Mandriva 2008 Spring

During a new release, servers are very busy and strained, and it can be time consuming to manually find a usable mirror. If you want higher reliability and automatic error correction* with your downloads, or can't use BitTorrent where you are, there's Metalink - which can also help you find a mirror, use mirrors that are closest to you and more efficient, all done automatically. Some Metalink clients can also integrate downloads from mirrors and BitTorrent.

Metalinks for Mandriva 2009 (thanks to Paulo Martins)

• DVD x86 / x86_64
• x86 1 - 2 - 3
• KDE x86 int cdrom / extra-i18n-cdrom / afro-asia-cdrom / jp-zh-cdrom
• GNOME x86 int cdrom / extra-i18n-cdrom / afro-asia-cdrom / jp-zh-cdrom
• Mini Dual

• DVD x86 / x86_64
• x86 1 - 2 - 3
• KDE x86 int cdrom / extra-i18n-cdrom / asia-cdrom
• GNOME x86 int cdrom / extra-i18n-cdrom / asia-cdrom
• Mini Dual

If you use Firefox (on Windows, Mac, or Unix)...

the easiest way to download with Metalink is DownThemAll! (Cross Platform Firefox Extension, Open Source). Just install DTA, then right click the Metalink for the flavor of Mandriva you want, and select "Start link with OneClick!"

If you're on Windows...

You can also install a download manager, Free Download Manager (Open Source), wxDownload Fast (Open Source), GetRight, and Orbit Downloader work well. (These integrate with Firefox with the FlashGot extension).

You could also install another web browser, TheWorld Browser.

There's also a Windows version of aria2, an excellent command line downloader, but it may only be appropriate for those comfortable using non-graphical applications.

If you're on Unix...

aria2 binary packages are available for many other distributions. There's also wxDownload Fast which is a download manager that can be integrated with Firefox with the FlashGot extension.

If you're cutting edge, KGet2 (KDE 4.0, Unix, Open Source) has Metalink support in SVN (development).

If you're on OS X...

Speed Download (Mac) is a slick Download Manager with fast downloads & P2P filesharing. It integrates with popular Mac browsers like Safari, Camino, & Firefox (along with 5 others).

Metalink is also used by...

Metalink is also used by OpenOffice.org, cURL, openSUSE, LugRadio, DOFUS, UniProt Consortium, Eiffel Software, 64 Studio, ADIOS, Arch Linux, Bayanihan Linux, BeleniX (OpenSolaris), Berry Linux, blag linux, Bluewhite64 Linux, DesktopBSD, GoboLinux, Granular Linux, KateOS, Linux Mint, MidnightBSD, Pardus Linux, PC-BSD, PCLinuxOS, PuppyLinux, redWall Firewall, StartCom Linux, TrueBSD, Ubuntu Christian Edition.

* Automatic error correction is only supported by aria2 so far. If you start your download with another program, and get errors, aria2 can resume & repair the error as well.