Mandriva Linux 2007 package repositories

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Some new package repositories have been added to Mandriva Linux 2007 recently, so here's an article to recap all the existing ones and explain the new ones.

There are two types of software in Mandriva Linux - free / open source software, and non-free software. All the non-free packages are available to Club members from the 'Club commercial' repository. You can use the new Mirror Finder to help you add this repository for your system, after which you can use rpmdrake or urpmi to install packages from it. To avoid a bug with the download server, after adding this repository, please go to the "Software Management" tab of the Mandriva Control Center, click on "Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system", click on "Global Options...", and then change the default downloader from curl to wget.

The free and open source software in Mandriva Linux is available from our public mirrors and is split into two sections: main and contrib. The packages in main are officially supported, which means we guarantee that we will fix security issues and major bugs in these packages. The packages in contrib are not officially supported, which means it's up to the maintainers of these packages (whether they are Mandriva staff or volunteers) to decide whether they wish to provide updates or not.

Each of the two sections contains four separate repositories: release, updates, testing and backports. Of these, testing and backports are new for 2007, and it is also the first time there has been an updates repository for contrib as well as main.

The release repository contains all the packages from that section as they were at the time of Mandriva Linux 2007's release.

The updates repository contains packages which fix major bugs or security issues found in the initially released packages. In main, the updates packages are tested by our QA team and issued by our security team; in contrib, the updates packages are tested by volunteers and by the maintainer and issued directly by the maintainer.

The testing repository contains 'release candidate' packages for the updates repository. When a problem is identified that we wish to release an update for, a test package will be built and uploaded to the testing repository, so users who experienced the problem can help test the update.

The backports repository is for maintainers who wish to provide upgraded packages simply in order to be up to date, or to provide new features demanded by users - rather than packages intended to fix a specific bug or security issue. Please note that packages from /main/backports are not supported like the packages from main/release: we only guarantee security fixes for the packages from main/release. As with packages from contrib, the maintainer who chose to update a package in main/backports may choose to further update it for any security issues or bugs that arise, at his own discretion.

You can always use the new Mirror Finder to help you add any of these repositories as a package source for this system. You can also use the software repository configuration tool in Mandriva Linux itself. To do this, run the Software Media Manager: open the Mandriva Control Center, and go to the Software Management tab. Click the link titled 'Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system'. Click 'yes' when asked if it is OK to continue. Now click the 'Add...' button on the right hand side of the new screen. When asked whether to add 'Official updates' or 'Distribution sources', click 'Distribution sources'. Click 'Yes' in reply to the question about the mirror list. When the mirror list appears, choose a mirror close to your geographical location. Wait for the process to complete. This will add the release and updates repositories for main and contrib, as these should always be 'safe'. It will not add the backports or testing repositories, as it's possible users may not want to install packages from these repositories.