Is there a "yum re-install"?

[Rick Stevens]

On Fri, 2006-10-06 at 20:31 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Oct 2006 00:22:26 +0200
> Manuel Arostegui Ramirez <manuel at todo-linux.com> wrote:
> 
> > Beside that, I don't know how some files could dissapear that way ;-)
> 
> This is one of the essential mysteries of computers: Why does the
> standard tech support advice "try reinstalling the software" actually
> work sometimes? I've seen it correct problems on both Windows and
> Linux, so it isn't even an OS-centric thing.
> 
> You'd think copying some files onto the disk would be one of the simplest
> operations to get right, and if computers can't even do that correctly,
> how do they manage to do vastly more complex activities?

That's not the point.  When you install a package it may, depending on
the rules in the package, delete some files that IT thinks conflict
with it.  Installing the old package restores the files that were
erroneously deleted.  Computers, unless there's a fault, generally only
do what they're told to do.  If the package says "delete file xyz", then
that's what it'll do.  Don't blame the OS.  Blame whoever wrote the
package.

If you know this was the case, then email or notify the package
maintainer that the package has a bug in it and be very explicit about
what happened.  As the old saying goes, "I can't fix it if I don't know
what's broken."

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-            The gene pool could use a little chlorine.              -
----------------------------------------------------------------------