The Brilliance that is Yum

For those of you who do not use Linux in anyform probably don't know what yum is. like most programs made to run on linux, it is an accronym, which stands for YellowDog updater Modified. I can only guess that it was written for the Linux Distro YellowDog, and it has since been modified to work with other linux distro's one being Fedora Core. which I am currently using.

It is the most innovative and brillant tool that i have ever used. As you can probably guess by its name, that it is an updater, and it has been modified. if you do not have a particular piece of software installed and want it to be so, all you have to do in the terminal as root is type 'yum install package' where package is replaced with the program you want installed. if it so happens that the program you want intsalled needs other programs to work properly then it will also download and install them as well. not only that it will also update any software that needs updated. It does all the work so you dont have to.

it is how i updated Firefox. with the command 'yum update firefox' of course it only updated it within its version. from 1.5.0.7-1 to 1.5.0.10-1 if i want firefox 2.0 installed i would have to tell it to install it. as it is essentially a different program. which i might do soon.

Linux is somewhat of a mystery to most people, and they probably think that it is extremely hard to get their head around, which is not true. if you dont know how to use either system they would both be rather easy to get to know, although Linux does have a steeper learning curve. or does it.

anyway, back on the topic of yum. extremely brilliant, I am currently installing GCC which is a 4.9MB download. yum has to install 4 new things and update a further 4 so i can use GCC, the other 7 programs are needed for GCC to work properly, all 8 downloads total 31meg. just so a 5meg program can be used.

awesome thing is all i had to do was type in 'yum install gcc' and it does. downloads everything needed. yay for innovative people.