Chapter 4. PowerTools
PowerTools Packages
Red Hat PowerTools is a collection of software packages built for the Red Hat Linux 7.0 operating system. PowerTools includes the latest versions (as of this product's release date) of hundreds of programs -- so finding an interesting application should be easy.
Among the many applications are audio programs, chat clients, development tools, editors, file managers, emulators, games, graphics programs, productivity applications, math/statistics packages, systems administration and network management tools, and window managers.
Now that you know what you can find on PowerTools, you may want to know how to install them. See the section called Installing PowerTools Packages for installation information.
Reading the Contents of the CD-ROM
You can read the contents of the PowerTools CD-ROM from a shell prompt (either in a terminal window or in console mode). Then mount the CD-ROM (mount /mnt/cdrom). Once this is done, change directories by issuing the cd /mnt/cdrom command. Finally, type less CONTENTS to view the available applications.
Installing PowerTools Packages
Installing PowerTools in a GUI Environment
If you're using GNOME or KDE, place the CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive. You'll be prompted for the root password (you must be root in order to install packages). After you type in the root password, either the Gnome-RPM or the Kpackage package management program will start automatically (depending on you GUI environment) and can be used to install PowerTools.
See Chapter 6 for specific instructions on how to use Gnome-RPM. See http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/toivo/kpackage/ for more information on how to use Kpackage.
If you're not using GNOME or KDE, you'll need to use the shell prompt to install PowerTools. See the section called Installing PowerTools from the Shell Prompt for more information.
Installing PowerTools from the Shell Prompt
First, mount the PowerTools CD-ROM on your CD-ROM drive.
Place the PowerTools CD in your CD-ROM drive. As root, type the following:
# mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom # |
 | Please note |
|---|---|
On your system, you or the system administrator may already allow users (instead of only root) to mount the CD-ROM drive. Users have this privilege if the user option is included in the /dev/cdrom line in the /etc/fstab file. However, keep in mind that you must be logged in as root to install any PowerTools RPMs. |
After you've mounted the drive, cd to the mounted CD-ROM directory with the following command:
# cd /mnt/cdrom |
When you list the contents of the CD with ls, you'll see the following directories: SRPMS and RedHat/ The SRPMS directory contains the PowerTools source RPMs. The RedHat/RPMS directory contains the RPMs for the three specified operating system architectures.
The RedHat/RPMS path is used as a general example. You should substitute the correct directory for RedHat/RPMS, depending upon your architecture and which package you're installing.
cd to the RedHat/RPMS directory:
# cd RedHat/RPMS # |
List the RPM files in the directory with ls to see the complete list of RPM packages included for Intel-compatible systems.
You will probably want more information about a specific package before you can decide whether you want to install it. You can use RPM's querying capability to find out more information about the packages, such as the packages' functions and origination. See the section called Impressing Your Friends with RPM in Chapter 5 for instructions on how to query packages using RPM.
You can install your selected packages with RPM. RPM is a powerful command line-driven package management system. See Chapter 5 for more information on how to use RPM to install and manage PowerTools packages.
Once you have finished installing your packages, you'll need to unmount your CD-ROM. First, change directories so that you will be one level above the /mnt/cdrom/ directory by issuing the command cd ... Then, type umount /mnt/cdrom to unmount the CD-ROM. Type eject /mnt/cdrom and the CD-ROM drive will open so that you can remove the CD.