updateing ARGHH

[Michael Schwendt]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:31:52 -0500, R. wrote:

> I think I have had actually had to use --force about twice in four 
> years, in some circumstance where part of a package was messed up but 
> the system didn't' know that.

That doesn't sound right. The RPM database certainly knows about
packages which are "messed up". It can verify package integrity. 
And you can replace damaged packages by reinstalling them using
appropriate options. --force is not needed for that. Let's look
at "man rpm":

       --force
              Same as using --replacepkgs, --replacefiles, and --oldpackage.

The dangerous option here is only --replacefiles. That may not become
obvious immediately, so let's see what it does:

       --replacefiles
              Install the packages even if they replace files from other,
              already installed, packages.

In other words, with this option you can damage installed packages
by making one package overwrite files which belong into other
packages. It's a great way to kill a system, provided you forcefully
install a wrong set of packages which overwrites important system
files.

Please don't recommend the --force option. Recommend -i --replacepkgs
for reinstalls, -U --oldpackage for downgrades.