RH9 apt rpm issue - this one's been needling me for a while

[Calum]

i have just updated rpm using apt-get, probably from the dries or atrpms repository, and all of a sudden i can't use rpm. I tend to take these things as a hint to try and install fedora, so i will do that instead, but since i have had this problem before (i think) although i haven't been explicitly watching for it, and i have mentioned it here, and void main's asked me about it, here it is in all its glory.

[root@harvey root]# apt-get upgrade
rpmdb: unable to join the environment
error: db4 error(11) from dbenv->open: Resource temporarily unavailable
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Resource temporarily unavailable (11)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
E: could not open RPM database
[root@harvey root]# rpm -qv rpm
rpmdb: unable to join the environment
error: db4 error(11) from dbenv->open: Resource temporarily unavailable
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Resource temporarily unavailable (11)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
package rpm is not installed
[root@harvey root]# rpmdb --rebuilddb
rpmdb: unable to join the environment
error: db4 error(11) from dbenv->open: Resource temporarily unavailable
error: cannot open Packages index

as i say, i'll be installing fedora instead and then if and when that turns out to be a pain in the neck, i will reinstall red hat 9.

[Ice9]

A friend of mine had a similar problem when running the 2.6 kernel on a RH9 install.
I remebered doing something like assume_kernel but didn't knwo the exact syntax anymore so I looked around a little and stumbled upon this

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004, Peter Williams wrote:

>When attempting to install RPM packages on RH9 using any 2.6.X kernel >I get the following error messages:
>[peterw@mudlark KERNELS]$ sudo rpm -i >/home/peterw/Downloads/atrpms-29-1.rh9.at.noarch.rpm
>rpmdb: unable to join the environment
>error: db4 error(11) from dbenv->open: Resource temporarily >unavailable
>error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Resource temporarily >unavailable (11)
>error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
>warning: /home/peterw/Downloads/atrpms-29-1.rh9.at.noarch.rpm: V3 >DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 66534c2b
r>pmdb: unable to join the environment
>error: db4 error(11) from dbenv->open: Resource temporarily >unavailable
>error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
>[peterw@mudlark KERNELS]$

Yes. Buggy rpm binary which tries to use direct-IO without proper
alignment etc.

Work around by doing

export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1

and then upgrade to a fixed rpm binary as quickly as possible.

Linus

[Calum]

well, i haven't changed the kernel since the system was installed so...

[dishawjp]

Calum,

I found this in bugzilla:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/sh ... i?id=86177

It seems to be more related to the rpm version than the kernel. There's also this thread:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora- ... 01395.html

Also, if I remember correctly back with RH9, there were porblems with databse corruption which could sometimes be corrected by deleting the
__db* entries in /var/lib/rpm and then you could run rpm --rebuilddb. At least that's what I recall.

I don't know if this will help, but maybe?

Jim

[Calum]

well that's useless isn't it!

well, so i'm stuck then more or less, if i use rh9, and update using apt, i get that heap of arse, and it looks like my fedora CDs are some idiotic 1.90 release with half the stuff from 1 and half the stuff from 2, meaning i can't use apt or yum because the versions all conflict with rpm and if you try to update rpm it conflicts with glibc and glibc-common conflicts with glibc as well, what a load of old pants.

so i am finally downloading the mammoth 4 CD set of fedora 3 and here's hoping there are no nasty surprises!

[dishawjp]

Calum,

Before you give up, try deleting the __db* entries in /var/lib/rpm and then running rpm --rebuilddb again.

I do remember having this issue way back when and then being able to solve it.

Also, and many might disagree with me here, yu might want to consider FC1 or FC2 over FC3. FC3 is nice, but I've had a lot of problems (just check out my posts in this forum) with FC3. FC1 and FC2 were rock solid for me. I'm not saying that I didn't help make some of the problems I had with FC3, and it's running beautifully for me now, but there were a lot of times I was about ready to try a different distro getting there. And if it weren't for Voidmain and some of the other people who post here, I might never have gotten FC3 back up.
<edit>
Check out this URL for this issue with RH9

http://www.rpm.org/hintskinks/repairdb/

</edit>


Just my $.02.

Jim

[Calum]

well, i've installed slack on here for the meantime, once i finally get a set of up to date fedora CDs, i'll try again (unless slack proves trouble free)

[dishawjp]

Calum,

Well, my youngest daughter ditched FC2 for Slack (Slack 10, I think) about 4 months or so ago, and has never looked back. She runs Slack and Mac OSX now and is very happy with both OS's. I think she still has FC1 installed on one of her drives, but don't think she ever boots to it.

Jim

[Calum]

i like red hat (or whatever) for a lot of reasons, but i also like slack for a lot too. shame they can't combine those reasons into one "good" distro!

now i've ditched rh9 for slack i'm back to square one with my USB printer! slack detects it, but doesn't seem to be able to load a driver for it. but that's a problem for another day i think! i might just buy a parallel cable (as it can go with one of them too) and try that instead.

[worker201]

We may be straying off topic a bit here, but I believe that parallel port support is not built into the Slackware kernels. You'll have to load it as a module, or recompile the kernel. If you need any help compiling the kernel, I did it like 80 times.

[Calum]

thank you i may well take you up on it sometime, but if i can load it as a module (in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules probably) then i will.