•
.rpmnew les appear if the conguration le already exists and if the noreplace
label was specied in the .spec le.
Following an update, .rpmsave and .rpmnew les should be removed after compar-
ing them, so they do not obstruct future updates. The .rpmorig extension is assigned
if the le has not previously been recognized by the RPM database.
Otherwise, .rpmsave is used. In other words, .rpmorig results from updating from
a foreign format to RPM. .rpmsave results from updating from an older RPM to a
newer RPM. .rpmnew does not disclose any information as to whether the system
administrator has made any changes to the conguration le. A list of these les is
available in /var/adm/rpmconfigcheck. Some conguration les (like /etc/
httpd/httpd.conf) are not overwritten to allow continued operation.
The -U switch is not just an equivalent to uninstalling with the -e option and installing
with the -i option. Use -U whenever possible.
To remove a package, enter rpm -e package. rpm, which only deletes the package
if there are no unresolved dependencies. It is theoretically impossible to delete Tcl/Tk,
for example, as long as another application requires it. Even in this case, RPM calls for
assistance from the database. If such a deletion is, for whatever reason, impossible
(even if no additional dependencies exist), it may be helpful to rebuild the RPM database
using the option --rebuilddb.
8.2.3 RPM and Patches
To guarantee the operational security of a system, update packages must be installed
in the system from time to time. Previously, a bug in a package could only be eliminated
by replacing the entire package. Large packages with bugs in small les could easily
result in this scenario. However the SUSE RPM offers a feature enabling the installation
of patches in packages.
The most important considerations are demonstrated using pine as an example:
Is the patch RPM suitable for my system?
To check this, rst query the installed version of the package. For pine, this can
be done with
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