On Fri, 2006-01-06 at 00:59 +0000, Alastair McKinley wrote: > >Alastair McKinley wrote: > > > > > >Peter Skensved wrote: > > > > > > > > I would start by backing up /root, /boot, /etc and /var > >plus anything installed in /usr/local and /home . Next get a list of > >all installed RPMs ( rpm -qa | sort or rpm -a --qf "%{NAME}\n" | sort ) > > > > > > and save them somewhere. With that information you can > > probably reconstruct your laptop if everything fails ( this > > assumes you always install binaries > > > >from RPM files and stuff from random tar files in /usr/local ) > > > > Once you have done that run rpm -Va and save the output. This > >will give you a list of missing files. Try installing the missing > >ones with rpm -Uv --force . If that works then heck for .rpmnew files > >and try reconstructing any munged configuration files. > > > > > > > > I've successfully done the above with a really clobbered file > > system on a laptop. > > > > peter > >---- > > > >Peter Skensved Email : peter SNO Phy QueensU CA > >Dept. of Physics, > >Queen's University, > >Kingston, Ontario, > >Canada > > > > > > > >Hi Peter, > > > > > > > > Thanks for your advice. I managed to install enough libraries > > manually to get rpm up and running again. What will the rpm -Uv > > --force command actually do? > > > Patrick Boutilier wrote: > > > Reinstall the RPM (files as well) even though the RPM is already > > installed according to the RPM database. > > > Can yum do something similar and go and get the packages from the repos? > > I don't think so. If yum sees the package already installed and the version matches then it will not even make the attempt. I don't see anything in 'man yum' that would allow you to force it to do an overwrite (forced) install. > Alastair > > >