GnoRPM
------

This is the GnoRPM package.  It is a front end for Red Hat's RPM package
management tool, that runs under X.  Unlike Red Hat's Glint frontend,
GnoRPM is written in C, and links directly with rpm, and doesn't need a
copy of RPM to run.  Also, it uses GTK+ and the Gnome libraries for the
GUI, rather than TK.

Like rpm and glint, gnorpm is distributed under the Gnu General Public
License version 2 (GPL), so you can modify it if you don't like it.
Naturally, if you want to distribute your changes, you must also distribute
source code.  The easiest way to do this is to send your patches to me
(james@daa.com.au).


Compilation
-----------

Before compiling gnorpm, you will need recent copies of gtk and the
gnome-libs packages compiled and installed (gtk+-1.2 and gnome>1.0 is
the prefered setup), as well as librpm.a, which is found in the
rpm-devel RPM package (you do have rpm don't you? :)

Also, you should have the gnome-xml (or libxml) and gnome-http (or libghttp)
packages.  If you don't, you wont be able to build the rpmfind extensions.
If you don't want these extensions, give configure the argument
--disable-rpmfind.

This package uses autoconf and automake, so it's build procedure is
pretty much the same as for any other package.  If you have all the
prerequisites, it is as simple as running configure (with the --prefix
or --with-gnome argument pointing to the prefix for Gnome), them make,
and finally, as root, run "make install".


Running
-------

The simplest way of running gnorpm is to execute it with no arguments.  This
will open up the main package view window.  You will notice that all the
toolbar icons look the same.  This is because I am not very artistic.  If you
want to donate some pixmaps for the toolbar, I would be grateful.

In the main window, The tree represents the package group heirachy.  By
clicking on one of the group names, you can display the packages in that
group in the clist to the right.  The clist is a multiple select one, and
the selection is `global' across groups (that is if you select a package
from group A, then select group B, that first package is still selected).

After selecting a few packages, you can click on the query, verify or
uninstall buttons.  Note that if you are not logged in as root, you will
get an error when you try to uninstall packages.

If you want to install or upgrade some packages, click on the appropriate
tool bar button.  You will be presented with an empty list with a few buttons
around it.  If you click on the add button, you can add files to that list.
After selecting a few files, you can click on the query button to open a
query window for the selected packages, or click on the install button to
perform the install/upgrade. (FIXME: is there a better way to structure the
install process in gnorpm???)

As well as using gnorpm in this manner, you can also pass gnorpm the arguments
-q or -qp to directly query a few packages, as you would with the normal
rpm executable.  This may be useful if you want to use gnorpm as a helper
application for Netscape/Mozilla for viewing RPM files (application/x-rpm).

You can also use the argument -i (or -U) to install (or upgrade) packages.


Contacting the Author
---------------------

If you find a bug in gnorpm, please tell me.  This is the only way I get to
know about some of the bugs in the program.  Also, if you can think of any
features you would like to see, or want to donate code (or pixmaps for the
toolbar), mail me.  My email address is <james@daa.com.au>
