OP,
Here's the results of the session. The rebuild step completed as quickly as I clicked enter.
[root@eeePC brian]# rm -rf /var/lib/rpm/__db.*
[root@eeePC brian]# ls -l /var/lib/rpm
total 14100
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 19 18:32 alternatives/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5357568 Jun 19 18:33 Basenames
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12288 Jun 19 18:33 Conflictname
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1847296 Jun 19 18:33 Dirnames
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5296128 Jun 19 18:33 Filedigests
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 19 18:21 filetriggers/
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 28672 Jun 19 18:33 Group
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40960 Jun 19 18:33 Installtid
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 81920 Jun 19 18:33 Name
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12288 Jun 19 18:33 Packages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 667648 Jun 19 18:33 Providename
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 155648 Jun 19 18:33 Provideversion
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 524288 Jun 19 18:33 Requirename
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 262144 Jun 19 18:33 Requireversion
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 172032 Jun 19 18:33 Sha1header
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 86016 Jun 19 18:33 Sigmd5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12288 Jun 19 18:26 Triggername
[root@eeePC brian]# rpm -vv --rebuilddb
D: rebuilding database /var/lib/rpm into /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969
D: creating directory /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969
D: opening old database with dbapi 3
D: opening db environment /var/lib/rpm/Packages create:mpool:joinenv
D: opening db index /var/lib/rpm/Packages rdonly mode=0x0
D: locked db index /var/lib/rpm/Packages
D: opening new database with dbapi 3
D: opening db environment /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969/Packages create:mpool:joinenv
D: opening db index /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969/Packages create mode=0x42
D: closed db index /var/lib/rpm/Packages
D: closed db environment /var/lib/rpm/Packages
D: closed db index /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969/Packages
D: closed db environment /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969/Packages
D: verified db index /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969/Packages
D: removing directory /var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.3969
And synaptic shows no software installed.
mikkl
Under the circumstances I don't know if this will work at all, but it's worth a shot.
Open a
terminal and at the
prompt enter;
[brian@eeePC ~]$ rpm -qa --qf '%{NAME}\t\tinstall\n' | sort > ~/installed-packages.txt <Enter>
This should generate a list of installed packages named
installed-packages.txt in your ~/ directory. Open it with kwrite or whatever text editor you use to check the contents. If it's
blank, you are
well and truly screwed. (
I think that is what will happen)
If it is not empty, it can be used by
Synaptic to
reinstall all your applications so they end up in the database properly, and show in Synaptic as
installed applications. I just ran it on my installation and got a file with
2251 lines of installed packages, one package per line. It takes about
2 seconds to run.