Using third party rpms

[Guest timelord]

Hi,

This isn't meant to disparage anyone, but I'm a new Mandrake user (9.1 Power Pack), and I am wondering about downloading and installing rpms. I've found the urpmi repositories for Texstar and PLF, which contain gobs of cool-looking RPMs. I've also read in some places that using thrid party rpms is frought with danger, and you risk messing up your system, etc, etc. So, should I feel free to download? Should I learn how to compile my own rpms from source code? What are your thoughts. Thanks.

[Steve Scrimpshire]

You can go here

 

http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/index.php

 

and select all the sources you want to add to urpmi, like contribs (Texstar) and plf and run the command(s) suggested and then you can just

 

urpmi <<whatever cool Texstar pkg you want>>

 

and everything should be cool. I've never had a problem. You'll notice that when you add the Texstar or PLF sources, they are in a Mandrake directory tree, meaning that the packages are intended for Mandrake (as opposed to being supplied by them).

 

The dangers you hear mentioned about installing 3rd party RPMs are usually about installing Redhat (or whatever) pkgs on Mandrake, which can be dangerous to make a habit of. I have one or two RedHat pkgs on my computer like ymessenger or whatever with no problems, but I would not make a habit of it at all.

[AussieJohn]

From what I can understand to be the case, Mandrake and RPM packagers who package RPMs for Mandrake strictly adhere to what is now deemed to be the RPM Standards protocol. Even though the RPM concept originated from Red Hat, Red Hat is becoming more like Micr.....ft and not adhering to current Standards protocols especially RPMs .

 

If I am wrong about my assessment of the situation then I will stand to be corrected but this would seem to be supported by Steves post.

 

Cheers. John (69yrs young)

[mtweidmann]

One of the problems is that different distributions put things in slightly different places and call them slightly different names. These slight differences be enough to make software go wrong, so try to stick to rpms with mdk in the name.

 

There is a project called Linux Standards Base (LSB) which is trying to standarise the distros (in terms of file system and naming). This eventually (at least I hope) will make it easier to install software on diferent distros.