suse is really great,
some rpm can't be installed in mandrake (dependency problem), can be installed easily in suse,
the graphical interface of suse is more beautiful too.

All dependency problems can be resolved, you just need to know how to do it. Such problems are avoided if you use the distributions package management tools e.g. urpmi.

Have they updated urpmi to 2006. Last I checked all they had was cooker no main,contrib,jpackage. Plus cooker can ruin a perfectly running system right now so I wouldn't reccomend using urpmi right now.Not at least for another week.

Cooker does have main and contrib as well as plf repos. I am still using cooker so don't know if the 2006 repos have been opened up to the public. Personally I don't think they are yet, maybe not until 2006 is released to the general public.

This is something I would love to know about. So far I haven't yet figured out how NOT to have to keep re-installing Mandrake/Mandriva, so maybe you can help me out.

Right now I'm running Mandrake 10.0-oe. I see this great piece of software (but it's only available for Mdk 10.1 and newer!), find the RPM and download it, and say "urpmi /path_to_my_rpms/great-software-for-mdk10.1.rpm". It says, "can't install due to unsatisified dependency: <whatever obscure library>".

So, where's this automatic dependency resolution thing? Why didn't it get what I needed and download that too? Sometimes urpmi is able to do that, and other times it just gives an error message and stops.

I *think* (but am not sure) that it's because the thing it's dependent on is a new version of the library, maybe a major version upgrade, and urpmi won't install it because it might break already-existing software on the computer. The question is, is this a valid concern?

If not, then could I force it to upgrade the library? (I've tried this before on Thac's RPM's, infamous for Mdk10.0 RPM's needing Mdk10.1 libraries which would then break the other software.)

If it *is* a valid concern, then that means if I want to try the newest Nifty_Program, I'll have to upgrade the entire operating system. This takes at least a day (I've been burnt enough times with the "upgrade existing Mdk9.1 to 10.0?" option not to just do a clean install, followed by rebuilding of my machine configuration, etc.) If this is so, then I'm going to jump to a Debian-based system, because the point of my running Linux is so that I don't have to keep upgrading everything just to upgrade one piece of it.



So, I would love to hear how "such problems are avoided if you use the distributions package management tools e.g. urpmi."

You never told us the file you are trying to install. We can help point you in the right direction. You can always --force an rpm to install but sometimes the program won't work without the dependencies.

As far as setting up urpmi go here http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/
go to the console su and paste the full output that Ezurpmi gives you.

If you are running Mandrake 10 and want to install 10.1 packages, then you need to add 10.1 sources to your urpmi sources list so that urpmi can fetch and install newer packages if they are available. As for forcing packages to install, they may not work properly or they may break your system (if they are system packages) if all dependencies are not met. You don't really have to install a new OS to try out new packages, but sometimes it can be the best or easiest way if you are not quite proficient at package management or don't want to take the risk that upgrades can sometimes cause.

Okay, that makes sense. What I'm hearing is that, yes, I do need to upgrade the libraries which are required by a new piece of software that I install (in answer to mojojo: I'm not thinking of any specific piece of software), but if I add the newer version libraries to my sources (using "urpmi.addmedia"), then urpmi should theoretically be able to upgrade my libraries when needed, but not when it's not needed.

Here's a question: when I do upgrade libraries, I seem to find that it generally breaks older applications that rely on an older version of the library. Is this generally true, or have I just been having bad luck? I always thought libraries should be backward compatible, especially when only the minor version numbers are different. Anyone else upgrade libraries and not have a problem?

(To mojojo: I already know about easyurpmi)

Hmm, maybe this discussion belongs in a separate thread since I seem to have derailed the conversation onto a different topic. Oops.

KWTm

Yeah, I think its best to start a new thread to give your questions more exposure.

I got mandriva 2006 RC2, do i really need the final release 2006?

Some packages will have been updated and bugs quashed, so yeah you may need to upgrade to the stable version.

But it is not available to the public at this moment.

Yep, you gotta join the club or wait for a few weeks. i wish they would follow Suses example and just release the isos to everyone at the same time. I know members pay for perks, but this just makes people shy away from Mandriva.

Looks like you can buy 2006 already here:
http://linuxcentral.com/catalog/inde..._code=L000-495