SHARK
One of the lessons I learnt was be careful with Software Sources Manager! Unless a site has a file called hdlist.cz in the parent directory or in another directory off the parent directory (usually ../hdlist.cz or ../base/hdlist.cz) then I am wary of using it. I downloaded all the files to a directory on my drive, ran KPackage and Konqueror, selected all the .rpm files and dragged them to KPackage. Another window opens in KPackage for some reason at this point (cos you're not ready yet) so I closed it. I then selected each rpm in turn in KPackage and you can see dependencies in the right hand window, but it's a bit fiddly. So I checked everything and clicked install. The second window appeared, and there are check boxes for "Test (Do not Install)" and "Check Dependencies". I checked them, then clicked the Install button.
At this point you get an error report, which lists all the dependencies. So you leave out any selections you don't really need (development tools for example) and try again. You search the net and download dependent files and also drag and drop them into KPackage, and try again, until you get an error report '0'.
Once this is done, you can uncheck Test, check other boxes as indicated, and click on install.
Since I did that first time I had a problem with RPMdrake/urpmi(Software Sources Manager, Software Update etc) which meant I had to reload from scratch. I had kept the rpms for KDE3.1, but the latest Linux Format had KDE3.1 including Mandrake rpms on the cover disk. I actually tried that first, but there were so many dependencies (including Mandrake 9.1 beta files) that I used the 'ibiblio' set in the end.
As I said, get Partition Image on 2 floppy disks (
www.partimage.org I think), reload Mandrake, but once you have the initial setup done, with all the official updates, use Partition Image to archive it. Then if anything goes wrong, you can restore the archive rather than having to go from scratch. You can always do an archive before trying anything that might mess up your Mandrake installation.
DAVE