RedHat
From AdminWiki
Package Management
The current choices for installing RPMs are: (listed by convience)
- rpm --install: can only install a single remote rpm
- up2date: you probably need an RedHat EL subscription
- yum: the better up2date, still terrible to use
- apt: ported from Debian, lastly a tool which does it right
Useful options to rpm are -vh, which give you verbose output and a progress bar when doing package installation/removal.
Installing Kernels
If you install a kernel using one of the tools above, better check /boot and /etc/grub.conf afterwards. At present, updating these files is job of the package manager, and not of the kernel rpm postinst script. Of course, all tools have implemented this differently and you simply can't rely on it to work.
Also, always install kernels (rpm -ivh) instead of updating (rpm -Uvh) them. Updating will not preserve the old version ...
