How to Install RPM Packages Using YUM

YUM installs software within CentOS and Fedora. If you would prefer a more graphic solution, choose YUM Extender instead. YUM is to CentOs and Fedora what apt-get is to Debian and Ubuntu.

To install an RPM package simply enter the following command:

yum install nameofpackage

For example:

yum install scribus

To update all the packages on your system run the following command:

yum update

To update a specific package or packages try the following:

yum update nameofpackage

The following command returns a list of programs that need updating:

yum check-updates

To remove an application from your Linux system, use the following command:

yum remove programname

Removing programs from your system might seem straightforward but by removing one application you may prevent another one from working. To remove programs that are dependent upon the program you are removing, use the following command:

yum autoremove programname

The autoremove command can also be used without any parameters, as follows:

yum autoremove

This command searches your system for files that weren't explicitly installed by you and which have no dependencies. These are known as leaf packages.

List all of the available packages within YUM with the following command:

yum list

There are extra parameters that you can add to the list to make it more useful.

For example, to list all the available updates on your system, run the following command:

yum list updates

To see all the packages that are installed on your system, run the following command:

yum list installed

List all of the files that were installed without the use of repositories by running the following command:

yum list extras

To search for a specific package use the following command:

yum search programname|description

For instance to search for Steam use the following command:

yum search steam

Alternatively, search for a particular type of application as follows:

yum search "screen capture"

By default the search facility looks in the package names and summaries and only if it doesn't find results will it search descriptions and URLs.

To get yum to search descriptions and URLs as well use the following command:

yum search "screen capture" all

You can retrieve important information about a package by using the following command:

yum info packagename

The information returned includes:

• Name
• Architecture
• Version
• Release
• Size
• Repository
• Summary
• URL
• License
• Description

To install an RPM package local to your system run the following command:

yum localinstall filename

If the file requires dependencies then the repositories will be searched for the dependencies.

If you have been unlucky and a program that was once working for whatever reason has stopped working you can reinstall it again by using the following command:

yum reinstall programname

This command will reinstall the same program with the same version number as the one already installed.