I doubt anyone will even be able to answer this...but I've tried several different times to install programs in the terminal and during each installation I get the words 'segmentation fault'.

I'm not sure what is causing this or why its happening but I'd definitely like to get it fixed.

FC3 did not do this at first...my only speculation is that something was corrupted when I tried downloading the large amounts of updates that are now available for FC3, which froze several times.

Anyway, just thought I'd give it a shot...whats the deal?

What do you mean? through rpm?

What do you mean? through rpm?

If yes do
If after displaying some packages, it stops with a segmentation fault, then your rpm database is corrupted and you need to rebuild the database with:

yeah it happens when installing rpms... I didn't get a segmentation fault when doing rpm -qa but I went ahead and did rpm --rebuilddb anyway

unfortunately I am having the same error(s)

when I try installing an rpm under my username I get the result:
error: can't create transaction lock

when I try installing an rpm under root I get the result:
segmentation fault

Download of updates only freezes if you choose an overloaded poorly reachable download server. There are many mirror servers world-wide, so pick a nearby one which doesn't make your downloads freeze.

read above post.

I was not aware this had to do with a faulty rpm database

rpm --rebuilddb does not work.

This is how it should be. A simple user does not have the permission to install rpms.

what do you mean?
what error do you get?

Read this:
http://www.rpm.org/hintskinks/repairdb/

what are you talking about? I've never had a problem installing rpms as a regular user...that is definitely how it should not be...

when I do rpm --rebuilddb I don't get any error messages, it seems like it does its thing just fine but afterwards when I attempt to install an rpm I get the same two messages stated earlier.

But anyways, I will try this link out...I already tried one from RedHat with no success but maybe this will help.

What he means is that plain "rpm" command must be run by the superuser or with sudo before it could install/erase RPM packages. This has been like that always. Only external helper tools like system-config-packages and system-install-packages receive more privileges via PAM, but with default configuration you need to enter root password for that.

oh okay I understand...however I never got the lock error when trying to install as a regular user. I would simply just get a popup for me to enter the root password.

You don't refer to plain RPM as in the command-line utility /bin/rpm, but to the front-end system-install-packages.