How to fix hosed RPM

[Bob Hartung <rwhart netexpress net>]

HI,
  My problems have escalated while trying to get CUPS and xpp going.  I was
under the impression that I had to upgrade RPM to > 4.0.2 as xpp kept
asking for cups-common and that needed '/usr/sbin/update-alternatives'
which the newbie in me considered part of rpm [don't ask why].
  So I downloaded the latest 4.0.3 from Rawhide and rpm --force it. Now
have multiple errors.  Is there a way to correct? Or should I just blow the
install away and install Mandrake that supports CUPS ans xpp out of the box
since I have now wasted all 3 days of vacation vainly trying to get
reasonable printing going on my RH7.1 box.

I hope someone will answer with a useful pointer. Several questions
regarding printing over the last 3 days have gone unresponded to - not even
a pointer to a more suitable list.

TIA

Bob