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Thursday 25 December 2003 11:46 pm, Guy Rouillier wrote:
> I'm having difficulty understanding the proper way to configure the
> Software Media Manager (SMM).  I was trying to install the latest Anjuta
> 1.2.0, and I found it here:
>
> ftp://carroll.aset.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mandrake-devel/contrib/i
>586
>
> I started by adding the following to the sources first, as it contained
> files I needed:
>
> ftp://carroll.aset.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mandrake/9.2/contrib/i58
>6
>
> When I did that, it seemed to find the hdlist all by itself.  I'm
> looking at the config for that and it claims the relative path is
> "hdlist.cz".  When I click on a file in this directory, I see
> descriptions for it.  It also took a long time for the SMM to download
> it, I guess because it was downloading all the descriptions.

The contrib directory on the mirrors have a synthesis.hdlist.cz file in them. 
In fact I think part of the reason that people have been getting warnings is 
there are two, a synthesis.hdlist2.cz plus synthesis.hdlist.cz in the three I 
browsed. Those files contain the descriptions. There is also an hdlist2.cz in 
(relative to the contrib tree)

../../i586/Mandrake/base

that contains all of the information required if you have the GUI software 
manager (rpmdrake) set to show all information. That's the large one that 
takes forever to download. Relative sizes for the two:

synthesis.hdlist.cz (in contrib tree) 275.9 KB
hdlist2.cz (in base) 15.6 MB

> When I added the first ftp directory above, I again didn't specify the
> "relative path to synthesis/hdlist".  Editing that entry now I see
> "synthesis.hdlist.cz".  It finished very fast, and I could see it trying
>   to find an hdlist in multiple locations (and failing, apparently.)  I
> have no descriptions for anything in that directory, though the files
> themselves show up.

See above.

> Finally, my questions:
>
> (1) Am I doing the appropriate thing by specifying the complete
> directory, or should I just be "ftp://carroll.aset.psu.edu"; and it knows
> to look in the appropriate subdirectories?

You did it correctly, but during most of the day the carroll.aset.psu.edu 
mirror will often not be available to anonymous ftp transactions. The 
bandwidth is reserved for the university, and people that have accounts, 
during business hours.

The sub directories are required in the URL unless you're using a command line 
mirroring app such as rsync to mirror locally. Those kinds of applications 
use "modules" on the remote server so the instructions are slightly 
different.

> (2)  What is the appropriate thing to enter in the "relative path to
> synthesis/hdlist" field?  How do I know this without someone telling me?
>   For the second ftp directory above (the one that seems to have been
> added completely, judging from the presence of descriptions), I don't
> see any hdlist file in the ftp directory (I ftp'd there directly.)

Since you asked. (-; You have to specify the directory containing the 
files/packages that you need. To get to the rest of the information about 
those files you have to use the actual hdlist and not the synthesis so you 
have to change directories. The relative path I showed above is changing two 
directories upward (../../) then following the path to the base directory.

As far as knowing without being told Guy, I suppose there are only a couple of 
ways;

Go snooping on the mirror you selected as your favourite and find the files 
that you are interested in, then figure out the paths and how to move between 
them. That's the way I did it lo these many moons ago. Or:

Use the automatically configured update_source path that's built for you when 
you run Mandrake Update as a starting point, and adapt the paths to what you 
need at present, for the software source you intend to use.

The urpmi plain text configuration files are in

file:/etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg

and the lists etcetera are stored locally in

file:/var/lib/urpmi/

> (3)  The install of anjuta found everything on the carroll edu site, and
> installed okay (anjuta runs.)  But when it finished, it said
> "installation failed, source Carroll EDU has invalid list file format".
>   What does this mean?  Note this is the source with the descriptions.

It isn't anything to worry about, and has caused a mini war of words on the 
cooker list. It means that someone needs to regenerate the hdlists for 9.2; 
remove the duplicates and dead wood, and then the mirrors will have to 
re-synchronize to update theirs. Don't worry about it for now, it'll 
eventually get sorted.

> (3) I guess I should have asked this first.  Is there a HOWTO on SMM?

There are lots of man pages about all of the individual components but I don't 
recall ever seeing a complete "How-To." You may want to look on the TWiki, 
both the community one

http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org

and the one for Cooker

http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/

Even if you don't find the specific article you hope for both are amazing 
sources of information.

> Thanks, as always.

Best of luck Guy.

Charlie
- -- 
Edmonton,AB,Canada User #244963 at http://counter.li.org
Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (FiveStar) for i586 kernel 2.4.22-21.tmb.1mdk
10:37:44 up 5 days, 20:26, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.08
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and
art into pedantry.  Hence University education.
                -- G. B. Shaw
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