smart downgrade rpm

[Gustavo Niemeyer]

> When asking to install "trac" package on a fedora 3, smart ask to
> downgrade rpm.  I've overlooked the problem it may caused, as the
> downgraded version has not the same database format than the previous
> one (rpm 4.4.2 versus rpm 3.x I think)...

Wow.. I'll be really suprised if trac on Fedora depends on rpm 3.x.
This is a very old version of rpm.

> Of course after quitting smart, nothing worked concerning package
> management. Neither rpm, rpmbuild, yum, smart.....

How is it not working? What kind of message do you get when trying to
use rpm itself?

> I've tried to get back the binaries from previous backup and other
> machines, but I still have some difficulties (rpm -ql work, but rpm
> -qi not). I did not success in reinstalling rpm-python. So no yum, no
> smart...

Yeah, that won't be trivial since you have to get the whole thing
(libraries, etc).

> I think that smart may prevent by default an rpm downgrading (and it
> may be the same with apt, and others package management systems)....

Smart shouldn't prevent you from doing something you've explicitly
asked for. Trac depended on the old rpm for some reason. You've
requested its installation, and approved the downgrade.

> If any of you has a simple way to get the rpm bakc in a sain state,
> I'm interested.

We can try to help you for sure, but more details are needed.

-- 
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net