How to Install or Upgrade a .RPM package in Linux Machine?

RPM or RPM package manager is a utility for installing software on Unix based systems. It's capable of building software from source into distributable packages. It is also used for installing, updating and uninstalling softwares. The current latest version of RPM package manager is 4.15.1 which was released on 18th Nov 2019.

Installing a .rpm Package

To install a .rpm package we use the rpm command with -i option or --install option(both works fine) which tells the command that we are installing a new package. We should always use this for kernel installations.

For a file somefile.rpm, run the following command to run the installation:

rpm -i somefile.rpm

Updating the Software using rpm

To update an already installed software using the rpm command, we use the -U option or --upgrade option. Running the rpm command with -U option will install the software if it is not already installed.

rpm -U somefile.rpm

To see the manual where in you can find all the options that can be used with the rpm command, you can run the following command:

man rpm

Upon running the above command you will see a detailed and well described set of options that can be used with the rpm command to install, update or uninstall any package.

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