When I first installed rpm-4.0 I tried to rebuild my database. It didn't do this correctly at all, because afterwards I couldn't query any package anymore (e. g. rpm -q bash responded package bash not installed) I tried to do rpm -q -a and it worked as I expected: it printed correctly all the packages installed on my system (even bash). An interesting Point is that in /var/lib/rpm no file seemed to be touched but the file Package. rpm seems to forget to update all files.
What version of rpm, beta1 rpm-4.0-0.33 or some such? Look for (at least) rpm-4.0-0.38 (currently I'm at -0.42, 0.43 expected soon), and do a --rebuilddb. There's also a change from db3 (3.0.55) to db3 (3.1.4) in going from beta1 to beta2, so you might instead need to do (with current rpm-4.0) rpm --rebuilddb -v --rebuilddbapi 1 # convert db3(3.0.55) to db1 rpm -Uvh rpm-* popt-* # upgrade to beta2 rpm rpm --rebuilddb -v # convert db1 to db3(3.1.14) (expect some error messages here) rpm --rebuilddb -v # should be clean rebuild rpm -Uvh rpm-* popt-* --force # reinstall damaged headers Apologies for the inconvenience.
Ooops, you will need to install the beta2 rpm by doing rpm -Uvh rpm-* popt-* --dbapi 1
But where in world do I get rpm-4.0-0.42? According to the source it should be found on ftp.rpm.org/pub/rpm, but there isn't even rpm-4.0-0.33, which is shipped with the current rawhide. (This is at least a documentation error...)
I installed rpm-3.05-3 (from rpm.org), which, as far as I can tell, does everything correctly, including opening v. 4 rpm-s, and updating the database. I then tried to use rpm-4.0-0.33.i386.rpm, which has one nice feature (it tells you which entry is added or subtracted from the database), but thoroughly messes up the database (for example it still lists rpm-3.0.5-3 as installed after installing rpm-4.0-0.33.i386.rpm !!! It would be nice if the rawhide-releases and the rpm.org/test releases were coordinated.
rpm-4.0 has not been released, all rpm builds less than -0.38 have serious problems. Furthermore, be forewarned: even though rpm builds > -0.38 appear to be stable, there may be more breakage ahead. There's also little chance that Raw Hide and ftp.rpm.org can be synchronized, as the two machines serve very different purposes.