hi, I've just installed Mandriva LE 2005 and I'd have two questions if somebody could please help me:

- I see i have kde 3.3 ... is there a mandriva friendly way to install kde 3.3 .. something easy and pleasant with no source compiles and file editings maybe? :P

- I'm just configuring my urpmi. Is easyurpmi at zarb. on org (sorry, I'm not allowed to post a link ... but I'm doing this because this is by no means spamming and it is central to my question) okay for using? Is it uptodate and stuff? I've chosen version 2005 ... did I choose right?
the output it gave me is:

(can't include it because of limitation of not posting links ... from folders with 10.2)

--- thanks !

If you're not a Mandriva club member then for KDE 3.4:
http://rpm.nyvalls.se/10.2/RPMS/kde-3.4.0/
http://rpm.nyvalls.se/kde10.2.html

If you have a club membership MDK just released an updated MDK 2005 with KDE 3.4 (Like many I'm still waiting for them to provide an FTP mirror with just the KDE 3.4 RPMs on it).

Thanks! No, I'm not a club member.
sorry for a beginner question, but I've never done a kde upgrade/install .. what do I do? I download all the rpms there and then do "rpm -Uvh *" ? does this upgrade the existing kde? or do I have to select certain files? ... will there be conflicts .. like conflicting language files or something?

I've never actually upgraded KDE like this either. See the posts in this thread on the Mandrivaclub site (I think you can access it even if your not a member - post back here if u can't):
http://forum.mandrivaclub.com/viewto...hlight=kde+3+4

hmmm. I'm a bit confused after reading everything there. It seems to me like it's either as easy as doing urpmi kdebase ... or full of problems and involves installing other stuff ... have you tried it? I'm a bit scared :P

KDE 3.4.1 can be downloaded from the Mandrake Cooker-mirrors as well. I mean, do NOT set the cooker as your software source, download the KDE-rpms and needed libraries separately (I made a script for wget), then install them from the hard drive.

I made myself an installation CD, which automatically upgrades Mandriva 2005 to KDE 3.4.1 without any conflicts or missing dependencies. No club membership needed and the KDE works very stable (never crashed, unlike 3.3), even if it is from cooker.

Here's the package list of files I downloaded in addition to the actual KDE-rpms. These libraries provide everything needed to get KDE 3.4.1 from the Cooker to work in the download edition of Mandriva 2005:

Get those rpms from the Cooker-FTP-site (address below), http://rpm.pbone.net or http://rpmseek.com (you'll need to get some of them from RPM Seek). libtidy is not necessarily needed, you can probably leave that one out. valgrind is only needed for KDE education programs (kdeedu).

Probably you'll also want these programs:

There are also some unneeded packages indeed, but those are what I downloaded. Then get the actual KDE-rpms (just the parts you actually need) from ftp://ftp.aso.ee/pub/os/Linux/distri...86/media/main/

Put all files in one folder and type:

urpmi.addmedia KDE34 /path/to/the/files
yes|urpmi --auto-select
service dm restart

Then log in and set up some changed KDE-options, because 3.3 differs quite a lot from 3.4.1 (paths for setting files have changed).

Never set the cooker-FTP as your software source, since that would ruin your system by updating all your system files to unstable versions!

you can't by any chance put an iso of the cd you made anywhere online (blush) ?

are the commands

urpmi.addmedia KDE34 /path
yes|urpmi --auto-select
service dm restart

separate lines to run individually or one line?


about "Then log in and set up some changed KDE-options, because 3.3 differs quite a lot from 3.4.1 (paths for setting files have changed)." -- does this mean I have to know certain paths or something like that?

thanks a lot!

I would put the ISO online, if I had so much website space (300 - 500 MB, depending on how many parts of KDE you want).

They're separate commands to be run as root.

By settings changing I only meant that after upgrading to KDE 3.4.1, you'll find out some of your basic KDE settings have changed or disappeared (like icons in the taskbar, etc.). You'll need to re-set some of your settings, but that is easy (they won't disappear again, anyways).

I recommend you get familiar with using URPMI and its sources first, before doing such a major system upgrade. Luckily URPMI makes command-line installation of rpms pretty easy.

I've configured my urpmi sources and have gotten pretty confortable with it .. but I'm still afraid of how many things a kde upgrade could mess up :P

It can only mess up... KDE. The libraries installation won't damage your system, unless they'd for some reason fail completely (electrical cut during libstdc++6-upgrade, etc.).

The only thing you can damage is KDE and in the worst case you can uninstall all the KDE-related RPMS and then install 3.3.2 back from the Mandriva DVD (you should have some other window manager, like IceWM, installed if this should happen, then you won't get stuck to console). Removing "libkdecore4" from Software Removal (drakrpm-remove) will select all the KDE-packages to be removed.

Whenever someone manages to mess up something in Linux, I definitely recommend to try and fix it instead of reinstalling the whole operating system. That's the way you learn and much faster way than reinstalling. But in this case the worst thing that can happen, is that KDE won't start.

wow!! thank you very much! you are great! indeed I am using Fluxbox so if nothing that bad can happen I guess I'll try it

The main thing to remember is to not force the installation. Do not install it with --nodeps or --force if it says it's missing dependencies or conflicting with an existing package, unless you really know what you're doing. Specifically some libraries are critical to the system, like the different libstdc++-versions. Never mess with them more than is needed and certainly do not remove them, since you wouldn't be able to install them back anymore without rescue mode from the installation DVD.

When URPMI has detected all the dependencies the packages need and is ready to install, it will go just well. If the installation breaks into a conflicting package, remove the old conflicting package (might have to use rpm -e --nodeps package) and URPMI again what you were installing. And if KDE breaks after updating it, the old version can always be restored back, so no panic.

When installing Mandrake's own KDE-rpms (like the Cooker-ones), it should not run into any conflicts. A whole different thing is to install the Thac's rpms of KDE 3.4.1 from http://rpm.nyvalls.se, I needed to remove many packages before they would finally install.

One more thing: probably the best thing to run "urpmi --auto-select" without using the program "yes" before you are certain you have all the needed libraries, because it would answer all the questions automatically thus not letting you see possible errors.

so, let me see if I understand things right:

I shouldn't download from http://rpm.nyvalls.se/10.2/RPMS/kde-3.4.0/
but rather from

ftp://ftp.aso.ee/pub/os/Linux/distri...86/media/main/
(for some reason that ftp doesn't seem to work for me now)
from there I should get all the packages you listed (do you still have that wget script by any chance?)

after I've downloaded them all to a folder i do

urpmi.addmedia KDE34 /pathtofiles
urpmi --auto-select
service dm restart

am I getting this right?

me be wondering .. why is kde 3.4 still only cooker and not official update? i thought it was stable enough ...

also .. if it's this much trouble (I've found another cooker ftp that works for me, but the list from which I'd have to select the needed files is quite huge) ... it's no longer "the mandriva way" ... wouldn't it be easier to just download from the kde website and to a general linux install? would that break stuff? Thanks a lot for your unbelievable patience. I'm not complaining/mumbling .. I just want to learn & understand. thanks for helping me!