WARNING! Due to my background, I don't often read man pages like I used to. So there may be some inaccuracies or ambiguities below. On Thu, 2008-06-26 at 11:58 +0200, Bernhard Gschaider wrote: > <snip> > Sorry. Stupid question again: and if I find inconsistencies, then the Keep in mind that *some* inconsistencies are expected. Local config files being one good example. You must look at the codes displayed in the output, and possibly the files, to be sure it is really a discrepancy. > only way to force rpm to correct them yould be something like > > yum remove offendingPackage > yum install offendingPackage > > or the equivalent rpm-commands? Not the only way, but probably the safest. However, that may try to also remove some dependencies, depending on the package you're trying to remove. I seem to recall a "force" parameter that is available for rpm and yum. Although normally disparaged, this is a perfect situation for its use. > > Currently the machine behaves quite strange: > - Boots OK > - Lets users log in and most applications work > - Firefox works only for root > - yumex hangs at starting Depending on your time-frame, this may be a symptom of the load on the servers you access. Yesterday A.M. I saw *BIG* delays downloading the xml(?) files. But I use yum CLI, so I see the blood-n-guts on the screen. <BIAS> GUIs suck... in general</BIAS> > - "man rpm" says XXX WARNING: old character encoding and/or character set > > All this leads me to the conclusion that there are only some selected > packages corrupt (and I don't want to reinstall the machine). Would > Installing/Repairing from DVD help? Maybe. But some of the rpms might be on your system from the update activities. Do and updatedb and then a locate .rpm. You may see some in /var/cache/yum. Subdirs under it might have what you need. > > Bernhard > <snip> HTH -- Bill