rpm package naming conventions (mandrake)
 

Hi all,
I almost can't believe I've been living and working for almost two weeks without feeding my old MS ease of use addiction, but that's neither here nor there. What I am wondering about is wether there is any sort of convention rpm package names are subscribing to. I'm using Mandrake 10 right now and Rpmdrake often ask me which of the pre-installed packages I would like to install, for instance:

One of the following packages is needed:
- kdebase-kdm-3.2-70mdk
- mdkkdm-9.2-17mdk

As much as I love to gamble I'd rather choose from knowledgde. Can anyone explain to me how I should read the names of these packages in a way that makes sense to me. I have tried the Info... button, but that's about as enlightening as a solid thud in the head.
Thanks in advance, and I hope this post wasn't to muddled.
Cheers,
Merijn

Kdebase-kdm is standard KDM from KDE, where mdkkdm is a version changed by Mandrake team, AFAIK.

The package name is usually 'progname-version-release' where 'version' is program version (you can download the program source with this version number from the projects website) and 'release' is number of compilation/packaging/patch (from distribution vendor) for the version.

Thanks, that clears up my most important question.

Sorry to be an ungrateful nag, but it does prompt a follow-up. Does the version number 9.2 in the kde the mandrake team built imply that kde is at version 9.2, or does it mean it is optimised for Mandrake 9.2?

9.2 in this case means Mandrake 9.2 (KDE is still at version number 3 :)
Seriously, version numbers can be misleading and you sometimes need to know which program is in which version to know what the number in package name means. But in most cases it's just version number of the program inside.

Thanks for the help.
I guess I should pay more attention to learning how to do a proper compile of source then to 'mastering' the rpm package manager, that should stop me from installing out of date code :)