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I'm a beginner picking up RHEL...

To check if some packages are present , i will type :

yum check <packages_name>

And then install by typing 

yum install <packages_name>

Is there a way/cmd to check the files & install only those that are present ?

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1 Answer

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Yum can install only the packages that are available by default, and simply skip what it can't find.

Therefore, if you do something like yum install trimage gimp, which attempts to install Trimage (an image compressing tool, not available in the RHEL repos) and Gimp (image editing tool available in the repos), Yum will simply tell you "No package trimage available." and move on to installing Gimp.

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Thank you :) And i have a doubt on something : i'm using rhel and what repo contains most of the packages (or) which repo will you suggest to a beginner ? i have a hard-time finding many popular packages.... – vettipayyan Jan 11 '12 at 8:48
First, why did you choose RHEL? RHEL is designed for enterprise use, which is likely going to be a lot more limited and consist of older versions of applications in its Repo, than, say, Fedora (a version of Linux very similar to RHEL), which is probably why you're having trouble. Second, what apps are you looking for that you can't find? – Shauna Jan 11 '12 at 16:08
I'm using a RHEL variant actually - Oracle Linux 6 :) I'm using it for studying purposes only and specifically for installing Oracle 11g. Regarding packages , i can install them anyway but with great difficulties .... – vettipayyan Jan 11 '12 at 16:18
That's probably your main problem. From a quick look, it appears Oracle Linux 6 is a very niche distro, designed for running Oracle software and not much else. If you're looking to do typical desktop stuff, I'd recommend dual booting with something like Fedora and leave your Oracle Linux solely for Oracle learning. You'll find both that it's easier to install things and that there's a better community to help with support. – Shauna Jan 11 '12 at 16:30
Correction, distrowatch says Oracle claims full RHEL compatibility, but still, both are designed for enterprise use, and so are likely to have far more limited repositories. I'd still recommend going to Fedora (since you're already familiar with Yum and the way Red Hat works), or Ubuntu (it uses Apt for package management and is Debian based, but has a large, supportive community). – Shauna Jan 11 '12 at 16:39
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