The RPM Package Manager* helps keep me sane :-P.

Here's some RPM hints...

• Use RPM - don't just go sticking strange libraries into your system directories

• if you'd try to bypass RPM that will lead to dependency hell!

• copy all your RPMs onto your hard-drive... don't muck about swapping CDs
• install all the packages with the one command line... let RPM sort out what order to install them in
• Use Checkinstall... so everything is managed by RPM
• if someones bothered to package an RPM, they've probably packaged the dependencies too, or they're already on the Fedora CDs, or they'll tell you where to find them

RPM Commands

rpm -qa - lists all the packages which have been installed
rpm -Uvh package.rpm - add/upgrade a package
rpm -ev package - remove a package

rpm -qilp package.rpm - see what's in a package
rpm -qf file - what package does this file belong to?
rpm -q --qf '%{ARCH}' kernel - find out what architecture (i386/i686/athelon) kernel is installed.
rpm -q --changelog package - read the change log for a package
rpm2cpio package.rpm|cpio -i --make-directories - extract the files out of a package
rpm --rebuilddb - rebuild RPM's indexes

If RPM goes really sour *

pkill rpm
rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rpm --rebuilddb

man rpm for more!

Installing software from source code

CheckInstall is a fantastic utility for managing those apps which don't come as RPMs. Instead of doing a make install, you run checkinstall and let it create a RPM, which it then installs. (Or checkinstall python setup.py install for those Python packages.)

Finding RPMs

Sometimes I just can't be bothered building a package from source and there's no RPM provided. Well maybe someone else has done the work for me.
http://www.rpmfind.net
http://rpm.pbone.net
http://www.freshrpms.net
http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software
http://dag.wieers.com/packages
If all else fails Google for it!!!

YUM and APT automatically install dependencies, but depend on all the software being available in big central repositories

Linux | Fedora | AlanCox | RedHatUpdates