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<chapter id="ch-online-resources">
<title>RPM Resources</title>
<para>
Copyright (c) 2005 by Eric Foster-Johnson. This material may be
distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in
the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is
presently available at
http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
</para>
<para/>
<para>
In This Appendix
</para>
<para>
*Finding RPM sites on the Internet
</para>
<para>
*Accessing RPM newsgroups and mailing lists
</para>
<para>
This appendix covers the material available on the Internet for
working with RPM.
</para>
<sect1>
<title>Finding RPM Sites</title>
<para>
There is a wealth of RPM material online, although some of it is
hard to find. The following sections list a number of RPM-related
sites, divided by category. Note that as with any Internet sites,
the sites listed my change or disappear.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>The main
rpm.org site</title>
<para>
The main RPM site is
www.rpm.org. This site provides the
official distributions of the RPM software, as well as a lot of
documentation online.
</para>
<para>
Table F-1 lists a number of useful links on this site.
</para>
<para>
Table F-1 Links on the
rpm.org site
</para>
<informaltable frame="all">
<tgroup cols="2">
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
Link
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Holds
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
RPM software downloads
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
rpm.org download site
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/cvs_help/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Instructions for accessing the RPM CVS repository
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/hintskinks/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Tips for working with RPM
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/hintskinks/bootstrap/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Good tips on bootstrapping RPM to new platforms
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/howto/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
How-to documents for working with RPM
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/max-rpm/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Maximum RPM by Edward C. Bailey
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/RPM-HOWTO/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Good introductory tutorial
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/rpmapi-4.1/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
API documentation
</para>
</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
<para>
The main RPM FTP site, at
ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/, includes the
RPM distributions, as well as the Berkeley DB version 3 library,
and the text of the book Maximum RPM. Download RPM software from
ftp://ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>RPM locator sites</title>
<para>
A number of sites help you find RPMs for various applications.
On the main sites, you can find specially built RPMs for a
variety of Linux distributions. You can then download the RPMs
made especially for your systems.
</para>
<para>
The main RPM-finding site is
rpmfind.net, which offers a search
engine as well as software you can run on your site.
</para>
<para>
The RPM PBone Search, at
http://rpm.pbone.net/, is also very
useful.
</para>
<para>
The
www.rpm.org/packagers/ site lists a number of places that
package RPMs and provide them for downloading.
</para>
<para>
Many Java libraries and packages are available in RPM format
from
www.jpackage.org/.
</para>
<para>
Table F-2 lists a number of other RPM download sites.
</para>
<para>
Table F-2 RPM download sites
</para>
<informaltable frame="all">
<tgroup cols="2">
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
Site
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Holds
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
rpmfind.net
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Links to a huge number of RPMs, many specific to
various Linux distributions
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
http://rpm.pbone.net/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
RPM PBone search, useful for finding RPMs
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpm.org/packagers/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Lists a number of sites that provide RPMs for download
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.javapackage.org
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Many Java packages in RPM format
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
http://plf.zarb.org/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
The Penguin Liberation Front has RPMs that for legal
reasons cannot be included in the Mandrake Linux
distribution.
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.math.unl.edu/~rdieter/Projects
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Rex Dieter���s RPM site
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.rpmhelp.net
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Mandrake Linux RPMs
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.aucs.org/rpmcenter/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Edwin Chan's Red Hat RPMs
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
www.owlriver.com/projects/links/
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Owl River Company RPMs
</para>
</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>RPM tools sites</title>
<para>
A large number of tools exist to help you work with RPMs. The
following sites list some of the main tools:
</para>
<para>
*For the vim text editor, you can download a spec.vim syntax
file from
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/vim/syntax/spec.vim.
</para>
<para>
*For emacs, you can download an Emacs mode for spec files from
http://tihlde.org/~stigb/rpm-spec-mode.el.
</para>
<para>
Cross Reference
</para>
<para>
Appendix F lists links for a number of text editors.
</para>
<para>
*The rpmlint tool mentioned in Chapter 13 is available at
http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~flepied/projects/rpmlint/.
</para>
<para>
Table F-3 lists a number of RPM-related tools and the sites you
can find more information on the tools.
</para>
<para>
Table F-3 RPM-related tools
</para>
<informaltable frame="all">
<tgroup cols="2">
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
Tool
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
Site
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
apt-rpm
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
ftp://ftp.conectiva.com/pub/conectiva/EXPERIMENTAL/apt/
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
apt4rpm
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net/
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
AutoRPM
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.autorpm.org
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
AutoUpdate
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.mat.univie.ac.at/~gerald/ftp/autoupdate
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
current
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.biology.duke.edu/computer/unix/current/
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
kpackage
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.kde.org
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
MakeRPM.pl
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/by-authors/id/JWIED
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
poldek
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
http://poldek.pld.org.pl/
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
rpm2html
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
rpmfind
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
rpmfind.net
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
RUST
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.rusthq.com
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
setup.sh
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.mmedia.is/~bre/programs/setup.sh
</para>
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>
<para>
urpmi
</para>
</entry>
<entry>
<para>
www.linux-mandrake.com/cooker/urpmi.html
</para>
</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Programming sites</title>
<para>
Only a few sites exist to help developers with programming for
RPM. I maintain some quick links to RPM sites at
www.pconline.com/~erc/rpm.htm. Most of these links are focused
for programming with RPM.
</para>
<para>
The best sites for programming RPM are the online API
documentation at
www.rpm.org/rpmapi-4.1/ for the RPM 4.1
release, and the
ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/ site for downloading
the RPM sources. There is a lot of documentation bundled with
the source code.
</para>
<para>
Cross Reference
</para>
<para>
Appendix F lists links for a number of Integrated Development
Environments, or IDEs, aimed at programmers.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Sites related to RPM</title>
<para>
If you try to make cross-platform RPMs, especially RPMs that
should work for multiple versions of Linux, it is very important
to follow the Linux standards for things like file placement and
package formats.
</para>
<para>
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, or FHS, covers Linux
directory layout at
www.pathname.com/fhs/.
</para>
<para>
The Linux Standards Base is working on standardizing on the RPM
package file format. See
www.linuxbase.org for details.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Accessing RPM Mailing Lists and Newsgroups</title>
<para>
The RPM mailing list provides the best source of technical RPM
information. You can post questions and get quick, useful
responses. If you are working with RPM, you should subscribe to
this mailing list. For details on viewing the RPM mailing list
archives and signing up for the list, see
www.rpm.org/mailing_list/.
</para>
<para>
To help avoid unwanted commercial e-mail (in other words, spam),
you need to register with a user name and password to subscribe to
the mailing list or view the archives.
</para>
<para>
A Usenet newsgroup, named linux.redhat.rpm, also provides a forum
for asking RPM-related questions. You can read this newsgroup with
any newsreading program.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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