One of the best ways to learn any tool is by example. The following are some actual verbatim examples of simple yum usage. Imagine that you want to add some simple speech synthesis capabilities to your PC so that it can issue verbal prompts or read simple messages out loud. Looking through the info on your repository collection, you discover the festival package, which does just what you need (note that we are root):
rgb@lucifer|T:11#yum info festival Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) Server: Linux@Home 9 - i386 - Base Server: Linux@Home Distributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home Nondistributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home personal add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home NFS test - 9 i386 Finding updated packages Downloading needed headers Looking in Available Packages: Name : festival Arch : i386 Version: 1.4.2 Release: 16 Size : 58.35 MB Group : Applications/Multimedia Repo : Linux@Home 9 - i386 - Base Summary: A speech synthesis system. Description: Festival is a general purpose, multi-lingual speech synthesis system developed at CSTR. It offers a full text to speech system with various APIs, as well as an environment for development and research of speech synthesis techniques. It is written in C++ with a Scheme-based command interpreter for general control. Looking in Installed Packages:
Hmm, available, not installed. Let's install it.
rgb@lucifer|T:12#yum install festival Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) Server: Linux@Home 9 - i386 - Base Server: Linux@Home Distributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home Nondistributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home personal add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home NFS test - 9 i386 Finding updated packages Downloading needed headers Resolving dependencies Dependencies resolved I will do the following: [install: festival 1.4.2-16.i386] Is this ok [y/N]: y Getting festival-1.4.2-16.i386.rpm Calculating available disk space - this could take a bit festival 100 % done 1/1 Installed: festival 1.4.2-16.i386 Transaction(s) Complete
Nothing to it. We wonder if there are any other festival components and if we need them:
rgb@lucifer|T:13#yum list festival\* Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) Server: Linux@Home 9 - i386 - Base Server: Linux@Home Distributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home Nondistributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home personal add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home NFS test - 9 i386 Finding updated packages Downloading needed headers Looking in Available Packages: Name Arch Version Repo -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- festival-devel i386 1.4.2-16 duke-base Looking in Installed Packages: Name Arch Version Repo -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- festival i386 1.4.2-16 db
Looks like there is a development package. This could be a library so that one can build one's own speaking applications, or it could be examples and data files. It isn't, apparently, a dependency of festival (or yum would have automatically selected and installed it too). One wonders what is in it?
rgb@lucifer|T:16#yum info festival-devel Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) Server: Linux@Home 9 - i386 - Base Server: Linux@Home Distributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home Nondistributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home personal add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home NFS test - 9 i386 Finding updated packages Downloading needed headers Looking in Available Packages: Name : festival-devel Arch : i386 Version: 1.4.2 Release: 16 Size : 11.57 MB Group : Development/Libraries Repo : Linux@Home 9 - i386 - Base Summary: Development files for the festival speech synthesizer. Description: Development files for the festival speech synthesizer. Install festival-devel if you want to use the festival speech synthesizer from within your own progrmas and/or if you intend to compile other programs using it. Looking in Installed Packages:
Hmmm, looks like we might need this as well some day. Disk is cheap, maybe we should install it now. On the other hand, if we ever do need it, with yum we can install it in a matter of seconds. With yum, one can actually do things like install a tool you need only rarely, use it for five minutes, and remove it at the end to recover the space and other resources.
Let's finish off with an always useful:
rgb@lucifer|T:18#yum update Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) Server: Linux@Home 9 - i386 - Base Server: Linux@Home Distributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home Nondistributable add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home personal add-on packages - 9 i386 Server: Linux@Home NFS test - 9 i386 Finding updated packages Downloading needed headers No Packages Available for Update No actions to takeIt's always a pleasure to know that every single software package on the system is current as of the last round of patches and security fixes mirrored to my home repository from Duke.
Now to go play with festival. Maybe I can tell the cat to stop sleeping on the keyboard from work...