This is a little off topic as I'm dealing with Redhat 2.1AS in this scenario, but please read on. If I have all of the rpm's as well as the rpm's they depend on that I want to install to tailor and/or upgrade a base install, is there any reason why I shouldn't do a rpm --nodeps vs. letting yum or apt handle dependencies? Here's my scenario - I build systems to QA my company's software. In doing so, I need to be able to build systems using the exact versions of software we support. So, I keep all rpms I install and/or upgrade in a share per each release of our software. Currently, I just do a rpm --Uvh --nodeps to allow the packages to be installed, knowing I'm installing the necessary dependants, but possibly not in the "correct" order.