Question concerning rpm's for Mandrake 9
 

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry for sounding so stupid .. but I'm rather confused.. when looking for rpm's what should I be looking for? arch or build or what? All this time I have only been installing rpm's with i586 thinking they were right for my version of Mandrake. Could someone please tell me what I *really* should be looking for in a HUGE list of rpm's? arch version or build version or what? Thanks in advance.

you need rpm's built for your version of mandrake and
the right architechture, or lower.
i386 will work on a 386 or better.
usually rpm's for your mandrake or older will work.
but, in general rpm's are made for a specific distribution
and version of linux

Thanks whansard! But I still don't understand the "build"? I was told in another forum my "build" version was incorrect and don't quite understand what build is?

build just means what type of machine it was compiled
for, like intel compatible or sun , or powerpc. but
build is a generic enough term, that it could include
the distribution of linux too.

Could the build package be Mandrake's packaging of source code? I have only used software in Mandrakes list in the package manager and a premade script Turn-Key Linux Audio, so I'm not much help. I am just starting out with Mandrake.

# Mandrake links
Mandrake home page
Mandrake Users website
Easy software management: Red Carpet
Maximum RPM
rpmfind
So, you didn't install the developmental packages? As root, just command:
urpmi gcc

Cheers! Thanks alot wansard. Thanks fancypiper.
:)

It's nice to see another woman here. Keep up, you'll have fun with linux.

Siri Amrit

Cheers Siri :) So far I feel I have a masochistic streak in me .. all I've been doing since I started using linux is fix (attemp) to fix stuff hehe! I can't say it's been fun, or maybe it is in some warped perverse way, still don't know. Why am I doing this to myself, and why I persist.. it's beyond me... I'm hoping eventually it will be fun.

No, it will get boring because it just keeps working once you have stuff configured right. You are having fun now because you are learning how your computer works and getting a handle on controling your computer. The fun is in the learning. :D Also being able to do neat things by typing stuff in an x terminal and doing something quickly while doing a dozen other things on your box and not crashing is sort of fun as well.

Then you pick another distro and get bored, then another, then first thing you know you look for newbies who have a worse time than you and waste time on these stupid boards.

Maybe I will download one of the Big Scarey Daemons and try that, but there are a couple of things in Gentoo I can tweak better, I think...

When things get fixed it's fun :) I feel a greater sense of control but it's also a bigger responsibility hehe I guess I'm functioning on a sort of reward & punishment mode.. the rewards keep me coming back :) And with extremely helpful ppl like so many ppl on this site it helps alot :D

Distros based on rpm (redhat, mandrake, suse, etc), usually split packages into three rpm's.

1) foo-version-build.ix86.rpm
2) foo-version-devel-build.ix86.rpm
3) foo-version-src.ix86.rpm

The first rpm is the precompiled binary, the second is the headers and includes that you need if you plan to build a program from source with dependencies or develop software, the third is the raw source code.

When searching for a binary and/or devel rpm you need to match the build numbers because there may be several builds of a particular program as changes are made and patches applied.