I'm pure newbie here, but I know my way around a computer. Yesterday I had Mandrake 9.1 loaded onto my computer by one of my local LUG guys. For some reason Mandrake 9.1 doesn't automatically come with apt-get. So I went out, found it, and installed it after quite a bit of wrestling with the new os. They lug guys were a big help, until my first real error message poped up. So after getting apt-get all installed, I go to update it so I can get synaptic, and this is the error I received: E: Syntax error /etc/apt/vendors.list:11: Extra junk at end of file

Now I know it goes through source.list as well, but...I'm lost and my LUG doesn't know whats happening. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well there are two things (from my limited knowledge of Mandrake)

1 - "Apt-get" is originally a Debian rpm finder and installer. Since a little while ago it's gained in popularity with Red Hat users and SuSE users as well.

2 - If you compiled your own "apt-get" from a tarball (tar.gz), you must find Mandrake rpm repositories and then edit the sources.list file. I'm not sure on this one, but I believe it may come with a pre-determined Red Hat repository list - this may be giving you some trouble.

3 - Mandrake doesn't seem to like "apt-get" very well. Instead there is something called urpmi - specifically made for Mandrake. URPMI is the same as apt-get (well very similar) in what it does.

Here's a complete explanation of URPMI (short page):
http://desktop-linux.net/urpmi.htm

Here's a site that will "pre-configure" your URPMI depending on your Mandrake version:
http://plf.zarb.org/%7Enanardon/urpmiweb.php


Hope this helps

//Canon

Well, first off, I haven't gotten past the learning curve to unpack tarballs yet. I've got a tarball for synaptic, but haven't quite figured out how to unpack it and install it with mandrake yet. The apt-get that I have is specifically for Mandrake 9.1. I was able to install it, it was in rpm format which I quickly learned how to use. But like I said, when I went to update it, I received that error. I will probably download and install urpmi tonight. Does urpmi work with synaptic? If not, then does it have its own gui interface that can be used?

And my repository list is mandrake specific, both the source.list and vendors.list

oops.. sry - just making some general assumptions... I didn't mean to be rude

uhhh, the gui front-end for urpmi is called "rpmdrake" - you should be able to use it from the konsole in KDE (or, if in KDE, press ALT-F2 and type "rpmdrake" - without the quotes).

A tip: you can open any program by using the ALT-F2 combo - easier than starting a terminal/console window and typing some program name in and having the terminal/console open the whole time a program is running

Ok, I'm trying Urpmi and rpmdrake. Currently installing Urpmi *fingers crossed* and I was told how to deal with tarballs earlier today, so thats another item crossed off the list to learn.

Well, I think I already had urpmi on my system, which is probably what confused so many people. Anyways, I have rpmdrake, I have urpmi, and everything else. Now....how do I make a quick link to rpmdrake in gnome? I'll probably figure it out by the time I get a response, but......