Cannot uninstall RPMs - (RedHat)
 

Hi, I cannot uninstall RPMs anymore (I'm using RedHat if that affects the command line program). It spits out this error:

error: cannot get exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Operation not permitted (1)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm

Which I do not know how to resolve. As well as this, the GUI program wont load up (freezes at the Headers part of loading) and I can't get other RPMs to install via the gui tool (the one that is associated with .rpm).

All this trouble started after I tried to uninstall Xmms after it stopped playing MP3s (I had the mpg update from the official site). It previously worked fine. Whilst uninstalling the GUI uninstaller froze and I had to just kill it. After this, all this trouble arose. I can get a full list of installed RPMs via #rpm -qa, and xmms and it's plugins are there.

The files in the /var/lib/rpm directory are all still there.

Any ideas of how to fix this? What's the best way to go around this? (I'm a newbie and not aqainted with the workings of the rpm system).

:Pengy:

rpm has an option to rebuild its database (rpm --rebuilddb). Type "man rpm" for more options that you can pass to it. I'm sure you'll need to "su" to root in order to run it.

Speck

as root try rpm --rebuilddb

Thanks very much, I'm trying it now, although it's taking a while on my 500mhz...

It seems to be waiting for input /me feels silly and runs to man.

Ok, maybe not. It shouldn't need any more info. The GUI tool hanged on reading the package headers, perhaps this is as well? If so, how do I sort out that?