Core. We will use FreshRPMs as an example because they provide packages not available from Fedora.

Here is how you install and configure apt:

• Read the introduction to apt in the /apt/ section of the http://freshrpms.net site.

• Install the FreshRPMS GPG key (you need to have lynx installed, or simply download and gpg --import the downloaded text file):

   # lynx -source http://freshrpms.net/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt | gpg --import 

  
  

• Install the correct version of apt from FreshRpms.

   # rpm -ivh http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/2/apt/ apt-0.5.15cnc6-1.1.fc4.fr.i386.rpm 

  
  

• Review the man page of apt. The most important commands are apt-get update and apt-get install packagename:

   # man apt 

  
  

• The list of apt repositories is preconfigured in /etc/apt/sources/list, but the index of packages that is available needs to be updated with

   # apt-get update 

  
  

• Once the update of the packages list is completed, we suggest that you install Synaptic, the GUI package manager shown in Figure 7.5.

   # apt-get install synaptic 

  
  

  Figure 7.5. Synaptic is a graphical interface to the apt package management application making it incredibly easy to use.

  
  
  

• Launch synaptic from the command line, browse the available packages, and install what you like.

   # synaptic & 

  
  

The Synaptic graphical interface is nicely laid out (see Figure 7.5). It allows you to view a list of all available packages and any dependencies required for them. It also provides a graphical interface to add new repositories.

Yum

Some developers believe that although apt is a good tool, using it for .rpm packages is a hack. apt also is believed to be bloated with unnecessary code used for the Debian .deb packages. A new tool, Yum, was developed using the Python language because the Fedora Core installer, Anaconda, was written in Python and much of the code could be shared. This decision is what has made Yum the choice for integration into the Fedora Core distribution. It works much the same as apt, but lacked a GUI tool. The Fedora developers have integrated support for Yum into the graphical Red Hat/Fedora package management tool. You can obtain Yum from the Fedora site as well as from FreshRPMs.net; the home page of Yum is at http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/.

Here's how you install and configure Yum:

• Read the HOWTO and Users FAQ at the Fedora site: http://fedora.mplug.org/.

• Install the Fedora GPG key:

   # lynx -source http://fedora.mplug.org/FEDORA-GPG-KEY | gpg --import 

  
  

• Install the correct version of Yum:

   # rpm -ivh http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/2/yum/ yum-2.0.7-3.1.fc.fr.noarch.rpm 

  
  

• Review the man page for Yum to familiarize yourself with all available options:

   # man yum 

  
  

Once Yum is installed, the following commands are useful (remember that the Fedora graphical client is available if you configure it to use Yum repositories):

yum list A list of all packages available from the repository.

yum list installed A list of all packages installed on your computer.

yum list updates A list of all updates available for your computer.

yum install packagename Installs packagename.

yum update Run without a packagename, Yum will update all installed packages.

yum remove packagename Removes a package and dependencies.

yum upgrade Run without a package name, Yum will upgrade all packages and remove any obsoleted packages; yum update will not remove obsoleted packages.

You'll find either apt or Yum to be useful additions to Fedora Core. We suggest that you use the one from FreshRPMs.net if you want to install some of the multimedia applications described in Chapter 10, "Multimedia Applications." To learn more about yum, check out Chapter 36, "Advanced Yum."