hi all - if i were to install something the old-fashioned way using configure-make, it seems to me yum wont update it. is it better to use yum where possible, so 'yum update' will maintain it for me? and i assume the same goes for rpm? and by the way, this worked GREAT: (thanks) wget http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/dag.repo <<EOF [dag] name=Dag RPM Repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el\$releasever/en/\$basearch/dag gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 EOF
It is recommended to install programs from source into /opt. That is, in the configure line you use ./configure --prefix=/opt/programname RPM's will be installed in prefix /usr with the config dir /etc This way rpm's and compiled from source programs do not conflict.
but are we better off getting yum to work for the install? that way we can issue "yum update" from cron like you suggested earlier and yum takes care of updates.
I recommend YUM be tried first, on the OS repo's. That way security updates are included on the programs which may be needed in the future. RHEL based systems have up to 7 years of security updates included. Of course, this is not always possible such as when a newer version is needed not supported in yum. In that case installing from source, but to /opt/programname is recommended.
