rpm problems

[Michael Grant]

I'm trying to install something from an rpm which uses the linux
emulation.

I have tried the following:

rpm -vv -i --force --ignoreos --nodeps fmserver-trial-5.5-1.i386.rpm 

and 

rpm -vv -i --force --root /compat/linux --dbpath /var/lib/rpm --ignoreos --nodeps fmserver-trial-5.5-1.i386.rpm 

both report that it creates a bunch of files but nothing seems to
actually get installed!

rpm --version reports:
RPM version 3.0.6

Any clues?