Can't add or remove packages in FC4

[BRUCE STANLEY]

--- Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org> wrote:

> Dave Gutteridge wrote:
> > 
> > I'm running FC 4 with the latest kernel.
> > My desire was to have the ability to input
> Japanese, but before I can 
> > even get to that, I have a more fundamental
> problem. When I went to 
> > Desktp | System Settings | Add/Remove Packages to
> install multilingual 
> > support, and selected the languages that I wanted
> to isntall, it said I 
> > had to install iiimf drivers first. I went on to
> the web to see if I 
> > could download these drivers, but despite finding
> information about them 
> > on Red Hat's site for Fedora, it wasn't as simple
> as finding an RPM and 
> > downloading it.
> > 
> > In any case, I later decided that I wanted to
> remove some programs that 
> > might be causing problems with my DVD (which is
> another issue). But when 
> > I selected to remove certain applications (like
> Totem), again the 
> > Add/Remove Packages interface told me I had to
> have certain packages 
> > installed before it could do anything.
> > Huh? Why do I need packages to *remove* things.
> > 
> > After a little more experimentation, it seems that
> I can neither add nor 
> > remove *anything*. It always gives me a list of
> packages that I need to  
> > have available before it will update.
> > 
> > The result is that I can not make any changes to
> my system. What can be 
> > done about this?
> 
> Sounds like system-config-packages may be as broken
> in FC4 as it was in FC3.
> 
> Try using yum instead. If you really want a GUI, try
> "yum install yumex" 
> (yumex is in Extras) and you should then be able to
> install and remove 
> packages using yumex. Another GUI for yum is called
> kyum, also in Extras.
> 
> Paul.
> 

I don't know if this is related or not but I had
a weird problem with rpm last night.

I installed the  gnuchess program from the Fedora
Extras and this is what happen:

      rpm -iv  gnuchess-*

      Everyting installed without errors.

      Tried to run program unde  KDE & Gnome
      to no avail.

      Went to remove the pacakage via 
            rpm -ev gnuchess-*  

         it told me that the package was not
installed.

      Ran another   rpm -iv ...  and rpm told me that
      the package was already installed.

      Huh?

      Ran   rpm  --rebuilddb

      The rpm system still things that the package
      in not installed ( -e )  and installed ( -i )
      at the same time.

I wound up doing a  rpm -qpl gnuchess-*  and removed
the files/dirs myself by hand ....  :-(