Hi,
I installed Mandriva 2008 on my computer, but have a couple of issues.
First and foremost, Mandriva comes with some software whose updated verions are not available via the urpmi tool. Notable among these are Firefox, Seamonkey, Pidgin. In fact I can see no way to update them other than to install the packages from the original software websites. I did that in Mandriva 2007, but it turns out that urpmi thinks I don't have the software, and tries to downgrade them. Is there a way to install software from other sources and make urpmi fall in line, and not report that they are missing or out of date?
The second problem is the real pain in my neck. The urpmi tool seems to fail consistently. Removing and adding the mirrors did not help much. When ever I try to use urpmi, half the time I get a damned error that it calls 22. Even the command to update the repos results in this 22 thing. The URL returns a 407.
I know that there is nothing wrong with setting up the mirrors, for I had urpmi working like a dream in Mandriva 2007, and even last night for the first hour or so I had no problems.
Please help.

The URL return code of 407 sounds like a proxy authentication error. Do you have to go through a proxy server to get to the updates server? If so, have you checked your proxy config - I don't know whether urpmi uses the environment variables for proxy (http_proxy, etc.) or whether the info is stored in a config file.

Also, please don't mark posts as urgent - they won't get faster attention when you do that.

Yes, I access the Internet through a http proxy.I use the export http_proxy=" " stuff. uprmi was working properly initially, so I don't see how that could be a problem.
It was working properly in Mandriva 2007.1 .
I will remember your advice and not put urgent in any posts again, that is for sure.

I have no experience with URPMI as I don't use Mandriva, but those softwares you mention should be no problem installing. You can just download from their respective website and just run them without having to compile. The binaries are ready for use, I believe. I know that is true for Firefox. Otherwise, building from source shouldn't be too difficult with Pidgin and Seamonkey.