Issue
Is there a way to install multiple versions of the same package in CentOS/RHEL (7/8) if the package installs separate files in each version?
We have an application we've recently converted to using RPM instead of a home-built package manager based on tar. In order to make atomic-like switches between versions, each version installed in separate directories with the version number in the name, and a symlink with the unversioned name pointed to the current, or previous, version at any given moment in time. The application, of course, used the unversioned name to get init script, configuration files, interpreter version and code. I'm thinking that the alternatives package would be the basis for this, although we wouldn't use the alternatives command to manage symlinks (although there's no technical reason not to).
Solution
Not exactly as you describe.
Some packages allow this (Kernel and Kernel-devel being two of them) but i beilieve this is an exception added within the package manager.
Certain Applications like PHP and Python which is perfectly acceptable to have multiple version (Python2.X and 3.X) do this by changing the base name of the application/rpm.
Take a look at: https://rpm.org/user_doc/multiple_versions.html It gives a good insight on how to achieve what you want
Answered By - tomgalpin