Hello Tom,
On Mon, 2012-06-11 at 14:23 +0100, Tom Brown wrote:
from memory i have not deliberately removed the i386 package, but you are right it is not there, however rpm does seem to know about /bin/tar
# rpm -ql tar /bin/gtar /bin/tar
<snip>
although i agree its something rpm db related as reinstalling tar via rpm rather than yum solves the problem, however i dont see how this situation has arisen.
rm /bin/tar will remove the binary but not update the rpmdb.
rpm -V {package} to verify the package installation.
Regards, Leonard.