Written in Perl. Designed for Red Hat distributions but also recognizes SuSE and Mandrake, or for that purpose any RPM-based distribution. How does it work Quite simple, it makes use of the information already present in the Red Hat RPM database. Some data is gathered and stored in a secondary flat file. This flat file also keeps track of the current status of each of these RPMs, whether they have been upgraded, downgraded, or not yet installed, or coming from a 3rd party.
Installation First install the RPM package.
You have to take care of the initial syncronization because we cannot do any RPM query operation during the installation as the RPM database is already locked. The version should not include the decimal point. It requires the actual path to the RPM directory. It is also handy if at this point you create a symbolic link called default.db in the directory where the flat file is kept. Dealing with SuSE SuSE comes in several CDs and their RPMs come with weird names that almost leave no clue to let you know at a first glance which kind of package it is.