yum update problem

[Timothy Murphy]

James Wilkinson wrote:

> I recommended:
>> cd /media/cdrom/Fedora/RPMS
>> rpm -F --oldpackage python-2.3.4-11.i386.rpm
>> and maybe
>> rpm -F --oldpackage yum-2.1.11-3.noarch.rpm
>> 
>> which should get you back to the versions on the install media.
> 
> Timothy Murphy wrote:
>> Are you sure that would work?
>> I would have thought I would get lots of depedemcy conflicts
>> next time I said "yum upgrade"?
>> (There were a fairly large number of packages updated
>> at the same time as python.)
> 
> Depends. Sorry.
> 
> It depends how much has been installed that requires a specific later
> version on Python.
> 
> But you should get these dependency conflicts when you try to run the
> rpm -F --oldpackage commands, not when you're running yum.

OK, thanks, that is useful to know.
 
> So if it doesn't work, it doesn't work (but you should take a look at
> what needs the later versions). If it works, you shouldn't get these
> problems on the next yum upgrade.

Actually, just getting the latest version of yum seems to have solved
all my problems, which as far as I can see were due to
a fairly big error in the python-2.4 interpreter.
Maybe I mis-read this - I don't know or use Python -
but if I am correct, and there is a fairly serious error 
in urllib2.py/urllib.py , I find it a little surprising
it was not corrected almost at once.

I assume (I didn't look into this) the later version of yum (2.1.12-1)
side-stepped this problem by using a different method to access an http URL.

> And you might find that rawhide fixes that awkward video card of
> yours...

On the other hand, I would be frightened that if it doesn't
I would never be able to get back to my present fully-working state.
At the moment, I get the xorg-x11 sources, add the tiny patch necessary,
cite it in the spec file, and re-build.
The compilation takes several hours on my Sony Picturebook laptop (C1VFK)
so I try to avoid it as far as possible ...

Incidentally, the whole problem arose because at some stage
I removed a package (system-config-printer) which did not seem to be working
(or at least, it was not working as others claimed it should,
to automatically configure CUPS so that I could us a remote printer).

My idea was that I could just "yum remove" and then "yum install"
to get back to the original position,
but I found that these operations are by no means mutually inverse,
as "yum remove" seemed to remove a whole range of packages
which for some reason I was not able to recover with "yum install".
Maybe "yum remove" should come with a health warning?


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland