RPM Lament

[Jeffrey Watts]

On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Brian Densmore wrote:

> Any suggestions? Remember my goal here was to install Gnome 2!
>
> I'm thinking of wiping the system and reinstalling, but I really hate
> to lose all that configuration on a server.

Back up all of your configuration data to tape (or a spare hard drive),
and reinstall.  You've seriously trashed your RPM database at this point
and cleaning it up will take far longer than just re-installing.  I highly
recommend RH7.  If you don't have a tape drive, go to Surplus Exchange and
see if you can pick up a SCSI DAT drive -- I've picked up about three from
them -- usually I buy them for $10 each.  Four gigabytes of tape is
usually enough for config files and home directories.

FYI, I believe all you had to do was apply the Red Hat errata and it would
have installed a version of RPM3 that's compatible with RPM4's package
format.

Also, which gnome were you installing?  I highly recommend HelixGnome
(www.helixcode.com).  Helix should work with most distributions without
needing to install any errata or updates.

Finally, why are desktops being used on a server?  It's generally
considered to be more secure and more stable to not install X on a server
if you can avoid it (I personally only install the X libraries -- no X
server).

Hope this helps,
Jeffrey.

o-----------------------------------o
| Jeffrey Watts                     |
| watts at jayhawks.net         o-----------------------------------------o
| Systems Programmer         | "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a       |
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| Sprint Communications      |  "Look, I'm a computer programmer.      |
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