FC4

[David G. Miller]

"Alastair McKinley" <amckinley03 at googlemail.com> wrote: 

>Hi Dave,
>
>Thanks for your help.  This is what I've got:
>
>
>[root at d6173 alastair]# rpm -q --whatprovides
>/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cElementTree.so
>python-elementtree-1.2.6-4
>[root at d6173 alastair]# rpm -q --whatprovides `which python`
>python-2.4.3-8.FC4
>[root at d6173 alastair]# rpm -q --whatprovides `which yum`
>yum-2.4.1-1.fc4
>[root at d6173 alastair]# yum update
>There was a problem importing one of the Python modules
>required to run yum. The error leading to this problem was:
>
>   /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cElementTree.so: undefined symbol:
>PyUnicodeUCS4_DecodeUTF8
>
>Please install a package which provides this module, or
>verify that the module is installed correctly.
>
>It's possible that the above module doesn't match the
>current version of Python, which is:
>2.4.1 (#2, May  3 2005, 17:14:18)
>[GCC 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)]
>
>If you cannot solve this problem yourself, please go to
>the yum faq at:
>  http://wiki.linux.duke.edu/YumFaq
>
>
>
>I've been using yum with virtually no problems for a year.  As far as I know
>(!) I havent changed any settings related to character sets, in fact I dont
>even know how to check.
>What should I do to check this out?
>
>Is it possible I have a corrupt shared object file?
>
>Thanks again,
>
>Alastair
>
>P.S. Apologies for the stupid subject line, I sent the email before I wrote
>anything descritive in there!
>
Sorry about the wild goose chase on the character set thing.  Its 
something changeable through an environment variable so its something 
that could easily be changed.  At least that would explain the sudden 
change in behavior.  After I pursued this line for a little while it 
dawned on me that the version of python being reported doesn't make sense.

It looks like the copy of python that's in yum's path has regressed to 
something REALLY old.  rpm -q showed python-2.4.3-8.FC4 but yum is 
complaining about a problem with 2.4.1 compiled with gcc 3.2.2.  When I 
run python from the command line on my FC4 box, I get:

[root at bend ~]# python
Python 2.4.3 (#1, Jun 13 2006, 16:41:18)
[GCC 4.0.2 20051125 (Red Hat 4.0.2-8)] on linux2

The version number that python reports matches the version number for 
the python rpm.  Also, the gcc version python was compiled with matches 
the current version of gcc for FC4.

Try running python (if it will run) from the command line and see what 
it gives for a start-up message (ctrl-D to exit the python CLI).  If it 
matches the error message you're getting then at least things are 
consistent and you may need to just re-install python.  Not sure how 
your system got into this state.  If you get the same thing I got 
(matches what rpm says is the installed version) then something really 
strange is going on.  yum is somehow picking up an old copy of python.

Cheers,
Dave

-- 
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce