Software Media Manager

[gosooner]

I am a new user, and I have installed Mandrake 10.0 recently. Every thing was working fine. I was just playing around and I had clicked Update in the Media Manager and I got an error message, that the source link was changed or not correct. Also the dialog box said, remove the medium in the left ( the one with incorrect sourcelink) and add to reconfigure it.

 

I thought it will automatically reconfigure them and I removed the medium using remove and when I add a medium, it popped a window with all blank columns and I didnt know which link I removed and what to add now.

 

When I installed, I made a boot floppy and then used ftp server to install the mandrake. the ftp server I selected was ftp://ftp.phys.ttu.edu//pub/mandrakelinux and in that official, 10.0. What I see now on the media manager is like this:

 

1. Installation CD (ftp1)

2. This is missing and what I recollect was the name is Installation Sources (ftp2)

3. Contrib CD (ftp3)

4. Contrib Sources (ftp4)

5. Jpackage.org (ftp5)

6. Jpackage.org sources (ftp6)

7. update_source

8. updates

9. main

10. contrib

 

I guess 7, 8, 9, and 10 are added by me after installation, as I went to easy urpmi and added the sources by choosing another ftp site.

 

For example, ftp://raven.cslab.vt.edu/pub/linux/mandra...6/Mandrake/RPMS for main, and similarly for updates and contrib.

 

Now I want to know what to keep here, and what to remove, and whether the one I removed is important one.

 

Also I would like to know how to update from Mandrake 10 to 10.1. I thank you for reading this post with patience. The stuff is small but I dont know how to explain it precisely. So I explained everything. Thanks.

 

OU Sooner.

[gosooner]

I wanted to add that I also need to know any tutorial kinda websites to learn where the linux applications are stored, like the basic file structures, and etc. Thanks.

Edited March 20, 2005 by gosooner

[spinynorman]

I wanted to add that I also need to know any tutorial kinda websites to learn where the linux applications are stored, like the basic file structures, and etc. Thanks.

If you installed documentation, go to More Applications - Documentation - Mandrakelinux documentation in English, and select the Command Line Manual.

 

If it's not installed, you can find it at www.mandrakelinux.com/en/fdoc.php3. :)

[adamw]

You can remove everything but main, contrib and update_source. If you need the stuff from jpackage, you can re-add a jpackage source using Easy URPMI.

[rolf]

1. Installation CD (ftp1)

2. This is missing and what I recollect was the name is Installation Sources (ftp2)

3. Contrib CD (ftp3)

4. Contrib Sources (ftp4)

5. Jpackage.org (ftp5)

6. Jpackage.org sources (ftp6)

7. update_source

8. updates

9. main

10. contrib

I would say you have configured sources for main (Installation CD) contrib (Contrib CD) and update_source (updates) twice, plus jpackage, jpackage sources, and Contrib Sources are probably not needed.

 

Go you the mirror you are using and look in official/10.0/i586/Mandrake/. The RPMS directory is main or Installation CD, RPMS2 is contrib/, and RPMS3 is for the jpackage rpms.

 

I think jpackage are java-related packages for java development, so I don't think you need that.

 

If you ever wanted to rebuild a source rpm (contains human-readable/writable source code) to the binary rpm (contains the compiled, machine-executable code, the actual program, libraries, config files, plus docs files, etc.), you could probably download it from the mirror as you need it. In other words, I don't think you need it as a Software Manager source. Up to you.

 

IIANM, updates is the source for the automatic update applet and update_source is what MandrakeUpdate calls the update repository. Both are the same, security rpm updates plus, occasionally, bugfixes. I started out using MandrakeUpdate and ran afoul of the automatic applet service, so I discontinued the automatic update service. Again, up to you.

 

If I am correct about the duplicates, I would keep

 

7. update_source

9. main

10. contrib

 

and use MandrakeUpdate (called like that from a root command prompt or called something like Mandrakelinux Update in the menu) for security updates.

 

You can do everything you can do in the gui from the command line and more. The gui is a frontend to the urpmi set of commands, which are an extension to the rpm command. For example, get a list of what your media names are:

 

$ urpmq --list-media

 

Now, to verify which of your sources contain which rpms, go to the mirror and choose the name of one of the packages in one of the directories, for example:

 

.../official/10.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS2/acid-0.9.6b23-3mdk.noarch.rpm

Now, urpmi and urpmq usually want to know only the package name, not all the versioning or path, so, to check if the acid package is part of the contrib source, do:

 

# urpmq --sources --media contrib acid

 

and, if this command gives you the path to a directory, you know that directory is the contrib source. I will recommend you run the --sources switch to urpmq as root. At some point, 10.1, I believe, this requires root privileges because some sources are set up with a password and, for security in a multi-user system, only root should see the password.

 

You could verify all your sources this way to see which are duplicates and remove duplicates. You could remove in Media Manager or on the command line:

 

# urpmi.removemedia Contrib CD \(ftp3\)

 

or whatever is the name given by urpmq --list-media. The parentheses will have to be "escaped" with a backslash to be read by the shell (command processor).

 

See man urpmi, man urpme, man urpmq, man urpmf, man urpmi.addmedia, man urpmi.removemedia, man urpmi.update, man rpm and the following sites for more info:

 

http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/.../UrpmiResources

http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/

Edited March 21, 2005 by rolf

[gosooner]

My Sincere Thanks to All of you there.