Whatever I can do to help. >> I think you should look at if anything is manhandling your rpmdb. << Please be more specific. All I know about rpmdb is how to backup the old directory and run rpm --rebuild when rpm starts to act up. Looking at /root/.bash_history I see these manual runs of rpm: rpm -ivh FileRunner-2.5.1-1.i386.rpm rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12115-01.i586.rpm rpm -e Win4Lin rpm -ivh Win4Lin-5.5.11a-d.i386.rpm rpm -Uvh yum-2.0.4-20031205.noarch.rpm rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12115-01 rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12129-01.i586.rpm rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12129-01 rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12135-01.i586.rpm rpm -ivh mplayer-codecs-win32-qt-6.0-1.i386.rpm rpm -e mplayer-codecs-win32-qt-6.0-1 rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12135-01 rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12140-01.i586.rpm rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12140-01 rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12149-01.i586.rpm rpm -ivh rp8.linux20.libc6.i386.cs2.rpm After that there is a lot of manual cleanup.<s> I only use yum and rpm to add/remove software and only use rpm manually when there's no handy repository. (yes the win4lin thing _is_ getting repetitious) The messiest spot before the trouble started was a failed attempt at nvidia drivers: yum install nvidia-glx kernel-module-nvidia-driver yum remove XFree86-Mesa-libGL yum install kernel-module-nvidia-driver-2.4.22-1.2129.nptl rpm -e --nodeps XFree86-Mesa-libGL yum install nvidia-glx shutdown -r now yum remove nvidia-glx rpm -e nvidia-glx rpm -e --nodeps nvidia-glx rpm -ivh XFree86-Mesa-libGL yum install XFree86-Mesa-libGL yum remove kernel-module-nvidia-driver-2.4.22-1.2129.nptl But that was back in December of last year. The only difference between the destructive yum update and all the others was having yum 2.0.5-1.fd.fr.noarch as part of the plain yum update. For now I've added "exclude yum" to my /etc/yum.conf but that's a little heavy handed. I have one other box that got yum 2.0.5-1.fd.fr.noarch as part of a manual yum update. I can't get to it right now. But, I do recall that it needed rpm --rebuilddb because yum (and/or rpm) started displaying "BAD KEY ID" errors. I'll let you know if there's more to tell about that box. Anyway I'll be glad to provide any additional info, Cliff Kent
