i imagine that no one will ever be able to answer this question. but here's hoping.

ok i'm sure we've all seen this. you go to install something, type in
> rpm -ivh biglongpackagename.rpm
and then the thing yells at you for not having a bunch of other crap installed. i hate linux for this.

anyways for this particular case i am installing gaim
> rpm -ivh gaim-nameofsomesort.rpfreekinm
then it yells at me for not having gtk2 or libspell installed.

i search rpmfind for gtk2 and try to install it and it tells me i already have it installed. crap so i move on. i sear rpmfind for libspell. what a suprise.. no such thing exists. did i mention i hate linux.

ok so dont go off on some tangent yelling at me for not liking linux. and lets not worry about the libspell thing either, i've fixed worse problems.

lets worry about this:
how do i get rpm to know that i have gtk2 already installed?
why does it tell me gtk2 is not there when i go to install gaim, then when i go to install gtk2 it tells me it is there already?

this crap happens to me all the time. i'm sick of it, and i want to see how other people handle it. (or am i just cursed)

it happens to everyone. Im clueless as well. Sorry.

The libraries the installation thinks are missing, may be in a different location on your system than where the installation looks for them. This can happen when an installation package is meant for a distribution other than the one you're using. If you're lucky, the libraries are in the same place in both distributions, but sometimes they aren't. So yes, the stuff is already installed, just like the message says when you go to install the "missing" items, but the problem is that the program you're trying to install doesn't know where to look for it.

I'm sorry to say I don't know how to solve the problem. I've just given up on installing MANY packages for this reason.

Its a well known problem - those of us that don't use rpm based distro's call it 'rpm hell' - there are a couple of projects that are trying to fix this, one is 'apt-rpm' and the other is mandrakes 'urpmi'.

Neverender,

You do realize that you have other options than RPM's, right? Everyone experiences dependency issues with RPM's... you are not the only one.

You can actually compile gaim from source (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/g...ar.gz?download).

Also, you can always check the FAQ's (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/faq.php#q2) - you may find them helpful.

Ok
Until two days ago I had the smae problem. Then I installed synaptic from
http://freshrpms.net

and it works wonders. It gets all the dependcies for you and installs them. Also works best when removing RPM packages.
Do this

1) Go to http://freshrpms.net
2) Download apt and synaptic packages
3) Open a terminal and
rpm -ivh <apt package name>
4) Once step 3 is done,
rpm -ivh <synaptic package name)

5) Once step 4 is done just type
synaptic on command line and no more RPM Hell!

Hope that helps...

Sounds great, but apparently there's a problem using it with Mandrake. I thought I'd try it out, got message "contains bad signature, do you want to continue," and decided the safest answer was "No."

Life in rpm hell continues...

Which MDK are you using? I am using MDK 9.1, and synaptic works just fine

I use 9.1; I didn't proceed with installing "apt" after I got the message about the bad signature. So I never got to "synaptic" either.

I guess I'm easily intimidated largely due to my novice status, but I can't afford to jeopardize my system (well, actually I CAN, there's nobody on it but me--but I've been so near to throwing the thing in the trash due to all the problems I've had...)--so I am tending these days to err way on the side of caution.

I don't remember for sure if I went ahead installing, having seen the warning message. What is your system? HDs, setup, OSs, etc.
If it fails, if nothing else, you can reinstall MDK9.1, just don't reformat your /home partition. I think I have done that 3-4 times, until I learned some things. Again, I am still newbie. In all this, I have not screwed up the system,mainly because I was installing Linux ona spare drive, leaving XP on the main. Now, I have left XP behind, and have MDK on the main drive, and I'm trying to build LFS on the spare.
NOt once did I screw up the system so bad that I couldn't boot

I've had much the same experience--reinstalling Linux has been much less painful than reinstalling M$ Window$. I have left MS absolutely and definitely behind me, will not have anything more to do with any of their products; if MS succeeds in world domination as planned, I will simply not use computers any more. I can be VERY stubborn.

Good luck with LFS. I read about it a little. Maybe someday. Not today!

Have you checked out Red Carpet?

# Mandrake links
Mandrake home page
Mandrake Users website
Easy software management: Red Carpet
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
You didn't install the developmental packages? As root, command:
urpmi gcc

This is all very interesting.

jonr, your probly right. i do often install rpm's made for other distro's that the one i run. it work's fine some of the time, but i've often wondered why there were rpms for different distros, and what the differences is. so i'll keep that in mind when i have problems.

speedracer05, i have tried to install stuff using source code before. i still have a few problem's. one i have run into is that i have no clue how to tell the system that i have installed this software (especially for libraries) so once its on there, i still get yelled at for not having it installed. another is that sometimes installing from source is very very time consuming do to all of the configuring options and telling the code where other libraries it needs are, among other things. i dont want to devote my life to setting up my desktop pc.

chem1, that looks interesting, i'll haveto try that thing out. thanks.

why? it's not rocket surgery... or was that a clever trick to make people answer?

heh.. yep. i think it worked pretty well.

no i just didnt want ignorant people posting dumb suggestions about stuff they don't know about. i just wanted to make sure that people knew, before they started reading, that i was not asking for a simple answer.

i wanted some full and real information.