Re: Difficulties installing GNOME with RH5.2

["Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant mail utexas edu>]

John Helly wrote:

> I'm trying to install gnome under 5.2 and get complaints from rpm about
> library dependencies when I use the command
>
> rpm -Uvh *.rpm
>
> The libraries which are complained about seem to exist so I suspect that
> somehow rpm just doesn't know about them.  I think I'm missing something
> fundamental about how libraries are used so I'm hoping that there is a
> simple fix to this but I know better.  I have repeatedly run ldconfig -v to
> ensure properly updated links and cache but that doesn't seem to have made
> any difference.
>
> When I run
>
> rpm -i *.rpm
>
> I get a whole host of messages telling me of conflicts with existing files.
>
> Any suggestions would be most welcome.

I assume your "under 5.2" refers to Red Hat 5.2.  If so, read on...

I had to use --force to get it to work.  But if you have installed any of the
pre-1.0 GNOMEs you'll end up with lots of trouble if you use --force and don't
get rid of the old stuff first.

I hate to give you too much advice, because I run a non-production system at
home and am always happy to bleed a little to stay close to the leading
edge.   You'll have to decide whether the following is to risky for your
situation:

I just used RPM to delete all the existing packages that I got the conflict
messages for, and then installed the new stuff.

I did the deletes recursively, i.e. without any forces.  If I tried to delete
something and it said something else needed it, then I deleted that something
else first, and worked my way down to the bottom of the dependencies.  Then I
worked my way back up.  It was a bit tedious to trace it all out, but I
thought it safer than hand-deleting things I wasn't sure about.

But you do need to do some cleanup, or you'll get a mess that won't work very
well at all.  I tried to put 1.0 on top of (.99 on top of .30), and the result
wasn't usable.  I went through the process described above, and things
actually work, though it still doesn't seem to be as stable for me as it is
for others.  I'm going to do a clean install of RH 6 in a couple of weeks, and
hope to get yet more improvement from that.

Good luck,

Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas