5.2.4. Installing Packages

⁠5.2.4. Installing Packages

Yum allows you to install both a single package and multiple packages, as well as a package group of your choice.

⁠ Installing Individual Packages

To install a single package and all of its non-installed dependencies, enter a command in the following form:

yum install package_name

You can also install multiple packages simultaneously by appending their names as arguments:

yum install package_name package_name…

If you are installing packages on a multilib system, such as an AMD64 or Intel64 machine, you can specify the architecture of the package (as long as it is available in an enabled repository) by appending .arch to the package name. For example, to install the sqlite2 package for i586, type:

~]# yum install sqlite2.i586

You can use glob expressions to quickly install multiple similarly-named packages:

~]# yum install audacious-plugins-\*

In addition to package names and glob expressions, you can also provide file names to yum install. If you know the name of the binary you want to install, but not its package name, you can give yum install the path name:

~]# yum install /usr/sbin/named

yum then searches through its package lists, finds the package which provides /usr/sbin/named, if any, and prompts you as to whether you want to install it.

Finding which package owns a file

If you know you want to install the package that contains the named binary, but you do not know in which bin or sbin directory is the file installed, use the yum provides command with a glob expression:

~]# yum provides "*bin/named"
Loaded plugins: langpacks, presto, refresh-packagekit
32:bind-9.8.0-3.P1.fc15.i686 : The Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) DNS
                             : (Domain Name System) server
Repo        : fedora
Matched from:
Filename    : /usr/sbin/named

yum provides "*/file_name" is a common and useful trick to find the packages that contain file_name.

⁠ Installing a Package Group

A package group is similar to a package: it is not useful by itself, but installing one pulls a group of dependent packages that serve a common purpose. A package group has a name and a groupid. The yum grouplist -v command lists the names of all package groups, and, next to each of them, their groupid in parentheses. The groupid is always the term in the last pair of parentheses, such as kde-desktop in the following example:

~]# yum -v grouplist kde\*
Not loading "blacklist" plugin, as it is disabled
Loading "langpacks" plugin
Loading "presto" plugin
Loading "refresh-packagekit" plugin
Not loading "whiteout" plugin, as it is disabled
Adding en_US to language list
Config time: 0.900
Yum Version: 3.2.29
Setting up Group Process
rpmdb time: 0.002
group time: 0.995
Available Groups:
   KDE Software Compilation (kde-desktop)
   KDE Software Development (kde-software-development)
Done

You can install a package group by passing its full group name (without the groupid part) to groupinstall:

yum groupinstall group_name

You can also install by groupid:

yum groupinstall groupid

You can even pass the groupid (or quoted name) to the install command if you prepend it with an @-symbol (which tells yum that you want to perform a groupinstall):

yum install @group

For example, the following are alternative but equivalent ways of installing the KDE Desktop group:

~]# yum groupinstall "KDE Desktop"
~]# yum groupinstall kde-desktop
~]# yum install @kde-desktop