Cool!
And Good Luck!

Mandriva's packages manager is called urpmi. It works quite well, though you'll
notice that there are far less packages than in the Debian repositories.

Go there and follow the instructions. No /etc/apt/sources.list to edit, just add
the lines provided (by Copy/paste) in a console and your sources are configured.

site : http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

cheers

I know well that Debian has lots more software and lots better *.deb packaging system. But what's the use of this, if I can't make sound work?

I'll use Mandrake to learn Linux a little, and then I'll upgrade to Sarge, when it'll be released. I won't give-up Debian!

I need your help again, guys!

I downloaded the 1st ISO, and I installed it in Windows, using Connectix Virtual PC (kinda like VMWare).
Now the wuestion:
[b]Is Mandrake LE2005 very heavy at resource eating? In the Virtual PC, I set the amount of RAM to 128 (I have 256 total), and now my memory status looks like this:
exit3219.cogia.net/a.GIF (~30K GIF)
(EDIT: this link doesn't seem to work, but the image is there. Go to http://exit3219.cogia.net and click on a.GIF. Thanks for giving a ****. )

It just taked forever to load even Konsole, not talking about OO.
You guys who use Mandriva, what specs do you have?

Thanx.

The phrase "Is Mandrake LE2005 very heavy at resource eating?" makes no sense because all linux distros will use the same kernel (only changing the version) and the Desktop Environment also does not depend on the distro. Any distro will accept Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox or anything else. So the question should be "Is LInux very heavy at resource eating?"

128 MB RAM is very, very little to run a modern Operating System. WIndows XP would be terrebly slow with that amount of RAM. However you can do that on linux. Just use a very light desktop environment like Fluxbox instead of KDE or Gnome.

You could also just restart your PC and boot into linux using lilo or grub instead of using VMWare.

I have 512MB RAM, 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 and my Mandrake LE 2005 runs very smooth and fast. I don't use VMWare.

Felipe

Thanks, Felipe. I used VMWare just to make sure I don't ruin anything on the real PC until I know how to install Mandrake perfectly. Now, of course, I've installed Mandriva on the real PC.

NOTE: It was a pain to install it. My C: partition was a 'Dynamic disk' in Window$, so Mandriva Install thought it's not OK and overwritten my MBR. I had to reinstall Window$ (Still can't live w/o it. )

Mandriva still runs pretty smooth on 256MB (real machine, no VMWare.)
But I like Debian better! (I plan to upgrade to Sarge, because it went stable.)

What is a Dynamic disk??? How do you choose the operating to boot if you have your MBR controled by Windows??? Lilo will boot Windows no problem.

A 'dynamic disk' is a kind of Christmas joke from M$. If you convert your normal HDD to 'dynamic disks', using Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Manager (then right click on your disk (not partition) and select 'Convert to dynamic disk'), you can assign two partitions the same drive letter. This seemed really useful at that time. However, Linux doesn't know what a 'dynamic disk' is, and thinking it's corrupted, it overwritten the MBR. Now here's how it looked:
LILO is in /dev/hda, where the NT Boot Loader used to be. NT Boot Loader went to hell, so I couldn't boot Windoze.

Here's how to use NT's boot loader to load Linux:
http://www.highlandsun.com/hyc/linuxboot.html
http://enterprise.linux.com/enterpri...tid=129&tid=49
and, of course, http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/info/bootini.shtml (boot.ini reference).

Google is your friend!

if you have trouble configuring debian, try an easy alternitive such as mepis or ubuntu. I used both, and I used plain debian, I reccomend regular debian, because it is the most configurable, then mepis is the next best thing, because it is also incredibly easy.

I dont use debian anymore, but no offense, mandriva sucks in my opinion.

OK, I've completely changed my opinion about Mandrake.
I know it could've been my fault, but it acually screwed up my partition table and I couldn't boot neither Debian, Mandriva, XP...
Thank god I downloaded a free recovery program and rescued my FAT32s.

After installing Sarge (hardware autodetection, udev, ...), I will definately stay w/ Debian. It is simply the best.

Thanks for your help and your advice, guys.

Actually, if you have a little experience on your side, and are looking for speed + a package manager, get gentoo.

gentoo has over 120,000 packages in portage, except they need to be compiled, but it has all dependencies, etc, I believe debian has only near 13,000.

there are horror stories about gentoo, but it's really not all that bad, the install is quite simple, the guide explains absolutely everything you possibly need to know about gentoo, and it explains basic configuration, and then all you do is let emerge do the rest.

* Install gentoo <Explained on gentoo.org>
* configure some things <Explained on gentoo.org>
* type in "emerge -a gnome (or kde) mozilla-firefox gaim xmms mplayer alsa-utils alsa-tools" etc etc, the list goes on and on with packages.

gnome will automatically install x.org 6.8.1, and all the dependencies, which is about 175 packages, if you include firefox, etc.

It may take some reading, but it will be worth it, trust me.

I'll dafinately try Gentoo and other top-of-the-list distros (from Distrowatch).

(I thought Debian has most packages. I don't have much time right now, but I will make some research.)

Ok, but just a heads up, gentoo is not like other distros, don't download it and expect it to be running in 10 minutes, the gentoo install guide is 96 pages, but it's not that hard, it just explains everything there is to know about gentoo.

Prepare on not having a working computer for roughly 2 days.

No way! I will make a dual-boot w/ Debian and XP, just like I did with Mandrake.

I checked the Gentoo web-page and I was impressed by the large amount of documentation.