  RPM+Slackware Mini-Howto
  Dave Whitinger, dave@whitinger.net
  v1.3, 13 April 1998

  This document describes how to get RPM installed and working properly
  under Slackware.  The information contained herein, however, is proba-
  bly applicable to any Linux distribution.
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents


  1. Introduction

  2. Obtaining the software

  3. Installing the software

  4. Bugs (Important!)

  5. Acknowledgements

  6. Copyright

  ______________________________________________________________________

  1.  Introduction


  RPM is the "Red Hat Package Manager" and is the heart of the Red Hat
  Linux distribution.  It's most basic functionality is to install and
  de-install packages.

  This document is geared toward installing RPM on a slackware system
  using an Intel processor, but the information contained herein should
  be applicable to any distribution.

  The latest version of this HOWTO is always available at
  <http://www.threepoint.com/HOWTO/RPM+Slackware.html>

  For further reading, consult the RPM-HOWTO (available at your
  neighborhood LDP mirror).  Also, consider buying a copy of the
  excellent book, Maximum RPM, by Ed Bailey of Red Hat Software, Inc.


  2.  Obtaining the software


  The newest release of RPM is always available from:

       ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm/dist/latest

  As of this writing, the latest version was

       rpm-2.4.12-1.i386.tar.gz


  Notice the .i386 section.  This means that it is a binary package for
  the Intel architecture, ready to untar and run.  Make sure that the
  file you download has the i386 in the filename, otherwise the
  following instructions will not work.


  3.  Installing the software


  The easiest way to install RPM is to use Slackware's native package
  manager.

  You must be root to install RPM.

               installpkg /home/dave/rpm-2.4.12-1.i386.tar.gz

  Of course, replace the /home/dave with the correct path for the
  filename.

  (NOTE!) If that fails, simply untar the file with these commands:

               cd / ; tar zxvpf /home/dave/rpm-2.4.12-1.i386.tar.gz

  Next, you have to create a directory called "rpm" under the /var/lib
  tree.

  mkdir /var/lib/rpm

  Now type 'rpm --initdb' to initialize the rpm database.

  If everything has gone correctly up to this point, you will have a
  rpm-capable system!  Test it out by grabbing any rpm file and
  installing it with 'rpm -Uvh filename.rpm'


  4.  Bugs (Important!)

  Be aware that on several versions of RPM, the tar file has been
  created using incorrect permissions.  As soon as you install RPM,
  check your permissions of various directories (/bin, /usr, etc).  If
  the permissions are of 700 (drwx------), then you have been infected
  by the bug.

  To fix these permissions problems, run this shell script:

  ______________________________________________________________________
  #!/bin/sh

  chmod 755 /bin
  chmod 755 /usr
  chmod 755 /usr/bin
  chmod 755 /usr/doc
  chmod 755 /usr/lib
  chmod 755 /usr/man
  chmod 755 /usr/man/man8
  chmod 755 /usr/share
  chmod 755 /usr/share/locale
  chmod 755 /usr/share/locale/de
  chmod 755 /usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES
  chmod 755 /usr/share/locale/pt-br
  chmod 755 /usr/share/locale/pt-br/LC_MESSAGES
  chmod 755 /usr/share/locale/sv
  chmod 755 /usr/share/locale/sv/LC_MESSAGES
  chmod 755 /usr/src
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Feel free to E-Mail me if you have any questions about this.


  5.  Acknowledgements

  I recognize Red Hat Software, Inc. and Patrick Volkerding for their
  fine Linux distributions.

  Thanks to Milan Kopacka (mkop5230@ss1000.ms.mff.cuni.cz) for bringing
  to my attention a better way to install RPM (installpkg).


  6.  Copyright


  This HOWTO is copyright 1998 by Dave Whitinger, and is a free
  document.  You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
  the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
  Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version.

