• The most common format in which software packages are made available for SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux and Fedora distributions is a package format called RPM, which originally stood for "RedHat Package Manager". The RPM system was developed in 1995 to manage applications in Red Hat Linux 2.0 and is derivative of the Solaris packaging system.

• All software on a Red Hat Linux system is divided into RPM packages which can be installed, upgraded, or removed.

• RPM is distributable under the terms of the GPL.

• For the end user, RPM makes system updates easy. Installing, uninstalling, and upgrading RPM packages can be accomplished with short commands.

• RPM has five basic modes of operation: installing, uninstalling, upgrading, querying, and verifying.

• For complete details browse $rpm –help / man rpm

• rpm -q : query the database of installed packages.

• rpm –qa : -a queries of all currently installed packages.

• rpm –i: displays package information including name, description, release, size, build date, install date, vendor, and other miscellaneous information.

• -l displays the list of files that the package contains.

• -s displays the state of all the files in the package.

• -d displays a list of files marked as documentation (man pages, info pages, READMEs, etc.).

• -c displays a list of files marked as configuration files. These are the files you change after installation to adapt the package to your system

Ex: # rpm -ivh http-server-2.0.4-9.i386.rpm

# rpm -qa | grep mysql # do I have mysql installed ?

Hands-on:

• rpm --query (-q) [name] queries for packagename and version of an installed program
• rpm --query --package (-qp) [name] does the same on a package which isn't installed
• rpm --query --package --info (-qpi) [name] tells you what the package is about, who packaged it etc.
• rpm --verify (-K ,for some reason)[name] will tell you if all files of the packages are still (or at all) installed.

Reference:

1. http://www.softpanorama.org/Utilities/rpm.shtml