(half)deleting rpms
 

What I wanted to do was the following: delete an rpm to install an older version of it. The problem is: rpm froze midway through deleting the package, and after half an hour I had to kill it. Now whenever I want to delete it I get an error message:

error: cannot get an exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages
(and two other error messages, that seem to follow this one)

What can I do about this? Force deletion somehow? Force overwrite?
Thanks for any help!

Try doing the following;

rm /var/lib/rpm/__db*
kill any rpm commands that are running
then try removing again

I did try that, but keep getting the same errors... :(

well
1. are u doing this as root?
2. are u using the rpm --erase option to remove the rpm?

Interestingly, I tried it as root but used the "-e" option instead of "--erase". With --erase it works, thanks! :) Though I wonder what the difference is... :newbie: