On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:31:52 -0500, R. wrote: > I think I have had actually had to use --force about twice in four > years, in some circumstance where part of a package was messed up but > the system didn't' know that. That doesn't sound right. The RPM database certainly knows about packages which are "messed up". It can verify package integrity. And you can replace damaged packages by reinstalling them using appropriate options. --force is not needed for that. Let's look at "man rpm": --force Same as using --replacepkgs, --replacefiles, and --oldpackage. The dangerous option here is only --replacefiles. That may not become obvious immediately, so let's see what it does: --replacefiles Install the packages even if they replace files from other, already installed, packages. In other words, with this option you can damage installed packages by making one package overwrite files which belong into other packages. It's a great way to kill a system, provided you forcefully install a wrong set of packages which overwrites important system files. Please don't recommend the --force option. Recommend -i --replacepkgs for reinstalls, -U --oldpackage for downgrades. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines