On Tue, Jan 27, 2004 at 11:16:24AM +0000, BFD wrote: > > When using up2date, I notice that there are two files downloaded for > each update: a .rpm file and a .hdr file. > > What is the purpose of the .hdr file? The simple answer is that .hdr file is the meta data for the rpm file. This permits tools like up2date to make decisions about packages and package dependency issues without downloading the full package. Note the size difference: # ls -l xboard-4.2.7-1.i386.hdr xboard-4.2.7-1.i386.rpm -rw------- 1 root root 6572 Jan 15 20:37 xboard-4.2.7-1.i386.hdr -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 282779 Jan 15 21:24 xboard-4.2.7-1.i386.rpm If you look you may have .hdr files and no associated .rpm file. For these no package download and update was needed after inspecting the info in the header file. > If I want to save on CD all the updates that I have applied to my system > since I installed Fedora Core 1 that are now in /var/spool/up2date, do I > need include the .hdr files or just the .rpm files? Strictly speaking you do not need the .hdr file but you have them now. If you need to reinstall they can help speed things up depending on how you do updates. The .rpm package has the meta data so .hdr files are redundant but for some install tricks they need to be regenerated. Read about setting up a locate disk and local network repository in the archives. -- T o m M i t c h e l l mitch48-at-sbcglobal-dot-net
