Duplicate packages with different versions

[GuruGary]

I am running a server with Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon Update .  I recently noticed that I have some packages with similar names, but with different versions.  Examples (from rpm -qa):

bzip2-libs-1.0.2-11
bzip2-libs-1.0.2-11.EL3.4

db4-4.1.25-8
db4-4.1.25-8.1

gd-1.8.4-12
gd-1.8.4-12.3.1

mysql-3.23.58-1
mysql-3.23.58-16.RHEL3.1

... and more.  Is this normal?

I run up2date on a pretty regular basis, which may have something to do with this.  Is it best to leave them alone?  Or should I remove the older versions?  Any tips or suggestions are appreciated.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Are the packages of similar sizes, or are the newer ones very much smaller?  Smaller packages indicate that they are purely updates/security patches.  If the new packages are larger than the originals then they're probably complete packages, and yes, you can delete the previous packages.

Actually, if you're seeing packages with names ending in .RPM, you can probably delete the lot of them.  If they're installed, the RPMs are no longer required, or if they are required, they can be re-downloaded.

[GuruGary]

Hi, Rob.  Thanks for the info.  The questions I have are about the installed packages that I see when doing a query with rpm (the command "rpm -qa").  So they are not file names at all, but packages listed in the RPM database.  It seems like up2date should update the packages and then update the database to remove the old information.

I did a test by removing one of the older packages (with rpm -e), and it did delete files off the system in the process.  So I don't know if I should leave it alone and hope it doesn't cause other problems, or remove them trusting that the package manager is smart enough to know what versions of which files to keep, and which versions to delete ... or maybe I need to detete all versions of duplicate packages, and then just re-install the newest versions.

Any ideas?

[Rob Pomeroy]

Rule of thumb: if it works fine, don't mess with it!

I don't know enough about the RPM database to answer your question alas - someone at the RedHat forums could.