Introduction - What is yum?

Yum is an automatic updater and package installer/remover for RPM based systems. It automatically computes dependencies and figures out what tasks should occur to install packages. It makes it easier to maintain groups of machines without having to manually update each one using the rpm command.

Before you use yum for the first time, type following command to download headers.

yum check-update

This updates your local catalogue of what packages are available out there. It looks on remote servers on the Internet that store many different packages in repositories.

To install a package which is not installed already, use "install" option with yum.

yum install package-name

You can use the command "yum list available" to see all of the packages that are avaliable for install.

To remove a package which installed already, use "remove" option with yum.

yum remove package-name

To search a package by name, use "search" option with yum.

yum search partial_name

You can use wildcards with the search directive, such as * (match anything) and ? (match any single character).

To install any updates available, use "update" option with yum.

yum update

Please note that you need have enough space in your /var partition as you need to download all the packages you intend to install or upgrade. Having at least 250 megabytes or more free should be good enough.

Introduction - What is yum?

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