I'm sorry if you have gotten this 381 times already, but on the long shot that no one reported this one... As part of a debug exercise, I'm in the process of building a brand spanking new Red Hat 9 box from the CDs that I've been lovingly carrying around all these years. My goal: load the system, then use Yum to bring everything up to date. Well... > [root@testing src]# yum update > Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) > Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base > Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - updates > Finding updated packages > Downloading needed headers > No Packages Available for Update > No actions to take > [root@testing src]# yum list kernel > Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) > Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base > Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - updates > Finding updated packages > Downloading needed headers > Looking in Available Packages: > Name Arch Version Repo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Looking in Installed Packages: > Name Arch Version Repo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > kernel i686 2.4.20-8 db The problem is that the version for the most up-to-date kernel is 2.4.20-37. Oops. I guest that 8 is greater than 37 in this context. I already know your next question! > [root@testing src]# yum list yum > Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) > Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base > Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - updates > Finding updated packages > Downloading needed headers > Looking in Available Packages: > Name Arch Version Repo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Looking in Installed Packages: > Name Arch Version Repo > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > yum noarch 2.0.3-0.fdr.1.rh90 db One good thing came out of this -- I've now been exposed to Python. Something new to learn every day. I ran into something like this when I wrote an RPM package manager. What did I end up doing? I took any digit string and made it ten digits long before making comparisons between names. So, for example, I would expand the current Yum verion: 2.0.3-0.fdr.1.rh90 to 000000002.0000000000.0000000003-000000000.fdr.000000001.rh0000000090 (This assumes that the "rh90" wouldn't be removed in suffic analysis. Somehow, I suspect that the string "fdr.1.rh90" would be removed, but I don't know your naming standards.) And that's one way you make sure that "8" is *not* greater than "37'. It was easy using Perl's pattern matching. How would I do this in Python? I leave that to you Python coders. Respectfully, Stephen Satchell The Man In The Box (net/sys admin) American Internet, Inc.
