hi, my question is if the software that i want to install doesnt have a pack for mandriva what can i do to install it anyways?

tar -xvf source_pkg.tar.gz

./configure
make
su
make install

My worth is that debiants reply is OK for tar.gz source type packages, but that often gives you dependency problems (3 years of screaming at my monitor with mandrake/mandriva installed told me that).

so, what I used to do was to go http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ and follow the instructions exactly - I never bothered "checking" the "show specific sources" box, but if you wanted to make sure that your repositories/mirrors list is as extensive as possible, you can. You then just select the nearest geographical mirror (thats just to keep possible download speeds to a max), and then at the end, just copy/paste the result from "section 3" into a terminal (don't forget you have to su to root first).

If the particular mirror/repo you've chosen is slow or sometimes won't connect, you can always choose one thats a bit further away (I used to "mix 'n match" them, using 1 or 2 from the UK, then either french, dutch, norwegian or swedish ones).

Then it's just a case of getting used to how the software manager works - Oh and yes, I used to "disable" the CD/DVD sources.

"They" usually have a version of most apps/packages available - though they might not be the latest/greatest. If you wanted that, then you'd need to look at other distros (the only reason that mandriva/mandrake used to "upgrade" was for bugfixes/security, otherwise you're stuck with the ones that are "frozen" in that particular version of mandriva).

Thats one of the reasons that I stopped using mandriva. I usually wanted to try the functionality of a newer version of whatever the app might be.

regards

John

p.s. Oh and yes, it's not so much of a problem installing stuff from source etc, but if it does lead to dependency snags, thats where it becomes a PITA because it's often the library packages that are buggers to find (or at least another app that contains the library). It's the same issue if you are trying to install non-mandriva/mandrake rpms. SuSE/Fedora/whoever tend to put stuff in different places or just use different versions of libraries etc.

Good luck

I completely agree with john, if you can find an rpm, it will be easier for you to install as such. But I was just answering the question, if there is no rpm at all of a program then that's what you do. Although there are some programs that come precompiled. And all you have to do is untar it, nedit has a bin version for instance.

Also is there a deb package version. I don't use package management on my machine (well I have a system:P) but there are ways to convert debs to rpms and vice versi.

every time i try to install a rpm file i get this error "error registering local packages"