If urpmi is still working you can use it.

(but from the official homepage is the better solution.

ALWAYS let urpmi do things for you, such as installing packages. You can also utilize "Install Software" from the menu.

As root from the text console ([CTRL][ALT][F1])

Mount your Mandrake CD-rom disk and change to the directory containing the rpm's.

Once there type:

urpmi kde*.* menu*.*

You will get some messages about some things already being installed and other messages about also needing to install other packages.

Say YES to any message that may pop up.

Once it's done type in

service dm stop

Wait about 5-8 minutes and then type

service dm start

Hopefully things will be ok after this.

You may also have to do this with the second Mandrake Disk as well.

Your right. I followed the link you gave me earlier to Easy Urpmi and I was running that while you helped me.

When it finished I was able to urpmi rpmdrake

and also urpmi firefox it isn't the newest version but at least it's back.

I'll just have to play around for a couple of days and find what else I've broken and hopefully use urpmi to fix it.

Thanks again for giving me your time Eule

You are right about urpmi it is f%^&ing brilliant. I thought you could only install from source (100% nightmare) or use the RPMs (50% nightmare)

opjose - will this process just rebuild the menu or reinstall the menu items and hopefully fix all my problems?

I'll give it a go either way.

Thank you to you for giving me your time.

Usually this will undo the damage as it causes the original installation scripts to be re-executed.

I've often fixed some very severe problems caused by my own screwing around, this way.

It always pays to know which files you changed.

That way you can query rpm to find out the package that will restore operation instead of the blanket approach I gave you.

Lets say I screw up xdm and it no longer works.

Ok first I query rpm


rpm -qf /etc/X11/xdm/Xsession

or any of the xdm files I may have overwritten, erased, etc.

it comes back and tells me the name of the rpm which has the original file.

Pop the disk in, and urpmi or rpm -Uvh --force the file and you are back in business.

The menus are built dynamically via a script called update-menus.

It is likely that you have either screwed it up or screwed up something upon which update-menus depends.

One thing you can do is find the rpm containing update-menus and work backwards so to speak.

First re-install the package which contains update-menus, then run update-menus, and wait 15 minutes to see if your menus come back.

If no luck, find the packages upon which it depends using RPM. Re-install those. Try again. If still no luck keep working backward.

I wish there was a way to tell urpmi to force an install of a particular package and work backward "X" levels installing all the prior dependancies as well. That would be a quick and easy way to recover from major damage.

If you do have an operational RPM there are a few other things you can do...

For instance.

Tar off everything in /etc, then dump the existing list of installed packages...

i.e.

rpm -qa >> installed_files

Then boot from a Live CD of any distro, mount your Linux partitions and erase ALL but /etc/fstab and your home directories.

/etc/ contains your important customizations which will get restored a bit later.

Now re-install Linux telling it to use existing partitions (this will cause it to find the /etc/fstab file and use it!

Once done, set up your RPM sources as before and then

urpmi <<installed_files

urpmi will re-install EVERYTHING you had on your system before "fresh".

Now restore /etc from your prior tar backup.

All of your inconsistencies or erroneously overwritten files are fixed (except for /etc entries)

Thanks opjose everything seems to be working now. I reinstalled Firefox, Ximian Evolution, rpmdrake, harddrake and samba. I also rebuilt the menu as advised. I managed to install spamassassin using urpmi and it went well(using an RPM was how I screwed it up earlier). I even managed to itegrate it with evolution and it's filtering my spam

I'll keep the information you and Eule gave me handy for the next time I screw up

It only took 11hours to fix it this time I'm getting better

My wife thinks me and my linux box are conjoined.


Ethereal

Great!