Start and then stop with OSS

Just when you think it is safe to start a new project, you come to an immediate halt. Doncha hate that? All dressed up but nowhere to go. Just happened to me recently. I had an idea I wanted to try out, ran right over to my new IBM i and then come to a dead stop. The reason? When I when to open the “Open source package management” app I see: ERROR: Error: rpmdb open failed. “Error” is never a good sign.

No worries! Google is my friend (just ask “Hey Google, are you my friend?” and you’ll get an articulate, carefully curated response.) So, my friend leads me to an answer. The solution involves deleting a few files in the IFS and running yum and rpm and that will fix it. Except no “yum” or “rpm” can be found. So begins the adventure which I have documented in video form here.