[Linux] RPM Repositories

[Kwan Lowe]

> Noob question:
>
> Can someone explain or point me somewhere where so I
> can get educated on repositories. I've read up on
> installing (RPMs) but not familiar with how
> repositories work. The distro im using now is RHEL5
> and CentOS 5. So here are some of my questions: Are
> there dedicated repositories to each distro? And if
> yes am I locked into the one my distro uses? How do I
> find out the url or server name for  a repository? If
> anyone has any other tidbit of info I should know
> please share. thank you for any input.

OK, I'll give it a shot...

You're familiar with an RPM, which is a simple package consisting of a
bunch of scripts, binary executables, config files, etc.. The RPM is used
by about half of the distributions out there.

A distribution, as you may know, is a specific build that includes the
Linux kernel which is usually modified, and a bunch of support packages
that make up what we know as the Operating System.   Each distribution
(distro) makes certain choices with respect to versions, interfaces,
included applications, etc..

A repository is basically just a location (hard drive, web site, ftp site,
NFS mount) that contains all the packages associated with a particular
distribution. In most cases, the repository contains information about
dependencies between packages. Besides the original installation packages,
the repository will also contain updates and some meta-information (such
as dependencies).

So to your question: Yes, you are somewhat limited by your choice of
distribution. You generally cannot install an RPM package from one
distribution onto another without rebuilding or running into package
dependency issues.

This said, Centos5 "tracks" RedHat Enterprise Linux 5. They strive for
binary compatibility in all cases, so pretty much any RHEL5 package will
install correctly on a Centos5 machine.

Each distro generally keeps a webpage that shows mirrors and repositories.
Centos is:
http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=13