help removing .rpm SuSe 9.2 Pro

Lleb_KCir · 07-28-2005, 11:58 PM

hello, i have been trying for the better part of several days to get Quasar installed. it will not work in debian as the packages do not existed that i could find to get the ICU-devel installed that Quasar requires so I am trying my hands at SuSe 9.2 Pro.

from what i understand of rpm commands rpm -e should remove the package installed is that correct? if that is, then why am i getting the following error:

Code:

linux:/home/ray # rpm -e FirebirdSS-1.0.3.972-0.i386.rpm
error: package FirebirdSS-1.0.3.972-0.i386.rpm is not installed
linux:/home/ray # rpm -ivh FirebirdSS-1.0.3.972-0.i386.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
        package FirebirdSS-1.0.3.972-0 is already installed

so first it tells me it is not there to uninstall, yet if i try to install it, it tells me it is already installed. sorry logic tells me that it can not be both. i know it is installed, i know it was running and responding, but it seems to be lacking something so i was going to try the CS (classic server) instead of the SS (super server) vs. to see if that made a difference.

anyways, some help here would be greatly appreciated.

cdhgee · 07-29-2005, 03:46 AM

With rpm -e, you have to specify the package name not the filename. So the command you want is

Code:

rpm -e FirebirdSS-1.0.3.972-0

Lleb_KCir · 07-29-2005, 08:56 AM

thank you, now that was simple enough.

RossB · 07-29-2005, 11:48 AM

The easiest way to explain what happened to you is to make sure you understand that packages can exist it two places and ways:

1. On the disk, and the full name should be tab-completed (type part and hit Tab to complete) when installing

2. In the package database, ie: installed on the system and available as a package that can be queried etc.

Typically when you deal with packages you can use the short name after it's installed, the long name is typically of the format:

packagename-version-revision-arch.rpm

The long package name for the above package would be packagename-version-revision, while the short package name would be packagename. When you are interacting with installed packages, you can use the short package name unless there are several versions of the package on the system, in which case queries would show that, and you can't remove multiple packages with the same short name, unless you use the --allmatches options for the rpm command.

So, if you saw that tree-1.2.4 and tree-1.3.5 were both installed on the system with the command:

rpm -q tree
tree-1.2.4
tree-1.3.5

You couldn't remove all of them or any of them without either specifying the long name of each package:

rpm -e tree-1.2.4

You can remove all instances of the tree package from the system with the command:

rpm -e tree --allmatches

Also remember that when you interact with packages on the disk, ie: one that is a file and has an .rpm extension, you should normally use the -p parameter to all queries etc:

rpm -qlip tree-1.2.4-i386.rpm
output shows

HTH,

Rossb