redhat-config-packages & rpm anomaly

[Keith G. Robertson-Turner]

Here's a strange one:

I don't usually bother with redhat-config-packages, but I ran it just now
and discovered an ... "anomaly" I guess.

There are several packages which have been updated from the on-disk
versions, several which have been added, and just one that is missing ...
but that does not seem to be reflected in the package list in
rh-cf-packages.

First off, I deliberately removed XFree86-Mesa-libGL since it conflicts
with the "nvidia" GL package, but I don't see it listed as "not
installed" - i.e. empty checkbox - anywhere. It's just not listed at all.
However, running "yum list" clearly shows me that package.

Second, I downloaded the libjpeg source rpm, and rebuilt it including the
"lossless" patch, which I needed for a program called MaPiVi. I edited the
specfile to include the new patch and rebuilt for an i686 target. I rpm
-ev --nodeps both libjpeg and libjpeg devel then rpm -i installed the
newly compiled i686 versions. Maybe I should have done an rpm -Uvh
--replacefiles install rather than removing it first, I really don't know
if it makes any difference.

All the libjpeg components seem to be working fine, and a quick rpm -Vv
didn't show any problems, but running rh-cf-packages shows libjpeg-devel
is missing (empty checkbox) but rpm -q shows it *is* installed. So I went
ahead and satisfied it's demand, checked the box, inserted the CD and let
it install the i386 version. I didn't think dependencies were arch
dependent, are they?

Weird?

Now I know that building libjpeg-devel for i686 is pointless, since it's
all source anyway (the only binary was actually a symlink to
libjpeg.so.62.0.0 in the main libjpeg package), but still, why does
rh-cf-packages not believe the rpm database?

Immediately after this episode. I upgraded rh-cf-packages to 1.2.7-1 from
testing, same result. Also rpm --rebuilddb. No change, but then it doesn't
seem to be rpm that's broken, it's something specific to rh-cf-packages.

-
[H]omer