1. Am I right assuming, as a noob that's just been told I messed up my dedi because I installed software from third party repos on my CentOS dedi, that if flvtool2 doesn't pop up in a 'yum search flvtool2' SSH lookup, I should look elsewhere than CentOS first-party repository?

2. This would mean that what is meant by repository is what is already inside yum, or whatever 'yum update'. This would mean that only this can be considered first-party CentOS repos and so only this is what is recommended by CentOS?

3. Is that 'elsewhere' the Dag Wieer's repository, the Dries' repository, and the Karanbir Singh's kbs-centos-extras Repository, and the RPMForge repository?


4. When installing things like Mencoder, Flvtool2 or FFMPEG following these instructions because they're the only ones I've found:

http://www.grafxsoftware.com/faq.php/HOW-TO-install-ffmpeg-Mplayer-mencoderFLVtool2-and-Yamdi-on-Plesk-Linux-based-server/1/16/

Am I not leaving the CentOS repos because I'm doing wget of the files I need? If so, how can this be avoided, how can I install these things from the place recommended by CentOS?

5. When looking up the RPMForge repository at

http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/RPMForge#head-5aabf02717d5b6b12d47edbc5811404998926a1b

and downloading the i386 file therein http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el5.rf.i386.rpm

(after doing uname -i to make sure I had i386) I tried to open it in notepad to see the files the repository had, in case it had the ones I was looking for, but it just gave me a messy unreadable file. What am I doing wrong? It's clearly not a notepad file, I see, but rather something you install in CentOS, but why install a repository into CentOS if you don't know it'll have the files you're actually looking for?

Welcome to the CentOS fora. Please see the recommended reading for new users linked in my signature.

Please read about Installing Software and Repositories, and note the warnings and advice about installing and configuring the yum priorities plugin. Non-core repos should have a higher numeric value, which is a lower priority. Lower is "better" as in golf scores.

The *-release packages for repos must be installed with "rpm" as explained above, and in the link you cited for RPMforge before they can be used. I see you have gotten some responses in your related thread.

If more help is needed then please ask specific questions with details of your difficulties and provide more information about your system by running "./getinfo.sh package" and showing us the output file.