[CentOS-devel] fixing broken yum update

Hi all,

Not quite sure where best to float this idea so I thought I try here 
first to reach a wider audience.

Recently we have seen a number of threads on the fora dealing with 
broken 'yum update' issues during updates from 5.1 to 5.2. I guess the 
mailing list has probably seen it's share of similar issues.

Here's an example of one such thread:

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14999&forum=37

I'm wondering if it would be useful to put together a *generic* 
procedure to recover from such issues, one that should work in most cases.

In addition, maybe some advice/tips to minimise the risk of performing a 
large update. I'm thinking of things like performing updates in a screen 
session when remotely updating over an ssh login in case the ssh 
connection gets lost mid-update. Also, I tend to perform updates in 
smaller chunks like:

manually install new kernel packages
yum update yum\* rpm\*
yum update open\*
yum update gnome\* kde\* xorg\*
etc

to minimise the damage if it goes horribly wrong at any point. Not sure 
if that's good practice or not but it works for me.

Plus any other advice relevant to the update procedure - how many times 
did people ask the difference between 'yum upgrade' and 'yum update', 
and which they should use :)

If it's deemed a good idea, I'm happy to help put together a Wiki page 
or something although some help with the content (ie, a generic fix, 
tips and advice) would be appreciated.