How to use the Web rpm2html database

Welcome to the rpm2html archive.

The goals of rpm2html are also to identify the dependencies between various packages and to find the package(s) providing the resources needed to install a given package. Every package is analyzed to retrieve its dependencies and the resources it offers. These relationships are expressed using hyperlinks in the generated pages. Finding the package providing the resource you need is just a matter of a few clicks!

However, navigating a large rpm2html database can be non trivial, here are some information with the hope that it will help you to to find the RPM packages you need to maintain your system:

The navigator header

All the pages generated by rpm2html includes a standard template like this one:


Index RPM sorted by Group RPM sorted by Distribution RPM sorted by Vendor RPM sorted by creation date RPM sorted by Name

This can be used to move faster from one place in the Web site one of the main pages. Further development will allow site maintainers to link-in extra pages like the help system or a search engine. Here are the standard links:

The main page

This page is the front-end of this rpm2html database, it intent is to show what packages are available.

Following a one line summary of the amount of packages indexed, it gives a set of generic links to the main indexes:



Then all the directories indexed in the base are listed to advertize the available set of packages, their name, the origin server, the local one and a set of mirrors. Important, it also show the associed color code for packages coming from this distribution, e.g.:


RedHat-5.0 for i386
Repository for sources: ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/redhat-5.0/SRPMS
Local mirror: ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/redhat-5.0/i386/RedHat/RPMS
Mirrors
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/redhat-5.0/i386/RedHat/RPMS

The color scheme may be extremely useful is a package is available from various distribution and for different architectures.

The colormap header

Most of the pages listing a set of RPMs also provide a colormap in the header. This is a reminder of the color codes used to help localize the packages pertaining to a given distribution/architecture, for example:


RedHat-5.0 for i386 RedHat-5.0 for alpha RedHat-5.0 Updates for i386 RedHat-5.0 Updates for alpha
RedHat Contribs for alpha Hurricane Contribs for i386 Hurricane Contribs for alpha RedHat-4.2 for i386
RedHat-4.2 Updates for i386 RedHat-4.2 Updates for Sparc SuSE 5.1 SuSE Updates
RedHat Labs Linux/PPC

The index by groups pages

This page lists all the groups founds in the set of RPM indexed e.g.:



Each item is a link to the page listing all the RPM packages found in this group. Each group pages includes the navigation header, the colormap header and a list of packages exemple:


dozer-0.7.2b-1 No summary ! Linux/i386
ed-0.2-5B GNU Line Editor Linux/ppc
ed-0.2-5 GNU Line Editor Linux/i386 Linux/i386
ed-0.2-7 GNU Line Editor Linux/i386 Linux/alpha
elvis-2.0-1 Elvis Linux/i386
jed-0.97.14-4 A small fast editor Linux/i386
jed-0.98.7-2 A small fast editor Linux/i386
jed-0.98.4-1 A small fast editor Linux/i386
jed-0.98.4-2 A small fast editor Linux/i386 Linux/alpha
jed-xjed-0.97.14-4 Jed editor - X version Linux/i386
jed-xjed-0.98.7-2 Jed editor - X version Linux/i386
jed-xjed-0.98.4-1 Jed editor - X version Linux/i386
jed-xjed-0.98.4-2 Jed editor - X version Linux/i386 Linux/alpha
joe-2.8-7 easy to use editor Linux/i386
joe-2.8-10 easy to use editor Linux/i386 Linux/i386 Linux/alpha
joe-2.8-9 easy to use editor Linux/i386 Linux/alpha

All the packages with identical software name, revision number and packaging number are represented by one row in the table. It lists the package name, the summary and a set of links pointing to the packages pages. Note that there may be more than one line per row (i.e. if a package is available in more than one distribution), in that case, use the color indexing to find the appropritate link. The link is labelled with the OperatingSystem/Architecture to avoid using a package for a different architecture.

The indexes by Maintainer and Distribution pages

There are extremely similar to the Group file, they just use the Maintainer and Distribution fields to index the database instead of the Group field. The page and links schemes are quite similar otherwise.

The index by Creation Date page

This page lists all the packages found in the database sorted by creation (or installation) date, the most recent being listed first:


RPMs less than three days old

check-packages-1.1-1.alpha Watches for changes between RPM database and actual system Wed Feb 18 09:39:06 1998
check-packages-1.1-1.i386 Watches for changes between RPM database and actual system Wed Feb 18 09:38:39 1998
festival-1.2.1-3a.ppc Festival Speech Synthesis System. General framework for building speech synthesis systems. Wed Feb 18 13:13:32 1998
fetchmail-4.3.7-1.i386 No summary ! Tue Feb 17 21:32:59 1998
freetype-1.0-1.i386 Truetype font rasterizer Wed Feb 18 18:19:48 1998
...

Each line list exactly one package, the color scheme is used to differentiate packages from various distribution platforms. The first field gives the name, this is also a link to the package page, then there is the summary and the date of creation (or installation). Separators title are used to mark arbitrary times limits at 3 days, one week, two weeks, one month and two months, anything older is not listed. Also to avoid creating too big pages the page may be splitted into multiples pages, using the "..." link at the bottom of the page for the next page.

The index by Name page

This page indexes all packages using their first name (case insensitive!),


RPM sorted by Name

158 Packages beginning with letter A

122 Packages beginning with letter B

162 Packages beginning with letter C


Each line is a link to a page listing all the packages whose name starts with the same letter and sorted by name:


a2ps-4.3-6 Converts ASCII text into PostScript Linux/i386
a2ps-4.9.8-1A Text to Postscript filter. Linux/ppc
aaa_base-97.12.12-0 S.u.S.E. Linux base package Linux/i386
aaa_dir-97.11.28-0 S.u.S.E. Linux directory structure Linux/i386
aboot-0.5-2 Bootloader which can be started from SRM console Linux/alpha

The format of each line is package name, summary and the usual links with the color indicator.

Package pages

The pages described previously are only indexes whose purpose is to locate easily the packages you are actually interested in. Let's look at a package page. It starts with the usual navigation header, then two titles are provided:


netscape-communicator-4.04-3 RPM for i386

From RedHat-5.0 Updates for i386


The first one is a link to the local copy of the package. To load it click on the link while pressing shift (this may depend on your browser though). The second link explains the origin of the package and is usually a link to the repository where the files where fetched (the origin server). Use this link if you don't trust the local repository.

The next item on the page is a table displaying most of the information concerning this RPM package:


Name: netscape-communicator Distribution: Red Hat Linux Biltmore
Version: 4.04 Vendor: Red Hat Software
Release: 3 Build date: Fri Jan 23 16:59:22 1998
Group: X11/Applications/Networking Build host: porky.redhat.com
Size: 14386762 Source RPM: netscape-4.04-3.src.rpm
Packager: Red Hat Software
Summary: Netscape Communicator internet browser, news reader, and mail client

The background color again explain the origin of the package. The table tries to list all the important informations like:

Usually package have a small readme embedded explaining the purpose of the package and useful information, this is printed next if available


Netscape Communicator is the industry-leading web browser. It supports
the latest HTML standards, Java, and JavaScript. It also includes
full-featured Usenet news reader as well as a complete email client.

Information on the Netscape Communicator license may be found in the file
/usr/doc/netscape-3-3/LICENSE.update.

The two next items in the page are a sets of links to ressources. A ressource is usually a library or a program name, most packages requires others resources for proper installation, for example most programs will requires a C library, this will be listed in the requires list. On the other hand when installing a package, you provides new resources on your system allowing other packages to make use of it (this is especially true with libraries or standard unix programs). Hence each RPM package has a set of requirements for resources and a set of resources it provides:


Provides

Requires


Each item in both lists is a link to the corresponding package page (see below). Following the links from the Requires section allow to locate the package providing some resources not available on your system, and which may cause the installation of the RPM to abort.


Warning: this package does not export valid resources lists

Try to pick another


Some package are incorectly built and don't export a valid lists of required and exported resources. This banner is here to avoid using incorrect packages but sometimes it may be wrong, some packages just don't requires any other resources. Anyway it's alway better to follow the link to check for more suitable packages, if they exists.

The next item explains the Copyright associated with this program:


Copyright

Commercial

The last item on the package page is a list of all the files that the package will install on the system


Files

/etc/X11/wmconfig/netscape-communicator
/usr/bin/netscape
/usr/bin/netscape-communicator
/usr/doc/netscape-communicator-4.04-3
/usr/doc/netscape-communicator-4.04-3/LICENSE
/usr/doc/netscape-communicator-4.04-3/LICENSE.update
/usr/doc/netscape-communicator-4.04-3/Netscape.ad
/usr/doc/netscape-communicator-4.04-3/README
/usr/lib/netscape
/usr/lib/netscape/bookmark.htm
/usr/lib/netscape/dynfonts
/usr/lib/netscape/dynfonts/libTrueDoc.so
/usr/lib/netscape/gnumalloc.glibc.so
/usr/lib/netscape/java
/usr/lib/netscape/java/classes
...

Resource page

A ressource page list the RPM packages providing this ressource. It displays the usual navigation header, the resource name and a list of all the packages:


RPM resource libdl.so.1

Provided by

ld.so-1.9.5-5.i386 Shared library configuration tool and old dynamic loader Wed Nov 26 11:26:56 1997
ld.so-1.9.5-5.i386 Shared library configuration tool and old dynamic loader Wed Nov 26 11:26:56 1997
jdk-1.1.3-3.i386 Java Developer's Kit Tue Oct 7 19:36:54 1997
ld.so-1.7.14-4.i386 Linux dynamic loader Mon Aug 26 11:38:10 1996
ld.so-1.7.14-5.i386 Linux dynamic loader Fri Jul 18 09:57:53 1997

As usual, each row gives information on one of the packages, it's name which is also a link to the corresponding package page, the sumary, and the creation (installation) date.


Updated for version rpm2html 0.70

Daniel Veillard, $Id: help.html,v 1.1 1998/02/20 23:59:53 veillard Exp $