This is my first post here, but I haven't been able to get any help from anyone in the "real world," so to you I come.

I just installed RedHat 7.3 Valhalla on my machine (p233, previously Slackware 7). So far I have been impressed with RedHat, but for some reason I am having some very strange ncurses problems.

First of all, I can't install the BitchX rpm:

[root@melchior airborne]# rpm --install BitchX-75p3-4.i386.rpm
error: failed dependencies:
libncurses.so.4 is needed by BitchX-75p3-4

This problem is clear, I already have ncurses, but it is version 5:

[root@melchior airborne]$ rpm -qa | grep ncurses
ncurses-5.2-26

Now, if I try to install ncurses 4 from the rpm, every file conflicts with version 5, and there is no removing version 5 because there are (as would be expected) TONS of dependencies on it.

I have tried:

[root@melchior airborne]# rpm --force --install ncurses-4.x-x

but the conflicts remain and the installation does not complete.

What would a savvy Linux user do in this situation? I am relatively new to Linux, so I'm not sure how to tweak this so I can have both ncurses 4 and 5 at the same time, or fool BitchX into thinking I have 4, or something. Anyone?

If anyone out there wishes to give me a hand, it would be much appreciated.

-Aaron

Well why don't you just try to force bitchx to install? Just do a --nodeps when installing the bitchx rpm and see if it runs.

But you should be able to have more then one version of libncurses without them conflicting?

What does a 'ls -l /lib/libncu*' show you? Or in /usr/lib if that's where they are put instead.