I have been trying to install Maxima (http://maxima.sourceforge.net/index.shtml) but I keep having problems. I tried rpm -ivh maxima-5.9.0-1.i386.rpm maxima-exec-gcl-5.9.0-1.i386.rpm(like the example given at the website) but i got the following:
error: cannot get exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Operation not permitted (1)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
I have installed essentially nothing in Linux, so I’m probably making a very basic and easily corrected error. I have the RPMs saved in my home folder, does it matter where they are? I’m running RedHat 9.0.
Are you trying to install as a normal user? That’s what I would guess from the error
messages you posted. Try running rpm as root. The superuser account should have the
necessary permissions to read and write to the rpm database.
Thank you, I’ve got it working now. I feel really stupid, since I should have remembered to log in as root.
You shouldn’t log in as root - it’s too easy to forget that you’re the superuser and accidentally stomp on something important. Use su instead - e.g., something like
su -c 'rpm -ivh maxima-5.9.0-1.i386.rpm maxima-exec-gcl-5.9.0-1.i386.rpm'
which will automatically prompt you for the root password, run the command as the superuser, and then exit, leaving you with normal priveleges.