Firstly, I want to apologize for the confusion -- I did not mean to make 
this an attack on the atrpms repo.

Second, I never removed anything related to python -- at least none that 
I know of (perhaps some other update removed it?).  I have only used the 
check-box repos available in yumex on SL43, which includes atrpms, dag, 
dries, macromedia, rhaps, sl-base, sl-bugfix-44, sl-contrib, sl-errata, 
sl-fastbug, and sl-testing.

By the way, the only conflicts or transaction errors I have ever had 
have been with the atrpms versions, and it appears that I am not alone 
in experiencing these beecrypt/python problems -- there are many such 
cases one can find with a google search of the error message.  I 
suspected there was some common error in the way SL43, yum, yumex, 
python, beecrypt, and freetype are updated.

So it now appears that my system is broken because I used the included 
repo config to perform updates -- which, to me sounds like some kind of 
bug.  Note that I did not remove ANYTHING with the --nodeps option.  To 
update my system I have used "yum update", yumex, "apt-get update", and 
smart.  I have not changed the repo config, except by way of the check 
boxes in yumex.  I have removed packages in the past, but only through 
yumex, and nothing called python*.

Oh well, I guess I shall start all over on three different systems, 
since all three have this problem.

Axel Thimm wrote:
> Dear FUDder,
> 
> On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 04:30:46PM -0600, Michael Malik wrote:
>> For the freetype error with yumex, I have only selected the sl-base and 
>> sl-errata, but at some time I must have used atrpms to install some 
>> incompatible-with-everything and impossible-to-remove version of 
>> freetype (note the conflicting packages end in .at).
> 
> don't be too fast on judging things, it may well turn the other way
> round like it does in this case. Allow-me-to-tear-you-apart.
> 
> python 2.3 and python 2.4 have no common abi, so python 2.4 will not
> replace 2.3. It looks like you removed python 2.3 from your system
> under the false assumption that a greater python replaces the previous
> one - since every other system tool in RHEL4/SL4 is using python 2.3
> your system looks rather broken now. You also had to use --nodeps to
> rip it out. You thus broke at the very least the following packages
> directly and all further dependent packages, too (like any pygtk based
> package, e.g. every python based gui in RHEL4/SL4):
> 
>         libpython2.3.so.1.0()(64bit) is needed by (installed) postgresql-pl-7.4.13-2.RHEL4.1.x86_64
>         python-abi = 2.3 is needed by (installed) system-config-printer-0.6.116.5-1.x86_64
>         python-abi = 2.3 is needed by (installed) gnome-python2-2.6.0-3.x86_64
>         python-abi = 2.3 is needed by (installed) alchemist-1.0.34-1.i386
>         python-abi = 2.3 is needed by (installed) pyparted-1.6.8-2.x86_64
>         python-abi = 2.3 is needed by (installed) alchemist-1.0.34-1.x86_64
>         python2 >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) pygtk2-2.4.0-1.x86_64
>         python2 >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) pyorbit-2.0.1-1.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) rhpl-0.148.3-1.x86_64
>         python >= 0:2.3 is needed by (installed) python-ldap-2.0.1-2.x86_64
>         python = 2.3.4-14.2 is needed by (installed) python-docs-2.3.4-14.2.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3.2 is needed by (installed) sip-4.1-1.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) system-config-lvm-1.0.19-1.0.noarch
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) MySQL-python-1.0.0-1.RHEL4.1.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) system-config-cluster-1.0.27-1.0.noarch
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) system-switch-im-0.1.2-3.noarch
>         python >= 2.3.2 is needed by (installed) PyQt-3.13-1.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3.3 is needed by (installed) system-config-kickstart-2.5.16.1-1.noarch
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) authconfig-4.6.10-rhel4.3.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) mx-2.0.5-3.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) system-switch-mail-0.5.25-3.noarch
>         python = 2.3.4-14.2 is needed by (installed) python-tools-2.3.4-14.2.x86_64
>         python = 2.3.4-14.2 is needed by (installed) python-devel-2.3.4-14.2.x86_64
>         python >= 2.3 is needed by (installed) system-switch-mail-gnome-0.5.25-3.noarch
>         python = 2.3.4-14.2 is needed by (installed) tkinter-2.3.4-14.2.x86_64
>         /usr/bin/python is needed by (installed) python-tools-2.3.4-14.2.x86_64
>         /usr/lib64/python2.3 is needed by (installed) gamin-python-0.1.1-4.EL4.x86_64
> 
> And that wasn't induced by ATrpms python24, which *coinstalls* with
> the system python. Somehow you removed python from your system and
> even the repo that carries it, e.g. sl-base. smart check will probably
> also list all python tools now missing python.
> 
> Finally there are more repos enabled than what you claimed, I see for
> example rf tags, too.
> 
> Anyway the moment you started operating on the system with rpm -e
> --nodeps it was doomed. You probably didn't do it only with the python
> package.
> 
> I'd reinstall from scratch and avoid rpm --nodeps like hell as well as
> randomly using 3rd party repos - at least incompatible-with-everything
> and impossible-to-remove ATrpms - so you don't start FUDing again.
> 
> Sorry, you asked for it.
> 
>>> Michael Malik wrote:
>>>> Here is a problem I have been experiencing for many weeks (see below), 
>>>> waiting for perhaps a bug fix or newer version of one of the update 
>>>> applications.  I have tried to resolve this with apt-get, yum, and 
>>>> smart -- none have worked for me.  I can't see why the new packages 
>>>> require python 2.3 when I have python 2.4 installed -- is there no 
>>>> backward compatibility built into python24?