Bos, Maurer, Tabanna et al: Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. It's been an education! rpm --force installs one *without* deleting the other: linux:/usr/local/rpm # rpm -i --force apt-0.5.4cnc9-1cl.i386.rpm warning: /etc/apt/sources.list created as /etc/apt/sources.list.rpmnew linux:/usr/local/rpm # rpm -qa |grep -E "^apt-0|^apt-devel-0" apt-0.3.19CVS-20011212 apt-0.5.4cnc9-1cl apt-devel-0.5.4cnc9-1cl I knew the system wouldn't tolerate two versions: linux:/usr/local/rpm # apt-get install synaptic Reading Package Lists... Error! E: There are two or more versions of the package 'apt' installed in your system, which is a situation APT can't handle cleanly at the moment. Please do one of the following: 1) Keep at most one version of the package in the system; or 2) If you do want to keep multiple versions of that package, lookup RPM::Allow-Duplicated in the documentation. rpm -e did the trick: linux:/usr/local/rpm # rpm -qa |grep -E "^apt-0|^apt-devel-0|^synaptic" apt-0.5.4cnc9-1cl apt-devel-0.5.4cnc9-1cl synaptic-0.24-rb1 "A small step for mankind, a giant..." Oops! Wrong verse. Now, the (new) bad news: The first time I ran it: gilr@linux:~> sux -c /usr/sbin/synaptic I got an error: error restoring raptoptions E: Opening configuration file /root/.synaptic/filters - ifstream::ifstream (2 No such file or directory) ['/filters' is a script file, not a directory: -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1261 Oct 24 07:47 filters ] However, the GUI opened well, and I could take a look at the list of packages, but I had to leave. When I returned and rebooted, *besides* that error, I got a second error: Could not open file /etc/apt/preferences - open (2 No such file or directory) I took a look at the directory: gilr@linux:~> ls -A /etc/apt apt.conf rpmpriorities sources.list vendors.list This time, the whole GUI is grayed out *and* there's no package list. *Worse still*, it can't be closed; I had to do a 'ps ax, kill'. Of course, I was working on my user terminal as sux; I rebooted as root, it made no difference. -- Regards, gr (in /usually/ balmy, sunny Florida's Suncoast) [powered by SuSE-7.3 Linux 2.4.10]