RedHat RPM

["Brian E. Seppanen" <seppanen@pconline.com>]

Is there anyway to convert RPM's to Tar files?  And would such a utility
require another library <rhetorical frustrated question>? Here's the
situation:

I've downloaded qt-1.33-1rh5.i386.rpm, which is a special shared library
that is apparently necessary to use Xamp.  Well going through the
routine of 
rpm -ivh qt-1.33-1rh5... seems to install ok, or so I thought.  Doing a
query on the file indicates that it isn't actually installed.  Now I
have to use my root account, because my user is non-functional.  I use
AfterStep 1.4.5.3 as my window manage with the user account.  Several
Icons are gone, and when I select an app nothing happens.  I cannot
unload the qt libraries, because rpm indicates they are not actually
installed. 
I've searched the site for a tar file, to go through step by step with
the documentation.  No tar file in site, although the help file uses a
tar file for the example.   Requested information from the site.  Trying
to get on the rpm-list at redhat for more info, on rpms.

Thanks,
Brian Seppanen
seppanen@pconline.com