I started with rpm. It is great as a beginner. Like what Dale Walsh said compiling is the best. Infact I started to learn how to compile because of clamav. With anti-virus software things are changing all the time and if you have to wait for an rpm, you will be late.
Spend the time to learn how to compile. It is really worth the time. And the best part is that it is not difficult.
Actually, you're better off learning to build your own RPMs if the distribution you're using is RPM-based. You can upgrade without worrying about old files lying around, and rolling back to the previous version is a snap.
Plus if you need to replace something that comes with the OS (like Sendmail or Apache) that other packages depend on, you don't have to convince them that yes, the libraries really are there, just not in the RPM database... because they really *are* in the database, and they're the libraries you compiled, with your options, patches and optimizations, built from the newer version your distro isn't willing to package because they prefer backporting fixes to upgrading.
-- Kelson Vibber SpeedGate Communications <www.speed.net> _______________________________________________ http://lurker.clamav.net/list/clamav-users.html
