hi folks. trying to configure the mirror list for urpmi and every reference i see points to zarb and i timeout everytime i try to access it. is there another way/place ??

You bet! But first of all, I for one would like to sincerely, sincerely thank the people at zarb and the Penguin Liberation Front. I think its a little overstating things to reference them as "crap" because their server is down...

They set up EasyURPMI to bring the mirrors lists "to the masses". If you want an even more reliable list, join the Mandrake Club where they offer a similar service. Mandrake Club. You also get to support the distro, and get access to other nice things (such as voting on what packages make it to the next version, etc).

oops... sorry.. meant to say "zarb crapped out"

that'll teach me to slow down...

I know the feeling... the other day my cat walked across my keyboard and sent out an email I was only 4 words into

You might want to install the package urpmi.setup. It helps you set up your sources. You can also go to urpmi.org/easyurpmi