Creating your own RPM file

Even though I am advocating the use of YUM to manage software installations, we are still going to need RPM files. YUM is totally dependent on the underlying RPM files and infrastructure; the RPM file remains the software package that the yum command will install and these RPM files are instilled at the heart of the CentOS software management.

You might be able to cast your mind back to Chapter 2, Cold Starts, of this book when we were investigating Plymouth themes during the boot process; we are now going to create our own simple theme to brand our desktop or server with a corporate wallpaper during the system startup and shutdown. Once we have created the theme, the easiest way to install it across many systems is to distribute the theme as an RPM file. Later in this chapter, we will add the RPM to a YUM repository.

Creating the Plymouth theme

Firstly, we must create the theme, and with that completed, we shall be able to package it as an RPM file. Our theme will...