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updating mandriva's software


null
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Been on mandriva 6 months or so. Did a #urpmi --auto-select a week ago. Looked like all my programs were being updated... took a couple hours...

 

A couple of examples of versions I now have: Firefox 1.0.6 and Kino 0.7.6

 

The current issue of Linux Format calls both of these versions "old". The mag says that kino 0.8.0 is the latest release, and improved. Also mentions that the current Firefox is 1.5, also improved.

 

I'm not a huge expert on urpm, but isn't one of its selling points that it can keep your programs updated...? What gives?

Edited by null
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Hey Null,

 

I am new to Madriva as well. Not sure if you are a registered/paying member or not, but I used Kiosk and downloaded/installed the Mozilla bundle and it updated Firefox to a more up to date version. One back from current I believe. I also did the OpenOffice bundle to get version 2 of it, but after running the bundle installed noticed that both version 2 and the older version I first got when I bought PowerPack 2006 were still on the machine which is less then what I would have hoped for. I thought that it would install over top of the old version but that doesn't appear to be the case.

 

Not sure if this helps at all but thought I would share what little I knew...

 

good luck

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Ok then you can update both Firefox and Thunderbird (if you are using it as well) with the Kiosk bundle once you login to Kiosk. If you need help doing this let me know and I will get you the url etc. Because I didn't have Thunderbird installed when I did the bundle I got an error, but the Firefox upgrade completed without any problems.

 

thanks

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ok, thanks.

 

I'm wondering why upgrading everything with urpmi still gives you old versions of everything. Is there something else to be done after an urpmi --auto --auto-select ?

 

No, it's just the standard Mandriva version policy. Only minor updates, related to security and bugfixing are applied, while major version bumps get held back for the next mandriva official edition. This has always applied for all versions of Mandrake/Mandriva (exhept Cooker).

If you do not like this policy, you can get newer packages from unofficial repositories (Thac, SoS...), or build the newer versions from the Cooker source rPM's, or finally use another distro...

Edited by scarecrow
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If it is the newest firefox you want, this can be obtained easily from mozilla.org. There is no need to compile, as this has been done already. Download the tar file, and extract the folder "firefox" to any location you want. Firefox is executed by running the command "firefox" from within this folder.

 

As scarecrow said, the version of firefox available through urpmi is always dated. In my experience the version supplied by urpmi is also slower than that available from mozilla.org.

Edited by daniewicz
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No, it's just the standard Mandriva version policy. Only minor updates, related to security and bugfixing are applied, while major version bumps get held back for the next mandriva official edition.

That sucks. I may have to revise my mandriva review down in Everything Linux. I'm gonna read thru the "rolling releases vs point releases" thread again. So if you want new versions of your packages, urpmi is worthless.

In my experience the version supplied by urpmi is also slower than that available from mozilla.org.

I hope this is true. My Firefox is so SLOW I can hardly stand it. And yes, I have done all the "about:config" tweaks recommended for speedier browsing.

I thought that it would install over top of the old version but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Yeah, I am not going to want a bunch of duplicate packages on my machine. Waste of space.

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It's just a distro policy... if you find that "it sucks" and you cannot spend time building newer packages, or you don't trust unofficial repos, or finally you cannot handle Cooker, then mandriva isn't for you.

But this isn't just Mandriva:

Debian "stable" is even more dated- you must get "unstable/sid" for latest+greatest, which while much more stable than Cooker, it still has bugs and quirks.

Slackware is slightly more up-to-date than Mandriva, but still defaults to kernel 2.4.X and has absolutely no graphical management tools (excluding webmin).

Ubuntu is much more "current", but not up-to-date, as it's based on slightly aged Debian Sid snapshots.

PCLinuxOS is very much like Mandriva, much more up-to-date, but maybe a tad too KDE-centric and more difficult to debug (because it's a one-man-show, effectively).

Fedora is fairly up-to-date, but for everyday desktop usage ( java, multimedia codecs, P2P applications etc) the only solution is using unofficial (livna etc) repos.

Rolling releases are mostly bleeding edge, but they rely heavily on CLI for management (although things change- slowly, but steadily, and GUI installators and system managers are appearing for those distros as well).

But that's why in Linux we have such a variety: Everyone can pick the distro that suits him best.

Edited by scarecrow
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Ok, how does one use urpmi to actually get newer versions of packages - for example firefox. Need to add some other repos?

 

I never did anything with cooker. How is it used? I gather it is mandriva's name for what other distros call "testing" or "unstable". Is it just a matter of adding a cooker repository to urpmi?

 

really the 2 things right now I really want NEWER releases for are: firefox & kino. The other stuff like OO can wait. I can do those 2 myself I suppose, but was just wondering if there's a way urpmi can get the actually newer releases.

 

thanks!

 

edit:

It's just a distro policy... ... then mandriva isn't for you.

I really like mandriva, but I already decided to change to a rolling distro, where the pkg manager gets newer versions of your software, including the distro itself. I am gonna keep mandriva on this box for a while, but I'm gonna put arch on my windoze box as dual-boot just to play around with and learn something.

Edited by null
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Ok, how does one use urpmi to actually get newer versions of packages - for example firefox. Need to add some other repos?

Yuppers. You can use easy-urpmi to get some unnofficial sources. Also, Seer of Souls as a lot of more recent packages (including firefox 1.5) and you can just add them to your RPM Repo's. So does MDE.

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thanks, I did the addmedia for the SoS place. I notice when trying urpmi on firefox now, it wants to remove yelp and epiphany. Saying they require exactly firefox 1.0.6. Also wants to remove gnome cuz yelp will be gone.

 

Dont care about yelp & epiphany, don't even know what they are. What about gnome? Will I have to re-install it after firefox is upgraded?

 

Also since I'm not an urpmi expert yet, just specifying "#urpmi mozilla-firefox" will automatically get the latest 1.5 from SoS right? I already did an #urpmi.update -a to re-synch everything.

 

thanks again

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you should be able to force URPMI to install firefox without checking dependencies/conflicts - but I forget what the options are in urpmi to do this. it shouldn't cause any issues, though.

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thanks scarecrow & tyme for the tip about seerofsouls. I added it as a repository. Now I see that urpmi isn't "worthless" for upgrading packages to newer versions, you just have to point it to some other repos, other than the main,contrib and updates. I would think that the 2 plf repos would have package upgrades, but I guess not.

 

Anyway, I see now that its really not much diff than say, FC. Back on FC, I had to use several other repos, such as livna ...

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