I have run across a situation in which one (or more) of the icons in the
gnome-icon-theme RPM have been damaged (presuming this is the RPM that
contains the various icons used by Gnome utilities, such as the Gnome
power manager that displays battery and mains status for a laptop).
According to numerous comments on this list, it is much better to use
yum (e.g., yum install) rather than a direct rpm command. I have found
the following information on having yum reinstall an installed rpm file
from URL http://serverlinux.blogspot.com/2009/11/yum-force-reinstall.html
Are the recommended methods safe? Would it be better to simply download
the rpm file, and then use a rpm force to force re-installation of an
already installed rpm file?
Any advice, particularly based upon direct practical experience with EL
6, would be most appreciated.
Yasha Karant
Yum Force Reinstall
Since Yum does not have a force flag, rpm commands must be used along
with Yum to do some heavy lifting. Here are a few ways to force the
reinstall of a broken package on a Yum Managed system.
Yum Remove and then Install
The easiest solution is to yum remove the package and then yum install
the same package. If there are too many dependencies at stake with the
package in question, try another method.
yum remove PACKAGE
yum install PACKAGE
Force Erase and then Yum Install
RPM dependencies sometimes make a simple yum remove impossible and Yum
will want to erase your entire OS before moving on. In this case, use
rpm to force erase, then yum to install.
Keep reading here
rpm -e --nodeps PACKAGE
yum install PACKAGE
Prune RPM Database and then Yum Install
If your package install is so corrupted that an rpm -e is dangerous or
impossible, even with --nodeps, remove the package from the local RPM
database to trick yum into reinstalling the package. No files are
deleted when using rpm -e with --justdb.
rpm -e --justdb --nodeps PACKAGE
yum install PACKAGE
