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Removing Packages from Oracle Linux

I am having a tough time with up2date on Oracle Linux. The backward package manager has survived the Red Hat "fork" or spin-off, if you will. Sad, very sad. I have always hated the cumbersome up2date thingy. It's vague and opaque about how it does things.
yum is better, but sadly yum won't work (yet, Juli 2007) with Oracle's update network ULN. So you can't use it. I am trying to find a way to strip a lot of packages off of an installed system in order to clean it up for an upcoming 'golden image' creation with Altiris. Altiris will be used to quickly provision new bare metal machines with a 'golden image' of OEL, containing all packages and configs.
The only thing I can find, is system-config-packages in the Red Hat documentation on Removing Packages. Sadly, whenever I try to remove packages, it always whines and complains about missing libs, prompts to insert CDs or whatever. I can never simply wipe a system and remove unwanted packages other than reinstall a clean system with only what is necessary...*sigh* Long live apt!
BTW, yes I know there is apt4rpm...

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