yum vs. rpm to install occasional products

[Robert G. (Doc) Savage]

On Sun, 2011-01-30 at 10:00 -0500, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> I recently installed Oracle-XE using yum --nogpgcheck localinstall
> oracle...rpm. No problem except that I screwed up the configuration. My
> coworker told me that I should use rpm(8) because the installation
> manual specified it rather than yum(8). My question is that is there any
> specific advantage using yum(8) over rpm(8).

Your coworker is wrong. yum (Yellowdog Updater Modified ported from
Yellowdog Linux for the PowerPC) is an intelligent front end for rpm
(Red Hat Package Manager) that adds dependency resolution capabilities.
They both use the rpm API and they install packages exactly the same
way.

yum and rpm each have their strengths. Dependency resolution is yum's.
Once in a great while you might encounter a dependency situation
(usually caused by a packaging error) that confuses yum. In those cases
rpm can be used to remove packages without bitching about dependencies.

--Doc Savage
  Fairview Heights, IL