On Sun, 2006-03-12 at 15:30 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote: > When I can't find a package with yum, I wonder whether it is safe to install a > package simply designated 'Other' such as > > Other > ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/sourceforge/i/im/imgseek/imgSeek-0.8.2-1.i386.rpm > > I assume these packages are safe enough, but does it mean that they are so > generic that they will work, but not necessarily be optimised? ---- how can we evaluate whether a package is 'safe' if we don't know the package? If you believe that all binaries on sourceforge are 'safe' - then by all means install it. If you are looking for a generic rpm, that is a source rpm which you rebuild on your system - which is always the best thing to do. There are things such as 'noarch' rpms which are typically php/perl/text/shell scripts or other compiled on the fly programs but binaries by nature are compiled by specific versions of the C compiler and not generally mobile between OS's unless they use something 'known' as in compat-libstdc++ (which is how the 'proprietary' software vendors would likely supply their binaries). Craig
