I have all redhat errata updates in this one local directory. If I do: rpm -F *.rpm, it says: query of XFree86-cyrillic-fonts-3.3.3.1-52.i386.rpm failed query of XFree86-cyrillic-fonts-3.3.3.1-52.i386.rpm failed rpm: no packages given for install I don't have any X packages installed (this is just a bare-bones install). Also a little suggestion: I'd like rpm -Fh --quiet *.rpm (or some similar command) wouldn't report : rpm: no packages given for install This would make rpm -F nicer to implement in upgrade scripts because you wouldn't need to redirect the output (thus also losing some vital information, in case something is upgraded) or create some klugdy scripts that'd tailor the output in some way.
This bug is probably moot, as --freshen is implemented in C in rpm-3.0.5 and later.