What files to download?

[Floppyman]

Hey all,

I have Red Hat 7, and am getting ready to update my X server to support the ATI Radeon. I found the files at a mirror here:

ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/XFree86/

What files do I need to download from the 4.0.2 version (4.0.3 is only an update) from this site? Also can I burn these onto a cd and then use them in linux, if I don't have internet access in linux? Thanks in Advance!

[Statica]

Read documentation .. http://www.xfree86.org/4.0.2/Install2.html#2

Or u can update it using RPMs from www.rpmfind.net

[Floppyman]

Thanks statica, much clearer now...can you explain to me what an RPM is though? Always wondered what they were....Thanks!

[OOPS!]

Hi Floppyman,


RPM stands for RedHat Package Manager. Sorta works like setup.exe in Windows, except it does more.
Download the rpm(s) you want and then use the package manager to unpack and install. You can also run it from the commandline. $ rpm -ivh --filename.ix86.rpm. Help me here Statica, the switch "i" means install, "v" means verbose, and I can't for the life of me remember "h".

Good Luck with the Radeon!!


OOPS!

[Statica]

RPM does more and has more options that you can shake a stick at... consider it to be a self extracting setup archive like in Windows but that will install/uninstall/search out files that belong to a program/upgrade specific components/check to see what files are needed by what and install accordingly etc etc ...

To learn the RPM formats type man rpm

OOPS!: the -h switch is standardized thruout all such operations for printing hash marks to guage the entire procedure.

a better option is to use rpm -Uvh
-U : Update/upgrade packages

some commandline switches to get u started:
-i: install
-v: verbose .. explicit reports
-e: uninstall package
-q: query package, will tell u the current version #s on ur system
-qf: the -qf addition will tell u which package and version a particular file on ur system comes from
--replacepackages: it will replace the existing packages
--replacefiles: it forces the files to be replaced
--force: the RPM installation also checks to see if your system has the necessary files, this switch will tell the installation to proceed whether rpm finds the prerequisite files or not
--nodeps: dont check for dependencies

There are a lot more.

For use within ur GUI check out gnorpm or kpackage

[Floppyman]

Thanks OOPS and statica...I went to the site you suggested statica but when I typed in Xfree I found a lot of different ones, I know I need 4.0.2, does anybody what exact filename I would have to type in to find the correct one? Thanks!

[OOPS!]

Thanks from me too Statica!!! I'm just starting to learn what exactly the switchs do. And I agree with you Uvh is better. A person can get into trouble once in a while using ivh.

OOPS!