Software for Mandrake

[obscure_]

Ok I was just wondering a few things about Mandrake maybe someone could help me out understanding how it works.

 

I update my software from Mandrake mirrors. But on these mirrors is not up-to-date software with the rest of the linux world. For example, I use xchat version 2.0.7 when version 2.0.8 is out, kernel 2.6.3 when 2.6.5 is out, gnome 2.4.1 when version 2.6.0 is out etc etc.. Is this because the stuff on the mirrors is Mandrake approved / Mandrake tested or something?

 

On another thing I'm a little confused on, here's an example of a package name:

xchat-2.0.7-6mdk.i586.rpm.

Now I know "xchat" is the name of the application, "2.0.7" is the version of the application, "mdk" means Mandrake etc but what's the "-6" ?? It seems to happen on all / most of the Mandrake rpms so I was wondering what does it mean?

 

Thanks

[VeeDubb]

I don't know how much you already know about linux software, so if this is pedantic you'll have to forgive me.

 

BAsicaly you are dead on about the software. Most linux software is distributed as source code. Niuce for developers, sucky for normal people. All of the software mandrake offers is just a wee litle bit behind because they've taken the time to do all the tweaking and compiling for us and packaged it into rpm's.

 

The -Xmdk versions are the same. They sometimes find bugs or incompatabilities in the software and have to recompile it. When they do this, they want to distinguish it from the previous version even though it was technicaly the same software.

 

example: Mandrake 10.0CE came with kernel 2.6.3-4mdk, that's the fourth comilation they made of kernel 2.6.3. It was realy buggy for some people, so they fixed it and recomiled 2 or three tmes and now the current version (unless they released an update while I wan't looking) is kernel-2.6.3-7mdk. It's still kernel 2.6.3, but it took them 7 tries to get to this exact configurationa nd comilation, hence -7mdk