Updating non-Mandrake software
 

Actually getting the hang of Mdrke10 after transition from Windows. It is awesome. The learning curve is steep in the beginning however for a GUI oriented person. I installed a software package which is optimized for Debian and it works well but the author has now come up with an upgrade. how do I upgrade/install it correctly onto my system to replace the old version? i am afraid that if I remove the old version and install the new version, I may lose some settings which I created in the original. I've posted this message after looking thru multiple HOWTOs, the official mandrake site and this site's Forum.

Thank you for your time...

To update a package open a console logging a root (type 'su' then type your root password) and then type 'rpm -Uvh package-name.rpm'. Doing this you update a rpm package

I forget to say you must be in the directory you have the package.

Thank you but what if the item was not in .rpm form when i downloaded it...It was a tar.gz form built for Debian...isn't the update process different than form rpm packages?

tar.gz is not a Debian format. Packages for debian are .deb. If you installed the package doing ./configure, make and make install you have to uninstall the package typing in the folder you untar the package make uninstall.

If you prefer rpm packages you can look here: http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/