Howdy!

I recently installed Mandrake 9.1 on my Sony Vaio FX-220 laptop. I chose to install, among others, the Multimedia package which included Xine (which I enjoy using). After the installation, I tried using Xine and couldn't get any audio going. The system had the i810 driver (which has worked successfully in the past) and everything else looked ok. I decided to get the latest RPM's of Xine and install those, hoping it would make a difference. I did not uninstall the old version and just installed the RPM's. That didn't work either. Still no sound. I ran xine-check and it showed that I had two installations (doh!) so I decided to remove the version that I installed with MD 9.1. No prob there! After that, I tried reinstalling the new RPM's and I got some errors on the install about conflicts with files in /usr/bin/xine and /usr/share/xine. So I went into those directories (as root) and deleted all the files and directories that the error message shouted out. I tried reinstalling again and no luck. I'm a longtime Windows user, so I feared things were unfixable I am reinstalling 9.1 as we speak. I feel like teh uber and don't ever want to have to reinstall to fix something like this. How in the world do I completely uninstall those RPM's? About the audio thing ... it works great in Red8.0 and MD 9.0 ... I dunno. I'm reinstalling with no Multimedia packages ... going to do the Xine RPM install clean. Sorry for the rambling ... been a long freakin day

- JJ

First off, Welcome to LQ Jimmy!

As for uninstalling RPM's, well there's a few ways.

First, the most basic:
Open up a terminal and type:
rpm -e packagename

Second, you can user urpmi to update/remove and install packages and their dependencies (best way IMHO on a mandrake system).

Third, you can go in with a hack and slash method like you did and just delete everything in your way. You will need to update the RPM database after this to ensure it knows who's boss:
updatedb --I-am-boss-now

And related:
Xine isn't all that great. It's ok, it's probably second best. But by a long shot mplayer is number 1. www.mplayerhq.hu and it's also probably on your mandrake install CD's:
urpmi mplayer



Cool

Thanks for the RPM FAQ

The install just finished and I'm listening to some MP3's at the moment. I tried the urpmi but it came up as bad command .. there was a urpmf, but no urpmi. I'd love to try that mplayer though, does it do DVD's as well as all the video formats that xine can do? I'm learning that it's easier to start with a small installation and build it then start with a large install and take it apart. Thanks again ...

- JJ

Definitely. however, be sure to include the development packages in your install, it's easiest that way (things like GCC for example).

As for urpmi not working, try it as root:
su -
enter root pass
urpmi -h (for help)
man urpmi

And I think it's urpme to remove packages (not on mandy right now so I can't tell you for sure).

Cool