[MLUG] rpm woes

[Catherine Ansbro]

I know RedHat rpm is supposed to be simple, but I'm having problems.  I'm 
using RH 9 (channel i386) When I try to launch the RH Update Agent 
everything starts fine until it starts checking my system.  Midway through 
this process it crashes and I get a message saying:

There was a Fatal RPM Error:  "Error Reading Headers"

I haven't managed to find any reference to this error message on the RH 
support, and nothing of help about headers.  On the ilug archives I found a 
posting referring to something different (but maybe related), with a 
suggestion that it might be necessary to download the rpm package for 
"kernel development" and after installing that, my up2date problems may be 
solved.

I don't think I installed the package for kernel development.  Is this what 
may be needed for the Update Agent to work properly?

Also, I tried updating my up2date program manually from the RH network 
website.  And I've tried downloading & installing a couple of other 
packages too, following the instructions from different parts of the RH 
network website.  Packages are ending up in unexpected places (my home 
directory, not in /var/spool) and when I put in the command  rpm -Uvh *.rpm 
(from the relevant folder that has the packages) sometimes it seems that 
something is happening as from within a terminal it says things were 
installed successfully.  But the packages are still remaining, and up2date 
still doesn't work in any case.  What most concerns me is that when I go 
back to the RH website, even though I ask it to update what packages I 
have/need, it doesn't recognize that I have downloaded & installed newer 
versions of the programs I thought I had successfully installed.  (For 
example, it is still telling me I have the older version of up2date and 
that I should get the newer version before I do anything else.)

As I'm having unusual minor glitches (e.g., display flashing on & off in 
usual ways when hibernating) I'm eager to get any bug fixes & security 
updates sooner rather than later.

Thanks for any suggestions for a determined new user,

Catherine