Consequences of installing rpms not in a repository?

Hi
I am running Leap 15.3 rather than Tumbleweed as I need a stable installation rather than have all the cutting-edge developments.

Some years ago I used calcurse as a diary/to-do app, as according to a write-up then it did not have many dependencies other than libcurses, so I thought it would be easy to keep using it through system upgrades; I have now installed it on Leap 15.3 …

Now here is what I did;

  1. Downloaded the 15.2 Official release (No official release for 15.3 yet)

At first on running


rpm -qp --requires <package> 

I was dismayed to see the listed dependencies that I could not see in YAST, but I learned here https://documentation.suse.com/sbp/all/html/SBP-RPM-Packaging/index.html
that zypper is the (very best) way to resolve dependency issues (Indeed all the packages for calcurse that I looked at with rpm -qp seemed to have the same dependencies and if libc.so.xxx refers to Star Office they were historical).

So I did
2)

# zypper install --dry-run --download-only <package>

# zypper install calcurse-4.3.0-lp152.3.6.x86_64.rpm
Loading repository data...
Warning: Repository 'OpenSuseBackports' appears to be outdated. Consider using a different mirror or server.
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

The following 2 NEW packages are going to be installed:
  calcurse calcurse-lang

2 new packages to install.
Overall download size: 0 B. Already cached: 203.3 KiB. After the operation, additional 550.5 KiB will be used.
Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): y
In cache calcurse-4.3.0-lp152.3.6.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                                                     (1/2), 153.6 KiB (393.4 KiB unpacked)
In cache calcurse-lang-4.3.0-bp153.1.15.noarch.rpm                                                                                                                               (2/2),  49.7 KiB (157.1 KiB unpacked)

Checking for file conflicts: ...................................................................................................................................................................................[done]
(1/2) Installing: calcurse-4.3.0-lp152.3.6.x86_64 ..............................................................................................................................................................[done]
(2/2) Installing: calcurse-lang-4.3.0-bp153.1.15.noarch ................................................................................................................................................done

zypper se -si calcurse
Loading repository data...
Warning: Repository 'OpenSuseBackports' appears to be outdated. Consider using a different mirror or server.
Reading installed packages...

S  | Name          | Type    | Version          | Arch   | Repository
---+---------------+---------+------------------+--------+------------------
i+ | calcurse      | package | 4.3.0-lp152.3.6  | x86_64 | (System Packages)
i  | calcurse-lang | package | 4.3.0-bp153.1.15 | noarch | Main Repository
i  | calcurse-lang | package | 4.3.0-bp153.1.15 | noarch | OpenSuseBackports

And both packages are shown in YAST! So presumably I could do a clean uninstall (I didn’t make a snapshot as I am short of hard drive space)?

If it doesn’t work well I guess this is not the palace to discuss this app but I am not bothered that it is not the latest package (it is much later than the last version I used!).
If/when it does appear in the repositories for 15.3 I guess I will be prompted to upgrade? And that the new packages will be verified at that time with the correct signing key?
Have I avoided dependency hell or a broken system in the future? What about if I upgrade to Leap 15.4 next year or in the future?

Thanks for any advice.

Searching on OBS ( https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/utilities/calcurse )

There’s a version for 15.3 in the “utilities” repository… ( http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/utilities/openSUSE_Leap_15.3/ )

Its in the OSS Repo, no need to download from anywhere:

LANG=C zypper se -s calcurse
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S | Name          | Type    | Version          | Arch   | Repository
--+---------------+---------+------------------+--------+-----------
  | calcurse      | package | 4.3.0-bp153.1.15 | x86_64 | OSS
  | calcurse-lang | package | 4.3.0-bp153.1.15 | noarch | OSS

Ah I see that se -s gives a detailed view with “all available instances”. I missed that, thanks for teaching that to me.

Thanks Paul. I have added that repository and can see a more up to date version available …