This part of Rpmdrake is dedicated
to the configuration of the package media repositories. As you can see in
Figure 13.5, “The
“Software Media Manager”” there are some media configured:
“Installation CD”, “Contrib CD”, etc. With this
tool you can add other software media: a CD from a magazine
containing RPMs, a Web repository, etc. The check boxes in the left
column allow you to temporarily disable a medium: when unchecked, the
associated packages will not be taken into account for installation or
upgrades.
Various buttons allow you to perform actions on the selected media.
Allows you to remove a medium which you no longer use. Simply select the medium to be removed in the list and click this button.
Here you may
change the URL or the relative path to the
synthesis/hdlist
(if you do not know what we are
talking about it will be wise to leave this window via
instead of ).
In case you need to pass through a specific proxy to access this media, you can configure it here by clicking on the button. Note that you can also define a global proxy for all remote media through the button of the main interface.
This option also
allows you to change from using hdlist
files to synthesis
files, which are
much smaller but with less information on packages.
Synthesis files only have information about package names,
their dependencies and short summary, you won't be able to
search for files inside uninstalled packages, for example,
and you won't be able to see the full description for a
package if you click on its name.
Use this button to add to your system all publicly available official package sources from Internet repositories. This is useful for example if you have a fast Internet connection or only have the first installation CD at hand. Choose a mirror geographically near to your location.
After choosing a mirror and clicking the , package information for the source you chose will be downloaded and will be available for you to install and update your system with them.
This button provides access to a new dialog, in which you may reference a new software package medium.
You will be shown a list of already defined data media. You can choose the ones where you want to update the list of available packages in it. This is useful for remote media to which new packages are being added. Just start the process by clicking on .
It is important that any new packages you install are authenticated. To do so, each package can be electronically signed with a “key”, and you can allow/disallow keys on a per-medium basis. On Figure 13.8, “Rpmdrake — managing keys”, you can see that Mandrakelinux key is allowed for medium “Installation CD”. Click on to allow another key for the selected medium (beware, do this with care, as with all security-related questions), and on to remove a key from the selected medium.
If you are sitting behind a firewall and you still need to access remote media (notably for package updates), you can do so if you have a proxy server which leads to the Internet (at least in an area where you can find a package server). Normally it should be enough to fill in the Proxy hostname to get it working (Figure 13.9, “Rpmdrake — configuring a proxy”). If you need a user / password combination to get through the proxy, you can also specify these here. Just confirm your changes by clicking on and you are done.
If you are running a large network of computers, you may want to install a package on all the computers in parallel; this button will open a dialog window allowing the configuration of the “Parallel” mode. As it is rather complicated and only useful to a limited group of people, this short introduction will not give more details about it.
This button allows you to configure the program used to download new packages and if the source should be checked against a given key. These choices are used on all installed sources.
These buttons allow changing the order that sources will be used when installing a package.
As you have seen on our short trip through Rpmdrake, it is easy to manage your own system, to add new applications or to remove something if you need more space on disk.