I am trying to install a couple of games I d/ld off the opengl site. The ones in particular are rpm binaries. When i do the 'rpm -i game.rpm' I get failed dependancies (around 15-20) that i have searched through the system and found to not only be installed, but are current enough for the depenancies required for the package. One in particular is foobilliards.

I get this same issue when trying to install the eagle electronics cad package.

here is the eagle example.

lazer2:~$ rpm -i eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1.i586.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
/bin/sh is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libX11.so.6 is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libXext.so.6 is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libc.so.6 is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1) is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1.3) is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.2) is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libdl.so.2 is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libdl.so.2(GLIBC_2.0) is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libdl.so.2(GLIBC_2.1) is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libm.so.6 is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1
libm.so.6(GLIBC_2.0) is needed by eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1

any thoughts would be appreciated, and yes I have searched around for answers!

They wouldn't have been install from an rpm which is probably confusing the rpm database. Try with the --nodeps option to skip the dependancy check.

Here is what was returned when adding the --nodeps option:

lazer2:~$ rpm -i --nodeps eagle-lin-eng-4.15-1.i586.rpm
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

It sounds like you have another rpm process running - check with:
ps -ef | grep rpm

You could also use the compressed binary install, get: ftp://ftp.cadsoft.de/pub/program/4.1...n-eng-4.15.tgz
NOTE: It's not a Slackware Package, don't use installpkg.
Uncompress that file somewhere, it's a tar.gz file, use: tar zxf eagle-lin-eng-4.15.tgz , that will create a directory called eagle-lin-eng-4.15, get into it and run the file called install.

ok that's great... (downloading now)... if it installs, but what about others that are only dl'able in rpm that do this (games, proggys, etc.)

Try: rpm --initdb
And after, try installing some RPM, you should always avoid this since they could overwrite a file installed by Slackware and won't let you know. If available, always get a generic version, or use rpm2tgz (as root).

Well.. that didn't work either. However, I did happen to find a tarball for what I was looking for. This installed without a hitch. I think I will stick with you suggestion of using the tgz's and such.

Thank you.

Man..you're installing rpm on Slackware????
COnvert it with rpm2tgz or just use the source!!!