Mandrake:Package management
From Linux 101, The beginner's guide to all things Linux.
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[edit] Introduction
Mandrake Linux uses the RedHat package management (RPM) system to install things. Mandrake has their own special utility for managing RPM's, called urpmi. While you can always download RPM's from the web and install them, it is usually a better idea to use urpmi to install packages, because this saves you time and effort.
[edit] Features of urpmi
urpmi does several things for you. It manages package mirrors for you, meaning that you do not need to find and download RPM's yourself. Also, it handles dependencies between packages. This means that if package foo needs package bar to be installed before package foo can be installed, urpmi will install bar first. urpmi also provides easy ways to upgrade or remove packages, and Mandrake also includes several graphical tools for using urpmi.
[edit] Adding Mirrors
[edit] Easy Urpmi
There are many Mandrake urpmi mirrors on the internet. The easiest way to add more is to visit Easy Urpmi. Easy Urpmi has an index of mirrors for each version of Mandrake.
- Select your version of Mandrake and the architecture/type of packages you want from the drop-down boxes in step 1. Most users will select the i586 architecture.
- Click "proceed to step 2".
- Check in the package sections you need. My recommendations are contrib, main, updates, and plf.
- Select the mirrors you like for each package section you choose. It is hard to tell the "best" mirror, one wants the mirrors that are both fast and seldom down. It is difficult for one to know which mirrors will have these qualities, so just go with ones which are geographically near to you.
- Click "proceed to step 3".
- Now, open a terminal and become root.
-
su
- Copy all the text in the gray box in step 3, and then paste it into the rooted terminal.
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Note: The easiest way to copy something in Linux is simply to highlight it. To paste, just click the middle mouse button. |
- Wait while the mirrors are added. This could take a few minutes. When this is done, you are finished.
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Note: You can repeat the Easy Urpmi process again, this time choosing different mirrors, if you like. This will make sure that if one mirror goes down, you can still fetch packages. |
[edit] Thac's RPMs
One source of excellent Mandrake packages is Thac's RPMs. Thac provides packages for sound, HAM radio, graphics, networking and tons of other things. Just visit the site and click on the version of Mandrake you are using. You will see a list of different categories. Scroll down and you will see a line saying "Type this in a console as root, to add my RPMS to the urpmi database." Do just that with the following line (using urpmi.addmedia such as the things in the gray box on Easy Urpmi). Again you can copy and paste it using the highlight + middle click method.
[edit] Managing Software
You can add, remove and update software on the command line or with the graphical package management tools. Both of these tasks require root privileges. The most common use of urpmi on the command line is this form:
- #
urpmi <package>
where <package> is some part of a package name. If urpmi doesn't find a package by that exact name it will return a list of possible suggestions. Then you can run urpmi again with the exact name of the package you wish to install. For more information see the urpmi man page:
-
man urpmi
All the graphical package management tools are under the KDE "K" menu or the Gnome "Applications" menu -> System -> Configuration -> Packaging. To install software, just choose "Install Software". You will be prompted for your root password, and then you may view all the packages urpmi knows about, search them, and install them as you like.
