Sorry if you've heard all this before but I couldn't find a thread that quite dealt with my problem. I've got Mandrake 10.0 official CDs, 4 of them, that I bought from some computer fair type thing for 10 quid. When I try to install new programs or updates using Rpmdrake, I get "bad signature" error messages or Rpmdrake asks me for cds which I don't have. Specifically, I'm trying to either make Totem play DVDs by updating it or install Mplayer to get around the problems with Totem, but I can't do either because I can't figure out rpmdrake. What should I do?

It sound's to me you are having some kind of issue about packages sources configuration. Read this (please the entire thread) may help you solve the problem:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=203939

What you need for playing dvd's is "libdvdcss". It is on the plf repository, so if you don't have that set up, go to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ and set up all your sources. Of course you will need "plf" for tha good stuff, "contrib" to back up dependancies in plf and "update" just cause you do, and "main" cause you don't have your cd's. That just leaves "jpackages" so may as well have em all eh.

Fire up your Mandrake Control Center and choose "software management". Now choose "Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system". Leave an 'x' in all the boxes exept the ones that indicate they are 'cd's', and it will not ask you for cd's again unless you go back and select them. It will now use the sources you installed from "easy urpmi". This is all good, my system was setup from an ftp install so I never did have cd's even for install and it is a very happy computer.

Hope this is of some help, time for bed.

P.S. just checked to see if anyone posted since I started my answer, got sidetracked and found my way back to pc, do as apimente.br suggested and check out that thread, Motub put alot of effort into some good info there plus more.

I checked Motub's thread and it was pretty helpful, I got some Urpmi sources added, but I'm still having trouble with bad signature messages (when trying to install Mplayer). I'll see if adding the *plf stuff helps...

(Edit)

... it didn't! Any info on how to get round this would be appreciated!

this will be a bit fuzzy for you as menu structures change between Mandrake versions, but you should be able to stumble through. I only have Mandriva LE2005 installed so it is probably a little different than your Mandrake 10.0.

Menu>configuration>configure your computer> (to get Mandrake Control panel open)
select "software management tab" select "Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system" (to open Media Management menu)
select "Manage Keys" button
now you should be able to highlight the "mediums" (software sources), and use the "remove key" button to get rid of your current key and then use the "add a key" button to return the list of available keys to choose from. They are straight forward when adding, plf will say plf in key, updates will say security in key, and main will say Mandrake in key name etc. Once you have refreshed all your keys you should be good to go.

Much of the time when you get a bad signature error you can still tell it to install anyway. It is nicer to fix the key issue of course.

Yeah, I tried that, I still get bad key messages. I have managed to download Mplayer cleanly now, so I'm just trying to figure out a way of playing DVDs through that.