Installing RedHat RPM packages on VectorLinux (and possibly other distros) using Midnight Commander

Okay, my posts seem to get shorter and simpler by the day, but this comment by user lighans on my last post prompted me to write another quickie about installing stuff in VectorLinux.

Sometimes I’m a bit disappointed, because very few apps offer Slackware-ready (not to speak of VL-ready) packages on their websites for download. Thanks to the great community over at VectorLinux.com, more and more packages become available for VL on a daily basis, but some won’t be (possibly for good reasons).

However, a lot of times, RPM packages are available, as RPM is the standard package format under the Linux Standard Base. Fair enough, you might think, but how would that help me? Well, being a standard, of course there are options provided to be able to install RPM packages on other systems than RedHat or RH-based distributions. In VectorLinux (and quite possibly in all Slackware and even still possibly in most other distros), you have exactly two tools for installing RPM packages to your non-RedHat system:

Cognitive prerequisites for running Linux on old hardware

Okay, I know the title is very big-headed, but I have thought about how finding the right Linux distribution for your old hardware isn’t simply determined by the hardware itself, but equally by how much you know or are willing to learn about Linux. Which is why I want to write about a few things that I think might be helpful to know before you attempt to install Linux (hopefully VectorLinux Light) on your old machine. Please keep in mind that all of this is from my own, a distinctly newbie, perspective and will probably not be d’accord with the experiences, ideas or opinions of more estimated users of Linux or indeed “users” in general. In the light of the latest Win vs. Linux scandal, and coming from years of using Windows myself, I guess this post would be first and foremost addressed to any Windows user who wants to try Linux on their old machine in order to raise it from the dead.

So what in Linus Torvalds’ name, then, are the “cognitive prerequisites” of running Linux on an old laptop?

Spoilt for choice – spoiled choice: Finding the right Linux distribution for my old laptop

So, there I was, with a new old complimentary laptop. Great, because I’ve never owned one. Not so great, because it was running W*****s 2k and sluggish. As I had to do a little MySQL and PHP and needed to svn stuff, I thought it was a great idea to install Linux.

So far so good, I g**gled, and minutes later was downloading a Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibis ISO. Burnt that, and flew through the user-friendly install routines. “Great”, I thought, “so Linux has changed a lot since I last used it.”