Operation Manual
This forces a complete refresh and rebuild of the database, including a forced download
of raw metadata.
7.1.8 For More Information
For more information on managing software from the command line, enter zypper
help, zypper help command or refer to the zypper(8) manpage. For a com-
plete and detailed command reference, including cheat sheets with the most im-
portant commands, and information on how to use Zypper in scripts and applications,
refer to http://wiki.opensuse.org/SDB:Zypper_usage. A list of software
changes for the latest openSUSE version can be found at . [http://wiki.opensuse
.org/SDB:Zypper_changes_11.3] .
7.2 RPM—the Package Manager
RPM (RPM Package Manager) is used for managing software packages. Its main
commands are rpm and rpmbuild. The powerful RPM database can be queried by
the users, system administrators and package builders for detailed information about
the installed software.
Essentially, rpm has ve modes: installing, uninstalling (or updating) software packages,
rebuilding the RPM database, querying RPM bases or individual RPM archives, integrity
checking of packages and signing packages. rpmbuild can be used to build installable
packages from pristine sources.
Installable RPM archives are packed in a special binary format. These archives consist
of the program les to install and certain meta information used during the installation
by rpm to congure the software package or stored in the RPM database for documen-
tation purposes. RPM archives normally have the extension .rpm.
TIP: Software Development Packages
For a number of packages, the components needed for software development
(libraries, headers, include les, etc.) have been put into separate packages.
These development packages are only needed if you want to compile software
yourself (for example, the most recent GNOME packages). They can be identied
106 Reference