bigjohn Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 (edited) Ok so I'm using a boxed set powerpack DVD 2006. The other week I managed (with more than a little help and reading) to update my KDE to 3.5 (from 3.4.2). When I was doing this, I managed to screw things up a couple of times. I really didn't know where I was going wrong. Eventually it was more straight forward than I'd expected. I carefully removed the KDE 3.4.2 packages and then having already put in the repository to access thac and Ze's packages at the anorien mirror installed the KDE 3.5 ones. OK I can hear you say, "big deal" even. Well I'm a little confused, because my memory is quite good, though even I couldn't remember the names/numbers of all the KDE (and mandriva ??) packages that I installed then, but I don't recall installing one called "drm" (it finishes in .mde so I know it came from the MDE/thac mirror at anorien) or another one called "nvidia-8178 something something" again, ending in .mde - same source/location. About 20 minutes ago, I ran the MCC to check for any updates and noticed that there was a new kernel-sources package. Which immediately reminded me to install it and then go to the install section of the software manager (as opposed to the updates section) to get the new kernel version that would accompany the kernel-sources. After that, I wonder over to the nvidia site, and got the latest driver as well as jotting down the "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86 etc etc" command. I do the reboot. "It seems to be taking a while" thinks me, so I hit the button to see the verbose version of the bootup dialogue, and bugger me sideways, I see a curious little line about "installing drm (followed by the packagename.mde) and ...................., so I watch a little longer and it does the same thing, but with the nvidia-8178 something something.mde package and more of the ............'s. Bugger me sideways with the rough end of a pineapple, where in hells name did that come from ?? :o It finshes the boot dialogue and promptly boots into the GUI login window/panel. So I log in, with the "thats bloody strange, I haven't seen that before" thoughts running through my head. I can't believe it. It's like when I was using gentoo (almost). I do a few cursory checks, like uname -r and that reports it's using the new kernel. It all looks "hunky dory". I think "nah, can't be right, something must go wrong". so I reboot the system. Yup, it booted, listing a few unexpected things in the grub screen, yes it's into the GUI again, uname -r, yes it's into the new kernel. So I've amended the grub.conf (or menu1st as it seems to be called now) and it's all working prefectly. Absolutely bloody marvellous. I don't ever recall seeing most of that before i.e. sure the usual install of the kernel and kernel-sources and the newer entries to the grub.conf, but the rest of it, well I haven't the faintest idea as to where it came from (well I can see where it came from, but how the hell it got there)??? A truely excellent facility. Is it because it installed itself as a dependency or something? Is it because I'm using a boxed set powerpack 2006 ?? I suppose I don't really care, because that was the easiest and smoothest kernel upgrade I've ever done. Whoever is responsible? Dunno, but a mega thanks to whoever did the packaging etc. Brilliant. If you're ever in my "neck of the woods" email me. I'm sure I can get at least a dozen or so, large beers down your throat! Excellent. B) regards John Edited January 23, 2006 by bigjohn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 A great post Bigjohn. From the lingo I'd say you are a true blue from downunder. Whereabouts ???. Your experience is no wonder to me. That is how easy I have experienced it for a couple of years now with Mandriva/Mandrake. Sure there are ocassional problems but most are overcome with the guidance of fellow members at MUB. Cheers mate. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Erm Ive been doing this in Debian for as long as Ive been using it. But then apt is way more advanced than urmpi in this respect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Hi Gowater. CCCCChhhheeeeeekkkkkyyyy. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjohn Posted January 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2006 (edited) A great post Bigjohn. From the lingo I'd say you are a true blue from downunder. Whereabouts ???. Your experience is no wonder to me. That is how easy I have experienced it for a couple of years now with Mandriva/Mandrake. Sure there are ocassional problems but most are overcome with the guidance of fellow members at MUB. Cheers mate. John <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Nah! the lat/long should give it away AussieJohn. In a past life (the RN) I did get the opportunity to visit the "proper" south, just not your bit. The South Atlantic! (and yes I can confirm that it does in deed, get bloody cold among the ice :D). Besides, Gowator obviously missed this comment from my original post It's like when I was using gentoo (almost). 'Cos IMO, gentoo dumps on debian by way of package management big time. Yes I have used both, and even gentoo's "stable" packages are more up to date than most of the stuff available via debian + you don't have to meddle with apt-sources lists with gentoo like you do with debian. Don't get me wrong, debian and derivatives are good, just not as good as........... etc. I'm sure you can guess the rest. Also IMO, Mandriva's urpmi is, when properly configured, better than just about all the other RPM based package managers. It's more intuitive than YaST and has a few plus points over anything deadrat have come up with. Yaddah Yaddah! Yes I know it's "horses for courses". All distros have plus and minus points. Working out how to do some of the more juicy stuff with mandriva can take a bit of learning/getting used too. Whereas, with gentoo, I found that most of "them" expected me to have at least the same level of knowledge/expertise as they did. Ain't gonna happen anytime soon (and probably all the time my arse points downwards). I do enjoy and appreciate linux full stop! But I'm not so engrossed with it that I need to learn everything about it and it's various flavours. It's fair to admit, I'm no geek/nerd/whatever, I'm here because I have social/moral/ethical issues with some of microsofts more "dubious" business tactics - hence I'm probably more comfortable with the way that mandriva does things that I ever was with gentoo (even though gentoo is considerably easier to manage IMO). The original post was only because I'd never seen mandriva working in that way - it was a new, and pleasant experience - though whether thats because someone at mandriva woke up or whether it's connected with the recent aquisitions, I can't say. Oh well, I suppose I'll have to go and start reading up about kpilot as I ordered a replacement for my windows based smartphone yesterday. I understand that the treo 650 should "just work" (without having to familiarise myself with god knows what, which is what happened with the old smartphone - Ha! with any luck, when the treo is due for replacement, someone might have actually bothered to start marketing a linux based one in the UK)!. regards John Edited January 27, 2006 by bigjohn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjohn Posted January 29, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2006 Just for the sake of passing any relevant info, I did indeed receive a nice shiney new Treo 650 smartphone and after I installed kpilot I followed the instructions and tried to "sync" it. Inititially, it didn't want too play, and no I couldn't locate any obvious reason why. So I just did a bit of digging round the available packages in the MCC, and ended up installing the complete kdePIM suite (the 3.5 version, courtesy of Thac and Ze at the anorien mirror at Warwick) plus any development libs, and when I followed the instructions it did indeed "sync" (Oh and did I mention that I installed all of the "kontact" stuff, as it would appear that kpilot will work best with that). Now I should also point out, that this is my first "foray" into the world of "palm" and their OS (not to mention their devices). Yes, I do feel more at home with it, but that hasn't prevented a "learning curve" as it feels rather different to windows. So I'm getting there, but it's gonna take a while until I'm happy that I know how to use the device to my satisfaction. The only downside is that the included software with the device doesn't seem to support linux, only windows and Mac. Ah well, never mind eh! Thats nothing new really, is it! regards John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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