[SWLUG] confused by rpm

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Sun, May 18, 2003 at 01:02:48PM +0100 or thereabouts, Dick Bain wrote:
> Have a friend who uses yahoo messenger, so I installed ymessenger for 
> Mandrake but when it starts it gives a load of gtk error messages before 
> starting so I thought I would remove it and start again, however if I type:
> [root at debains dick]# rpm -el ymessenger-0.99.19-1mdk.i586.rpm
> I get the message:
> error: package ymessenger-0.99.19-1mdk.i586.rpm is not installed
> and when I type:
> [root at debains dick]# rpm -i ymessenger-0.99.19-1mdk.i586.rpm
> I get:
> package ymessenger-0.99.19-1mdk is already installed

This is the worst thing about rpm. Some commands expect the name
of the package. Some commands expect a filename. Some doubtless
expect something else. (Some don't want anything else: --help and
--query --all) 

I'm stick to the long ones because then I remember what they mean :) 

rpm --install 		want the full name of the file, and the
rpm --upgrade		path to it if you're not in that directory

rpm --query 		wants the package name (without the number)
rpm --erase		wants the package name without the number unless
			you have managed to get somename-1.0 and 
			somename-1.1 (etc) on the same machine.

rpm --query --file	wants the path to the binary.

So

rpm --install (relative/path/to/)somename.i586.rpm
rpm --query somename
rpm --query --file /usr/bin/someapp
rpm --erase somename

Fun fun fun!

So you want "rpm --erase ymessenger" 

Telsa