Thank you Motub. I found your post very very helpful...

I just need some further infomation as to how to run the program.
I am running mandrake 10.1 official distro and I installed the urpmi thingiz as mentioned by you. From the list of pacakges available in the software Management (install) I installed the Real Player. However after installing the player, I tried opening an online real player jukebox, but it wont work. I was given a choice of whether to save the file or open it with kaffeine.
I went back to control center to see if the packages were installed and click on Remove and real player is listed there...
I was wondering if there is something further that has to be done after one installs the real player from the package...and also where can I find an installed program viz. Real player...
Your help is greatly appreciated....

hi frnds,
i wanna install extra app. (.tar.gz) i want to know the names of all packages needed to be install from mandriva cds like gcc,gcc-c++
without these files i'll not be able 2 install any extra applications. . . . .plz help

Thank you, motub. I don't think I can thank you enough. I haven't actually implemented your solutions yet, but the mere hope they have inspired in me is enough to persuade me to continue my quest with the open source os.

I hope this thread isn't so old that no one checks it anymore.

I downloaded and installed the free version of Mandriva. The installation took 2 attempts before it was bootable. (shrug) I got it done, though.

There are a couple of problems. There is no 'Software Management' in LocaleDrake (control center). I tried a search for RPMDrake, but could not find it.
I used the easy urpmi tutorial in this thread to add the rpm sources, but there seems to be no way to install or update software. How can one get any software or updates installed, if RPMDrake is not installed?
Also, there is no text editor. This seems most strange to me.
Are these things excluded from the free version of Mandriva as a way to "encourage" users to buy Mandriva?

I'm more used to Fedora Core and PCLinuxOS; they are easily updated and adding software is a breeze.
A system that requires so much configuration (over 6 hours so far today) with so few results is not what I'd call new user friendly. Mandriva says they are, but is that only for those with money?

-Merlin

Hi I have not used a current version of Mandriva as I went to Debian a little while ago, however it would seem very strange and unlikely for them to have left out RPMDrake as it is a key part of Mandriva, I would also bet anything that they wouldn't leave a txt editor out.

I think there is either a problem with your installation CD's or some hardware incompatibility that caused it not to install properly.

Perhaps try download the CD’s again.

What version of Mandriva are you trying to install, and what computer do you have?

I'm using MandrivaOne on an HP Pavilion a1016x, with an Intel Pentium 4, 512 MB Ram and a 160 GB hard drive.

I'll try another download and burn. It seemed quite strange to me that they would do this, also. This isn't to be my main distro (I use PCLinuxOS and Fedora Core), but I would like for it to work properly.

Thank you for your responce. I hope your suggestion does the trick.

-Merlin

Hi, I've tried to use the easy urpmi site and downloaded the contrib file from one of the mirrors and received this error message. I'm running a Gateway TL-52 Laptop with an AMD Turion 64x2 chip, 160gb harddrive, 2g of ram and an ATI Radeon card.


linux/devel/2007.0/x86_64/media/contrib/release with media_info/hdlist.cz
added medium contrib
wrote config file [/etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.Installation DVD.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.Installation DVD (main32).cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.update_source.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.plf-free.cz]
computing md5sum of existing source hdlist (or synthesis)
retrieving source hdlist (or synthesis) of "contrib"...
ftp://mdk.linux.org.tw/pub/mandrakel...info/hdlist.cz
found probed hdlist (or synthesis) as media_info/hdlist.cz
...retrieving done

examining hdlist file [/var/cache/urpmi/partial/hdlist.contrib.cz]
examining synthesis file [/var/cache/urpmi/partial/hdlist.contrib.cz]
unable to parse hdlist file of "contrib"
examining synthesis file [/var/lib/urpmi/synthesis.hdlist.contrib.cz]
problem reading synthesis file of medium "contrib"
found 0 headers in cache
removing 0 obsolete headers in cache
wrote config file [/etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg]
unable to update medium "contrib"

if you read all this wondering about tar.bz2
then you will be glad to know that for example
tar -xjvf speedtouch-131.tar.bz2 will work
instead of -xzvf

This is a lot of good info..BUT!!!..Linux is supposed to be so much better than Windows, more user friendly, blah, blah, blah...they why cant d/l software just be installed, without going thru command line crap? This os the 3rd attempt thur the years to install and get some familiarity with Linux(mandrake version this time) and, again..if it isnt an RPM package..I have to jump thru hoops to instal a application. Is there NO autolaoders out there?

Thanx for letting me semi-rant

You don't, just about all the software you will ever need you can get from URPMI i think its called sorry if thats wrong - been a long while since i used mandrake/mandriva.

Read thru the thread properly there is stuff in here about it

Mandrake does have a GUI interface for this, i think called rpmdrake, and you just need to set up the sources.
You should be able to get what you need from http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

Hope this helps

Try using "Checkinstall" and / or "DoAsRoot". They should be in the repositories.

Yes, there are "autoloaders" (or rather, facilities for the automatic installation of software, which is more or less what you mean, even though there's no "setup.exe" type thing) out there, but the software which can automatically be installed on Mandriva is all on the Mandriva repositories. That's the entire point of them (repositories)-- to enable you to use the provided GUI utility to install software.

If you're having to "go through command-line crap", because "the package isn't an RPM", that's most likely because you're seeking out individual applications on the application's homepage, rather than using the Mandrake--- sorry, Mandriva-- repositories, where all the applications available for Mandriva are collected, and can be downloaded and installed using the Mandriva Control Center. Many of these applications are the same ones you couldn't find an RPM package for, but the Mandriva team has taken the source and compiled it as Mandriva-compatible RPMs. That's what the teams that populate the repositories do.... but the original homepage doesn't have the Mandriva-compatible RPM of course. Mandriva has it, and makes it available to Mandriva users who access the software repository. The Mandriva Control Center can be configured to access these repositories via the Easy URPMI site linked above (which is the pretty much the main function of the site, actually).

Which is, in fact, "better" than having to search out individual programs to download and install from various application homepages scattered all over the Internet.... but that's a matter of opinion, I suppose.

The point being, the tools are all available, but obviously they won't work for you if you don't use them . Try doing so, then see what you say.

Well, I just did something stupid.

I went to easy URPMI. I'm using Mandrake 10.1 official version, but when I selected the architecture I selected x86_64 instead of i586. I looked at the DVD I used to install 10.1 and it said "x86 Version" and just thought, "What the heck." Later a friend told me I probably chose the wrong architecture. I tried to edit though URPMI, just doing it over again through the terminal w/ i586 selected. It just said that it was already there. So I tried to _edit_ through Media Manager, but that didn't work, so I _removed_ contrib hoping that would just remove the path, but instead it removed the whole darn thing. I added it again through URPMI (which seemed to work), but now it doesn't show up in Media Manager.

A fine mess.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Having been a very very happy SUSE user for a past couple of years, I thought I would try and go for the lstest offerinf that Mandriva had to offer. I have to say I am a little underwhemled at the usability. In SUSE there were many repositories which had many many different and wonderful programs which you can pick and choose from. The easy-urmpi doesn't give a fraction of the programs which I want, for example Octave (I compiled this from source), Opera, seamonkey, aMule, Azureus, Kile and firefox 2.0. None of these were on easy-urmpi. To get more repositories onto SUSE, you use a GUI, not a commamd line

Once installed in SUSE, there will be a item in the menu which is created and it is easy to see, my experience with Mandriva is that you install a rpm and then it dissapears into the aether, not to be seen again... This is the other of my grips with mandriva.

One these two rather large problems (IMHO), mandriva will be a uasble distro.

So my question is, how does one go about doing these things?

Mat

The control panel at System -> Configuration -> Configure Your machine
brings you the Mandriva control panel.

In the uppermost part administration of programs there is one rpm applet that let's you choose from were to get the rpms.

There you can add various repos.

There is also an applet where you can look at installed packages and uninstall