RPMs.

[Brian Kelsay]

Chris wrote:

> I have a quick question (I hope).
> 
> I went to walk a friend through an installation of an rpm that she didn't have 
> installed on a RH9 install (it's on an older box - like an MMX 233 with 96MB 
> - but it runs OK) and when I got her into a terminal and had her rpm the 
> package (openssl) the install never completed. It just hung. 
> 
> So I had her kill the process and went back to reinstall it when she got an 
> error saying that it was already installed. I had her do an rpm -e 
> package_name and the system told her it wasn't installed.
> 
> How can I get that rpm out of there and try to reinstall it?
> 
> She downloaded the version from rpmfind.net, since she didn't have the CDs (I 
> have the originals). 

You could try installing the RPM again and if it won't let you, use the 
option "--force".  Do this only w/ the exact same version.  Also, I 
always use "rpm -Uvh package name.version", because the v option for 
verbose will let you know what is going on during install.  There is 
also a command to rebuild/fix the rpm database.  I've never had to do 
this, I guess it is for when the system is really fubar and you want to 
save it.  I've seen the command several times in Linux Journal responses 
to letters for help.  From an O'Reilly article after a quick search of 
google:
----------------
Database rebuild options

The syntax of the command to rebuild the RPM database is:

rpm --rebuilddb [options]

You also can build a new database:

rpm --initdb [options]

The options available with the database rebuild mode are the --dbpath 
and --root options described earlier under "General options".
---------------
Another thought for you, is that since she is using rpmfind.net, why not 
use freshrpms.net and set up apt4rpm.  It's really easy.  Since I 
started using it I've had very few failed installs.   Only when they 
don't have the package I'm looking for.

-- 
" * Portions Copyright (c) 1995 Caldera, Inc.  * Neither Greg Page nor 
Caldera, Inc. admit liability nor provide * warranty for any of this 
software. This material is provided * "AS-IS" and at no charge."

Hmmm.