upgrade, uninstall, etc...

[packman]

Many of you may have been asked this same question so many times... but here it goes again.. :p
What's the best way to maintain softwares? such as upgrading and uninstalling.
I like to upgrade my netscape but don't wanna lose old plugins and configurations.
I've read somewhere about upgrading
rpm -U name
But it is only for RPM file right? How can I do with other files like tar.. something.

Thanks :)

[sandeep]

for tar files there is no option for upgrading. It works with rpm since it keeps a file with it that contains details of installed packages.:cool:

[mdwatts]

Look into installing and using checkinstall which you can find by searching freshmeat.net