> >>> tanner at real-time.com 05/18/01 02:43PM >>>
> I got a G3 running YDL and I would like to upgrade glibc (this problem is not
> specific to YDL).
> 
> On of these packages is pam, so I go get the latest pam, BUT it depends on
> rpm 4.0 to be installed. Another irritation. :-)
> 
> Grabbed rpm 4.0, it depends on glibc-2.2.3! ARRGH! Circular dependencies.


The chicken-and-the-RPM problem has frustrated me for some time.  At the
risk of breaking the system, I finally found a way to do it without
causing any damage that I can see.  I think Bob is past this problem, but
I messed with it so long I need to tell someone :-)

For a long time I was running on RPM = 3.0.5.  All the good RPMs (OpenSSH,
sendmail, apache) needed >= 3.0.6.  I downloaded the 3.0.6 RPM, rpm -U
rpm-3.0.6, and guess what!  RPM 3.0.6 needs RPM >= 3.0.6 to install.  How
does THAT work?  Anyway, what I doscovered is that if you download the
binary tarball for RPM of www.rpm.org and un-tar it, RPM is in a half
upgraded state that some RPMs see 3.0.5 and some see 3.0.6.  Fortunately,
rpm-3.0.6 saw 3.0.6 and completed the upgrade.  I used the --nodeps option
because of the same problem Bob is having.  It APPEARS to work.  I did an
rpm --updatedb for safe measure, and everybody agreed that I was running
rpm-3.0.6.  Yay.  So Bob, I would try the --nodeps and get RPM upgraded
first.  You may need to do the same trick with the tarballs to go from 3.x
to 4.0, I don't remember which version 4.0 is packed with.

In general, I think the solution is to get RPM upgraded first and then
work from there.  I shudder at using --nodeps but then I remember it's
there for a reason.  Anyway, I hope somewhere in my ramblings this has
helped.