Dear ALUG,
Three things:
1) Is it possible to extract a single file from an RPM file (as if it were a tar archive, for instance)?
2) To ellaborate on 1): Last time I booted up my Mandake 9.1 box KDE (3.1) loaded without the kicker program (the panel at the bottom). Eventually I found that this was because /usr/lib/kicker.so was missing. I tried creating a symbolic link to /usr/lib/kicker.la but (as I half suspected) it didn't work (.so's and .la's clearly aren't that same thing!). So I found the kdebase.*.rpm on my discs and found that this rpm includes the kicker.so file but I can't find a way to get at that file without installing the entire package (which both I and Linux are reluctant to do!). Hence question 1).
3) I've had similar problems before and I believe I know the cause - but not the solution! Every 23rd boot my Mandrake box checks the root filesystem for errors and always finds and repairs them. On odd occasions after it's done this I get these sorts of problems - in fact its always been missing libraries.
So, if anyone has any answers to any of these questions I'd be very grateful to hear them!
Thanks very much,
Richard.
Linux forever, Windows never!