[CentOS] yum is dumb in update of gmime & gmime-sharp

[ken]

On 11/28/2010 05:13 PM William Hooper wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 4:00 PM, ken <gebser at mousecar.com> wrote:
>>> You need to take a closer look at what yum is trying to install.  This
>>> message is telling you yum won't update the package because it will
>>> break a dependency on another installed package.
>> yum's trying to install gmime20.  This doesn't exist on my system.
>>
>> What dependency would break by installing it?
> 
> Looking at the RPMForge spec file for gmime20, it obsoletes any gmime
> lower that it's version. You are trying to install gmime20.i386
> 0:2.2.26-1.el5.rf, which will remove gmime-2.2.10-5.el5.centos.
> However, your currently installed gmime-sharp-2.2.10-5.el5.centos
> requires gmime-2.2.10-5.el5.centos.  You need to either remove
> gmime-sharp-2.2.10-5.el5.centos or find an updated version that will
> work with gmime20.i386 0:2.2.26-1.el5.rf.
> 

Thanks, WH.  Given that all this hassle is over one app (tomboy) which
is by no means critical to my system and that I don't even use that
much, I just decided to get rid of it... and gmime and gmime-sharp along
with it.  Problem solved.

The key to the puzzle for me was that, to install gmime20, it was
necessary to remove gmime.  I never would have guessed that... seems
counter-intuitive to me... and the only way to find that out is to look
in the spec file????!!  Or is there another way?

What in the spec file told you that?

Also... I know to look in the SPEC file by installing just the src, but
is there a shorter (another, better) way to look at it?

This is all academic to me at this point... just want to learn a bit
more about RPMs if you're up for sharing wisdom.

Thanks.