Once appropriate RPMs have been obtained, they have to be installed before the application they provide can be used. You can use the rpm command-line utility to do this. The rpmfind utility also has the capability to launch the rpm utility automatically to install any software located. In addition to these two tools, however, several graphical applications are available that provide basic RPM package-management capabilities. Most of these programs offer easy-to-use GUIs that can be used to install and uninstall packages, to query packages, and to verify installed packages.
Even though Linux and Unix fans generally aren’t bothered by command-line tools such as rpm, many newcomers to Linux fret over the seeming difficulty of the command line. They are more used to graphical applications and, in many cases, are more productive in a graphical environment. Keeping with the Linux tradition of freedom of choice, you can use the command-line tools such as the rpm commandor pick from a variety of graphical tools.
Nautilus provides a visually appealing file manager that is part of the GNOME desktop. Nautilus acts as a normal file manager that can also display some types of files, such as images. In addition, you can launch applications that Nautilus knows about when you double click files. Figure 8-1 shows Nautilus in action.
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Figure 8-1: Browsing RPM files with Nautilus.
If you double click an RPM file (a file ending with the extension .rpm), Nautilus will install the RPM file. First, though, Nautilus will prompt you for the root password, since you must be logged in as root to install RPMs. Figure 8-2 shows Nautilus prompting for a password.
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Figure 8-2: You must be logged in as root to install packages.
After some time processing, you should see the Completed System Preparation window, as shown in Figure 8-3.
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Figure 8-3: Installing RPM files with Nautilus.
When you install RPMs with Nautilus, it really runs the Red Hat Package Management tool.
Note
Nautilus only supports RPM functionality starting with Red Hat Linux 8.0. This functionality may not be supported in other versions of Linux.
