RPM is a Package Manager for popular distribution such as Red Hat, Suse and many others. It is a powerful command line package management system for installing uninstalling, verifying, querying, and updating Linux computer software packages.
You can finding out what dependencies a rpm file has ie it will tell you what you need to install package with following command:
rpm -qpR {.rpm-file}
rpm -qR {package-name}
Find out what dependencies a uninstalled rpm file called mediawiki-1.4rc1-4.i586.rpm: # rpm -qpR mediawiki-1.4rc1-4.i586.rpm
It will print list of dependencies on screen (output):
mod_php php-session php-gettext php-zlib php-mysql ImageMagick-Magick++ tetex cjk-latex rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix)
However RPM has in build mechanism to tell you about dependencies. Just try to install package and it will give you list of dependencies. # rpm -ivh mediawiki-1.4rc1-4.i586.rpm
Output:
error: Failed dependencies: mod_php is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4 php-session is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4 php-gettext is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4 php-zlib is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4 php-mysql is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4 ImageMagick-Magick++ is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4 tetex is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4 cjk-latex is needed by mediawiki-1.4rc1-4
Note:
- .rpm file: File with .RPM extension. Typically this file is not installed. It may be on CD or you just downloaded from Internet.
- package-name: It is installed RPM file.
You can solve dependencies problem by installing each individual package(s). If you are using Red hat Linux then you can try this tip . If you are using Fedora core Linux then try yum . If you are using Suse linux then use Yast to install rpms.