[NTLUG:Discuss] Updating RH 9 via sudo?

[kbrannen@gte.net]

NTLUG wrote:
> Has anyone installed RH9 recently?  The reason I ask is that I am trying
> to track down what may be a bug in the latest glibc update or sudo.

Unfortunately, I've done quite a few RH9 installs recently.

> 
> 1) installed RH9 fresh
> 2) configure sudo
> 3) download all the current RPM packages (never use up2date)
> 4) using sudo installing all the packages.  When the glibc package
> updates it fails, leaving the system unusable...

We have a corporate product (i.e. that the company sells) that runs on 
multiple platforms, Linux being one of them.  The very first RH9.0 system I 
installed, I ran up2date because no told me "don't do that".  The result was 
our product wouldn't run correctly on that system.  I had to totally 
reinstall, then upgrade just a few packages (that someone else had figured out 
the list).  The obvious observation here is that updating packages can break 
your machine, as you've found out.  Figuring out the "bad combo" is hard and I 
wish you luck!  And yes, sudo works fine on my systems.

BTW, I normally do "sudo su -" to become root, then do the rpm commands from 
there.

HTH,
Kevin