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⁠Chapter 25. RPM Resources

25.1. Finding RPM Sites
25.1.1. The main rpm.org site
25.1.2. RPM locator sites
25.1.3. RPM tools sites
25.1.4. Programming sites
25.1.5. Sites related to RPM
25.2. Accessing RPM Mailing Lists and Newsgroups
This appendix covers:
This appendix covers the material available on the Internet for working with RPM.

⁠25.1. Finding RPM Sites

There is a wealth of RPM material online, although some of it is hard to find. The following section list a number of RPM-related sites, divided by category. Note that as with any Internet sites, the sites listed my change or disappear.

⁠25.1.1. The main rpm.org site

The main RPM site is www.rpm.org. This site provides the official distributions of the RPM software, as well as a lot of documentation online.
Table F-1 lists a number of useful links on this site.
Table F-1 Links on the rpm.org site
Link
Holds
ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/
RPM software downloads
ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/
rpm.org download site
www.rpm.org/cvs_help/
Instructions for accessing the RPM CVS repository
www.rpm.org/hintskinks/
Tips for working with RPM
www.rpm.org/hintskinks/bootstrap/
Good tips on bootstrapping RPM to new platforms
www.rpm.org/howto/
How-to documents for working with RPM
www.rpm.org/max-rpm/
Maximum RPM by Edward C. Bailey
www.rpm.org/RPM-HOWTO/
Good introductory tutorial
www.rpm.org/rpmapi-4.1/
API documentation
The main RPM FTP site, at ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/, includes the RPM distributions, as well as the Berkeley DB version 3 library, and the text of the book Maximum RPM. Download RPM software from ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/.

⁠25.1.2. RPM locator sites

A number of sites help you find RPMs for various applications. On the main sites, you can find specially built RPMs for a variety of Linux distributions. You can then download the RPMs made especially for your systems.
The main RPM-finding site is rpmfind.net, which offers a search engine as well as software you can run on your site.
The RPM PBone Search, at http://rpm.pbone.net/, is also very useful.
The www.rpm.org/packagers/ site lists a number of places that package RPMs and provide them for downloading.
Many Java libraries and packages are available in RPM format from www.jpackage.org/.
Table F-2 lists a number of other RPM download sites.
Table F-2 RPM download sites
Site
Holds
rpmfind.net
Links to a huge number of RPMs, many specific to various Linux distributions
http://rpm.pbone.net/
RPM PBone search, useful for finding RPMs
www.rpm.org/packagers/
Lists a number of sites that provide RPMs for download
www.javapackage.org
Many Java packages in RPM format
http://plf.zarb.org/
The Penguin Liberation Front has RPMs that for legal reasons cannot be included in the Mandrake Linux distribution.
www.math.unl.edu/~rdieter/Projects
Rex Dieter’s RPM site
www.rpmhelp.net
Mandrake Linux RPMs
www.aucs.org/rpmcenter/
Edwin Chan's Red Hat RPMs
www.owlriver.com/projects/links/
Owl River Company RPMs

⁠25.1.3. RPM tools sites

A large number of tools exist to help you work with RPMs. The following sites list some of the main tools:
*For the vim text editor, you can download a spec.vim syntax file from http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/vim/syntax/spec.vim.
*For emacs, you can download an Emacs mode for spec files from http://tihlde.org/~stigb/rpm-spec-mode.el.
Cross Reference
Chapter 26, Linux Text Editors and Development Tools lists links for a number of text editors.
*The rpmlint tool mentioned in Chapter 12, Supplemental Packaging Software is available at http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~flepied/projects/rpmlint/.
Table F-3 lists a number of RPM-related tools and the sites you can find more information on the tools.
Table F-3 RPM-related tools
Tool
Site
apt-rpm
ftp://ftp.conectiva.com/pub/conectiva/EXPERIMENTAL/apt/
apt4rpm
http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net/
AutoRPM
www.autorpm.org
AutoUpdate
www.mat.univie.ac.at/~gerald/ftp/autoupdate
current
www.biology.duke.edu/computer/unix/current/
kpackage
www.kde.org
MakeRPM.pl
www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/by-authors/id/JWIED
poldek
http://poldek.pld.org.pl/
rpm2html
rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/
rpmfind
rpmfind.net
RUST
www.rusthq.com
setup.sh
www.mmedia.is/~bre/programs/setup.sh
urpmi
www.linux-mandrake.com/cooker/urpmi.html

⁠25.1.4. Programming sites

Only a few sites exist to help developers with programming for RPM. I maintain some quick links to RPM sites at www.pconline.com/~erc/rpm.htm. Most of these links are focused for programming with RPM.
The best sites for programming RPM are the online API documentation at www.rpm.org/rpmapi-4.1/ for the RPM 4.1 release, and the ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/ site for downloading the RPM sources. There is a lot of documentation bundled with the source code.
Cross Reference
Chapter 26, Linux Text Editors and Development Tools lists links for a number of Integrated Development Environments, or IDEs, aimed at programmers.

⁠25.1.5. Sites related to RPM

If you try to make cross-platform RPMs, especially RPMs that should work for multiple versions of Linux, it is very important to follow the Linux standards for things like file placement and package formats.
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, or FHS, covers Linux directory layout at www.pathname.com/fhs/.
The Linux Standards Base is working on standardizing on the RPM package file format. See www.linuxbase.org for details.