David> There 5-6 packages you need to upgrade to get
  David> it to take rep, rep-gtk, rep-gnome, sawfish,
  David> ....

So I just discovered.

This is roughly what it's been like:

# rpm -i librep-0.15.2-1.i386.rpm 
package librep-0.13.3-1 (which is newer than librep-0.15.2-1) is already installed
... blah blah ... 
# rpm -qa | grep librep
librep-0.13.3-1
# rpm -e librep
error: removing these packages would break dependencies:
	librep >= 0.13.3 is needed by rep-gtk-0.15-3
	librep >= 0.13.3 is needed by sawfish-0.36-7
	librep.so.9   is needed by sawfish-0.36-7
# rpmfind --latest rep-gtk
... blah blah ...
transferring ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.1/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/rep-gtk-0.15-3.i386.rpm
... blah blah ...
# rpm -e rep-gtk
error: removing these packages would break dependencies:
	rep-gtk is needed by rep-gtk-gnome-0.15-3
	rep-gtk >= 0.15 is needed by sawfish-0.36-7
# rpm -e rep-gtk-gnome
error: removing these packages would break dependencies:
	rep-gtk-gnome is needed by sawfish-0.36-7
# rpm -e sawfish
error: removing these packages would break dependencies:
	sawfish is needed by gnome-core-1.2.4-16

Ummm, I don't think I want to suddenly start ripping
pieces of Gnome out or I could find myself suddenly
operating in tty-mode for a while.

  David> ... check the dependency tree to get them all
  David> currentish.

Dumb question here ... how do I find out in one fell
swoop what all I need, and then get it, if not in one
command, at least in the right sequence?

I don't see an option in rpm itself that extracts the
information "if you want to upgrade x, then, you'll
also have to upgrade w, y, and z."

I've gotta go for a long run.

Ongoing thanks.

-- 
Lynn David Newton
Phoenix, AZ
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~lnewton