rpm --initdb

[Oleg <oleg@tw304h3.cpmc.columbia.edu>]

Hi

Trying to use "alien" hasn't quite worked for me, so I'm trying to install a 
few RPM packages using rpm that is part of Woody. But, when initializing the 
database "rpm --initdb", I get the following error: 

error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)

Any ideas? Thanks
Oleg