Here i am again, after more help. I eventually found a distro i like and get on with, Redhat 9. I have only been using linux for a few weeks now and im pleased to say havent thought about returning to windows, until now. I download a xxxxx.i386.rpm file from the net, so now i have my program on my pc and want to install it, so i double click it, log in as root, and it goes off and installs. But sometimes it doesnt install, it just flashs up the install box then goes. And even when it does install i havent got a clue were it has put it and how i run the program when it is installed. this is the only bit thats reqally bothering me now, because i find a good program and cant install it, or it does install and i cant find it to run it. i was to a point inspecting it to at least put an icon somewere for u, in your home directory, but i cant find one. Another issue i thought of was once i found it, how do i then remove then program if i dont want it. Any help is much apprechiated !

Please go through the "man rpm" you can find all the information you need. In case of further problems feel free to revert back.

Sorry, i dont understand what Man RPM is ?, You will have to bear with me im quiet new at this

Man stands for manual of the command. Open a teminal and just type "man rpm" you can see the various arguments that can be used with rpm

Ok thanks, so there it will tell me were i can find the programs i installed and how to remove them etc ?

But how do i know where the rpm's are installing ? and what to exicute to run the program. Asi said i am a noice at this, so i need it explained very simply , sorry for the bother

Hi,
What the poster above said is true, I'm afraid you about to encounter the command line in all its glory
In brief all the GUI stuff you do, can be normally be done more powerfully and with greater flexibility using a console and the command line. To start with you will need a terminal window, my favorite is "konsole" which is a kde app and should have been installed by default by RH9. you can start it by making a shortcut or by using the run command.
Try out these rpm commands for size (check man rpm for more info)
rpm -qa (this will give you a list of every rpm on your system)
rpm -qa | grep package_name (this will search for a sepcific package)
rpm -ivh package_name this will install a rpm you specify and give you lots of info while it does it (or cant do it as the case may be)
rpm -Uvh package_name upgrades a package
rpm -e package_name uninstalls a package
there are also --force and --nodeps options to make a package unintall or install but this may very well break something else so use with caution...
Finally check out freshrpms.net and the program apt-get (you will need apt-get and apt-get-devel). this is a very easy way to get a program you want PLUS all it's dependencies as well as keeping your install up to date, ie:
apt-get install mplayer will install the best media player for linux
apt-get update; apt-get upgrade will get all the software updates for your version...
Cheers

Excellent Reply ! Thanks. I will give it a try now and let you know the outcome.

Now im lost, i have evn added my self to the root group, which i know is a bad idea but i thought this might be an auorithy problem. This is the message i got

[danielsj@Jason danielsj]$ rpm -i apt-0.5.5cnc6-fr1.i386.rpm
warning: apt-0.5.5cnc6-fr1.i386.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID e42d547b
error: cannot get exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Operation not permitted (1)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm

Any ideas there ? And which is best, gnome or KDE ?. im using gnome at the moment''

Thanks again

I have just checked and by the looks of it i dont have the directory above that its looking for and trying to access, and am i right inh saying thats why im having problems installing rpms because that directory and rpm databse doesnt even excist ? Therefore it cannot install anything or read form it >??? im lost

Sorry to keep on, ive just loged in using a KDE session, for the first time using RH9. and to my surprise a package installed using gnome, and couldnt find in gnome, is appearing in the kde menu ??????????. i must admit at first looks i like kde

I'm trying to install DriverLoader and getting the EXACT same error messages. I don't think it's how you're executing commands, rather a problem with access to the right files. I'm a brand-spanking Newbie (installed Redhat just days ago) and trying to find my way around. Fortunately, I was somewhat proficient in getting around in UNIX 10 years ago and can operate at the command level. I can find the var/lib/rpm/Packages, but it's not accessing (probably as shown with the NOKEY response in the error message).

What should we do?

Just found a response on another listing. Log in as Root with su -
It worked for me. At least I got a different error message this time!

Yes it took me a while but i realised i wasnt logged in as root. logged in su, all ok now. KDE much better than gnome i think now. Just trying to get to grips with WINE now