Waiting for Transaction Lock when installing rpm

[christoph at linuxsoup.com (christoph at linuxsoup.com)]

> > I wonder if you have some
> > NFS filesystems which weren't unmounted and now the servers are
> > offline. Or perhaps some other filesystem device which was there but
> > is now gone. USB storage perhaps?
> >
> I think this was the key.  The whole reason I did this was because the main
> server went down - and it was serving up an NFS partition. 
> 

Things to do when NFS servers go away.

+ I believe recent linux kernels allow forced unmount of stale NFS handles
    very handy!!!
+ remove the stale mount point from /etc/mtab with vi (helps new processes
    from getting locked and also enables a smooth shutdown/reboot)
+ bring the NFS server back online with exported fs, unmount, clean up, etc...

Any other great tips out there?  These usually work for me in a pinch, until
I have an opportunity to reboot.  Obviously, if #1 works, reboot not required.

-christoph