Updating and Installing software in Mandriva

Introduction

Installing software and updating your Mandriva Linux box is easy and flexible with the command line utility "urpmi". Don't be scared by this utility, it infact is easier to use than the standard "rpm" utility. However in order to use this utility properly, you have to first setup something called "repositories".

Repositories are simply just file servers that contain constantly updated material about your Mandriva Linux Distro and other software you have install. These are also the repositories that your "urpmi" utility uses to install software. Setting them up is a piece of cake and I will demonstrate to you each step along the way! Lets get started

The first thing you have to do is visit: Easy Urpmi

Now at the almost top of the page is where your going to selet which year of Mandriva your running and your system architecture. For the majority of people this is "i586" for Intel Machines and your package manager is "urpmi". It should look like this:

Now proceed to step 2 and your almost done! This is where everyone tends to mess up. You DO NOT EVER want anything labeled "backports"! These are for developers or for those that want to run the bleeding edge of everything, not for new users. As your looking at this you see "Select a Mirror" and you should see two drop down menus. What I would like to say at this moment is crucial...DO NOT SELECT THE DEFAULT MIRROR! Those who don't read this, or other docs, or those who are lazy use these. The problem you ask..simple too many people use these and it slows the server down and possibly takes it offline and then you have more problems! Just take my advice and select a random mirror and ALWAYS make sure it begins with "ftp://"

The sources you want are listed in this table below

main
contrib
non-free
main_updates
contrib_updtes
non-free_updates

Now for the selections below that:

plf-free
plf-nonfree

Now your ready to proceed to step three which should look something like this:

Now leave that screen open and open up a Terminal. You need to become root to perform these operations. Simply type:

su -

Now you type in your "root" password. Your now ready to use this command:

urpmi.removemedia -a

This will remove all the old repos and your ready for the new ones. Wait until the command is finished. Once it is finished go back to Easy Urpmi and Copy that entire window they have for you and paste it to your command line in your Terminal. It will automatically install the repos...this could take some time so relax. You may notice that it appears to be finished but there is one more command left...simply press enter and it will install the very last repo...this does not happen all the time, but when it does you need to press enter to install that repo, else you will be less one vital repo.

Verify that you have your repos installed by using this command:

urpmq --list-media

It should look like this (take notice that I have other 3rd party repositories installed):