yum - lack of features

[Paul Howarth]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Sean O Sullivan wrote:
> 
> 
>>>1) Can't force a reinstall of package
>>
>>yum remove package
>>yum install package
> 
> 
> My impression is that this is - or was? - rather dangerous.
> Doesn't "yum remove <pkg>" also remove any packages which require <pkg>,
> which may be rather a lot?

This is all true but unless you use the "-y" option to yum, you get an 
option to go ahead or cancel the operation after it's shown you what 
it's about to remove.

> I tried the above once, and got in a mess;
> "yum install" was not a straightforward inverse of "yum remove".

Yes, this is true.

Consider the package sendmail-cf, which depends on sendmail.

"yum remove sendmail" will remove sendmail-cf too, because it depends on 
sendmail.

"yum install sendmail" will install sendmail, but not sendmail-cf, since 
sendmail itself does not depend on sendmail-cf.

> Personally, I would use rpm if I wanted to remove and re-install a package.

Using rpm to remove a package isn't going to remove any fewer packages, 
because you'll still need to remove all the dependent packages before 
you can remove the one you're actually trying to remove.

Coming back to the original issue about reinstalling packages, this can 
be done safely using rpm:

# rpm -Uvh --replacefiles --replacepkgs some.rpm

Paul.