FIRST AND FOREMOST: I AM TRYING TO DO THIS ON AN AMD A64 in x86_64 mode. I am an old UNIX hack from the 70s-early 90's BUT... I am completely new to Linux!

While attempting to install and update "apt" on my newly installed FC2, I began getting errors about having multiple versions of packages in my rpm library. the messages from APT looked something like this:


W: There are multiple versions of "XXX" in your system.

This package won't be cleanly updated, unless you leave
only one version. To leave multiple versions installed,
you may remove that warning by setting the following
option in your configuration file:

RPM::Allow-Duplicated { "XXX"; };

To disable these warnings completely set:

RPM::Allow-Duplicated-Warning "false


It turns out that I found a guy with a similar problem at the gnuforum
with a subject: Yum Problems, and Apt-Get Problems, Can Anyone help?

In response to that message Axel.Thimm@physik.fu-berlin.de
suggested a fix which involved the following:

#Find the duplicate packages
doublepackages=`rpm -qa --qf '%{name}\n' | sort | uniq -d | grep -v ^kernel`
echo $doublepackages

followed by:

#clean up the database
apt-get --reinstall install $doublepackages

which was intended to clean up and re-install the packages...

However... it turns out that apt couldn't clean up my database, so I tried using rpm directly to remove the duplicates... that doesn't work either.

Next, I decided to see where the dups came from...
and what do you know... they are there IMMEDIATELY after the completion of a from scratch install of the Fedora FC2 DVD.iso!!!


Using the same little script...
doublepackages=`rpm -qa --qf '%{name}\n' | sort | uniq -d | grep -v ^kernel`
echo $doublepackages

It reports a whole list of duplicate packages...

Depending on what install options you use, you get more or less of the duplicates, but with a simple "server" install, no "X desktops, etc." I still get a clib duplicate!!!

And I can't kill them no matter what options I seem to try with rpm... It sees the duplicates... i.e. rpm -q -a atk produces

atk.x.y.z
atk.x.y.z (both are identical versions)

but it says it can't find them when I try to delete them.

I have spent DAYS tracking this down... using YUM, APT, RPM, UP2DATE, etc.

I am beginning to suspect that the distribution is just broken for the FC2 X86_64 packages...

Thanks in advance for any advice or help. I'm getting ready to throw in the towel on 64 bit mode...

Don - W8HRQ

They are installed for both 64-bit (x86_64) and 32-bit (i386). Extend the RPM query a bit to demonstrate that:

rpm --query --all --qf "%{name}-%{version}-%{release} is for %{arch}\n"

Btw, is Apt-Rpm multi-arch safe already? It is not included in Fedora Core for AMD64. I would use Yum, which is included, and afaik it handles multi-lib installations.

Thanks for your reply to my problem. After much head scratching, and digging around, I came to the same conclusion, found the duplicates were for the different models, manually one by one deleted the .i386 models, hoping to be able to use apt, finally gave in and settled for yum, since it is capable of multi-models. Unfortunately, your note just came about 20-30 hours of working around and poking around the net too late...

Again, MANY MANY thanks for the reply. I appreciate the help.

Don