I don't know the dpkg equivalent, but using the rpm command you can compare an installed package vs. the contents of a package file using the command: rpm -Vp $PACKAGE_FILE_NAME You can also compare the state of a package against the database using: rpm -V $RPM_PACKAGE_NAME ... note that these are DIFFERENT. The first example refers to a filename (usually of the form: package-version-build.arch.rpm as in foo-1.2.3-4.i386.rpm). The second is a package name (db record identifier) usually the "base" name of the conventional package FILE, as in 'foo' or 'foo-1.2.3-4' (but not foo-1.2 for example). You can verify the state of all installed packages against the database with the command: rpm -Va ... but it's somewhat more difficult to verify all installed packages against a directory full of package file. You can't use rpm -Vpa, for example. I posted a script to my answerguy column (an ugly one-liner, really) to do this. Look for that at: http://www.linuxgazette.com next month, or maybe it made it this month (I don't remember). Jim Dennis, Linux Gazette Answer Guy