I want to install htop on Oracle Linux 8.7. How hard could it be?
TL;DR; - it’s not hard, but it took me a little while to get htop installed. I’m not new to (most) Linux distros, but this is the first time I’m using Oracle Linux.
So, let’s start by showing some basic information.
[root@catbus ~]# cat /etc/os-release | grep -i pretty
PRETTY_NAME="Oracle Linux Server 8.7"
[root@catbus ~]# rpm -qi htop
package htop is not installed
[root@catbus ~]# dnf search htop
Last metadata expiration check: 0:23:03 ago on Mon 06 Feb 2023 11:32:58 AM GMT.
No matches found.
The above output shows that htop is not installed, and the package is not available in all enabled repositories.
We know that htop is available on the EPEL repo for CentOS 8, RockyLinux 8, AlamLinux 8…etc. Following this route, we can try to enable EPEL repo on this machine.
[root@catbus ~]# dnf search epel
Last metadata expiration check: 0:25:49 ago on Mon 06 Feb 2023 11:32:58 AM GMT.
========================== Name & Summary Matched: epel ================================================
oracle-epel-release-el8.x86_64 : Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) yum repository configuration
oracle-epel-release-el8.src : Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) yum repository configuration
[root@catbus ~]# rpm -q oracle-epel-release-el8.x86_64
oracle-epel-release-el8-1.0-5.el8.x86_64
[root@catbus ~]# dnf repolist
repo id repo name
ol8_MySQL80 MySQL 8.0 for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_MySQL80_connectors_community MySQL 8.0 Connectors Community for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_MySQL80_tools_community MySQL 8.0 Tools Community for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_UEKR6 Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 6 for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_addons Oracle Linux 8 Addons (x86_64)
ol8_appstream Oracle Linux 8 Application Stream (x86_64)
ol8_baseos_latest Oracle Linux 8 BaseOS Latest (x86_64)
ol8_ksplice Ksplice for Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
ol8_oci_included Oracle Software for OCI users on Oracle Linux 8 (x86_64)
Let’s try to understand what is shown above. On Oracle Linux 8, the EPEL repo is provided by a package named oracle-epel-release-el8.x86_64 and it looks like it’s already been installed.
Listing all the (enabled) repos, it looks like the EPEL repo is not enabled. Let’s confirm that.
[root@catbus ~]# dnf repolist --all | grep -i epel
ol8_developer_EPEL Oracle Linux 8 EPEL Packages for Devel disabled
ol8_developer_EPEL_modular Oracle Linux 8 EPEL Modular Packages f disabled
Ah, the EPEL repo was installed but not enabled yet, notice the disabled at the end of the repo’s name. Let’s do it.
Update (2024-05-20):
If you read this post carefully, you’d notice that the step to enable the EPEL repo was completely missing. Sorry about that! Thanks to Richard E., who took the time to let me know via email, you may use the following command to do just that:
[root@catbus ~]# dnf config-manager --enable ol8_developer_EPEL
/ end update /
Let’s verify to ensure the required repo ol8_developer_EPEL has been enabled as intended:
[root@catbus ~]# dnf repolist --all | grep -i epel
ol8_developer_EPEL Oracle Linux 8 EPEL Packages for Devel enabled
ol8_developer_EPEL_modular Oracle Linux 8 EPEL Modular Packages f disabled
At this point, we should be able to install htop using dnf install htop as usual.
[root@catbus ~]# dnf install htop -y
Oracle Linux 8 EPEL Packages for Development (x86_64) 26 MB/s | 41 MB 00:01
Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:32 ago on Mon 06 Feb 2023 12:05:39 PM GMT.
Dependencies resolved.
=========================================================================================================
Package Architecture Version Repository Size
=========================================================================================================
Installing:
htop x86_64 3.2.1-1.el8 ol8_developer_EPEL 171 k
Transaction Summary
=========================================================================================================
Install 1 Package
Total download size: 171 k
Installed size: 396 k
Downloading Packages:
htop-3.2.1-1.el8.x86_64.rpm 876 kB/s | 171 kB 00:00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 834 kB/s | 171 kB 00:00
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Running transaction
Preparing : 1/1
Installing : htop-3.2.1-1.el8.x86_64 1/1
Running scriptlet: htop-3.2.1-1.el8.x86_64 1/1
Verifying : htop-3.2.1-1.el8.x86_64 1/1
Installed:
htop-3.2.1-1.el8.x86_64
Complete!
[root@catbus ~]# rpm -q htop
htop-3.2.1-1.el8.x86_64
Well, if you followed along all the way to the end, I hope you’d learned something.