When I install an rpm via console's:

rpm -ihv rock.rpm
Preparing......
1. rock [XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX] 100%
|

Many times the process lags extremely badly at that point, sometimes taking 2 to 3 minutes to complete, when before it was like 30 seconds. I was wondering what I could do to optimize my database so there isn't this lag time. Sometimes the process gets so laggy that it never continues and never timesout, leaving me frustrated- and having to reboot to reset everything.

So is there anything I could do to improve this problem?

Have you tried running the rebuild command? That may help. type 'man rpm' into a console to see how to run it.

Yeah XavierP is right. Try deleting the existing rpm database and then rebuilding it by doingas root)

rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rpm --rebuilddb

get debian or slack, no rpms

I don't think rpms are really that bad.