That did the trick!
Many thanks,
Cherry
>
> < cherry at linux-bpta:~/maxima> rpm -ivh maxima-5.19.0-1.centos4.i386.rpm
> < maxima-exec-clisp-5.19.0-1.centos4.i386.rpm
> < maxima-xmaxima-5.19.0-1.centos4.i386.rpm
> < error: can't create transaction lock on /var/lib/rpm/__db.000
>
> It looks to me like you are trying to run rpm as a regular user, and rpm
> is trying to write to a directory owned by the super-user, root. In a
> terminal, login in as root and try to run the above command again.
>
> Leo
>
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>