Difference between rpm and tar.gz

[bamboo_spider]

Hi

Many software for gnu/linux comes as a tar.gz or rpm. The latter are easier to use so why are they released as tar.gz (are they targetting the geekz) or what

Then once we get the tar.gz we need to compile it and me I went and did not instal any compilers so have to reinstall them .

How does one compile from tar.gz any tips

just askin'

[foolish]

A tar.gz or tar.bz2 is a tarball with the source code of the application. Source code is the recipie for the software and it has to be compiled into a binary before it can be used. Tarballs are the old way of dealing with software in linux. Back when everyone who used linux was a developer, distributing your stuff as source code made sense.

Today however, most people using linux aren't developers, so they don't need the source code, the process of compiling is hard and it takes too long. RPM is one solution for this.

A RPM package is a container, it holds the binary files needed to run the software, not the source code. This means someone who knows how will compile the software for you, package it in a smart RPM package and distribute it.

When you install a RPM package, it will place the files in your file system so that you can run them. Files are placed in various folders depending on their type, executables (or binaries) are in a folder called "bin", libraries in a folder called "lib", documentation in "doc" and so forth. When you install a RPM package the files are placed in the right folders and a RPM database keeps track of where all the files are, what package they belong to and this makes it easier to keep control of your software.

When you compile and install a tarball, it too will copy the binaries to the right folders, but it won't keep track of the files and which files belong to which package. This means you'll have to manually keep track of your files, which is a lot of work.

The bottom line is, you want to use RPMs, always. Tarballs are an ancient form of installing software, intended for developers and advanced users who want to change stuff in the software. If something you need isn't available as an RPM package, you should ask someone who knows how to build one, or you can ask for an alternative. In Fedora Core, almost all software needed is available as RPM.

To make installation of RPM packages even easier, the process of downloading and installing has been automated using an automatic package tool called YUM. YUM will download and install a package, it's dependencies and install them. Much easier than hunting for packages yourself.

For more, read: http://foolish.fedorausers.org/rpm/index.html

[imdeemvp]

RPM was developed by redhat and it stands for Redhat Package Management ( I think !!). Tarballs were intruduced long time ago and is also another package management used by Slackware, Collegelinux and other distros.

Mandrake and Suse are rpm based distribution. Tarballs and rpm's are installed in different ways. For tarball we use this command: xzvf tarball_package.tar and for rpm's we use this command: rpm -i (or -ivh) package_mane.rpm

[wallace]

RPM was developed by redhat and it stands for Redhat Package Management ( I think !!).

Yes, you are right but now it is known as "RPM package manager" another recursive acronym. It's widely acceptable and Redhat's name isno longer attached to it.

tarball we use this command: xzvf tarball_package.tar

It's just for extracting the source code out of the archive not for installing the software.

[imdeemvp]

It's just for extracting the source code out of the archive not for installing the software.

And to continue the installation process you do:

./configure
make
make install

I just did not wanted to get into that many details.

[jayemef]

And just make sure you run 'make install' with root privaledges .

[confused261]

And what should be equivalant commands to uninstall a package???

[PhilD]

generally speaking "make clean"... check the readme attached with the software (if any)

[Growler]

Originally Posted by confused261

And what should be equivalant commands to uninstall a package???

'make uninstall' will do the trick, if run as root from within the un-tarred directory. if you install using a .tgz file, and then later delete the build directory, just un-tar it again later, do a ./configure, make, then make uninstall if you wish to remove the files from your system.