Do not ever use Discover, dnfdragora, or Gnome Software to add or remove repositories. Discover and Gnome Software use packagekit which does not do this correctly for OMLx repositories, they will break your repos every time. If you use OMLx Plasma desktop or LXQt then you use Software Repository Selector aka om-repo-picker only.
The following applies to 'Official Release" of OpenMandriva Lx 4.0 and after. (This is not related to OM Lx 3 at all.) Current OMLx releases are Cooker(cooker) (development branch), ROME(rolling) a slow rolling release, and Rock(rock) a point release that gets only security and bug fix upgrades between the releases. The name in parenthesis are the actual repository names for each branch. Current Rock version is 6.0.
If you are at all in doubt ask questions in the Support forum first.
The easiest way for user to do this is with the âSoftware Repository Selectorâ located in Application Launcher>System.
If you install Rock use only rock repos. If you install ROME use only rolling repos. Otherwise you will get incompatible library packages installed and break your system.
Unless you are a tester or QA-Team member you also want to leave "Enable (testing) repositories unchecked. (Packages in testing repos can sometimes break your system, though this is easy to fix by reverting/downgrading to previous package.)
The sharper minds out there will have noticed that in addition to the âRockâ Update Channel discussed above there are also Update Channels called âcookerâ, ârollingâ, and ârockâ. These are repository files for the different OpenMandriva releases which follows a 3-tiered release model. Brief description is:
Cooker - Cooker is and always has been the development branch or Mandrake/Mandriva/OpenMandriva. It is where developers work. It is highly experimental (on purpose) and Cooker is not stable. Cooker is used by developers, package maintainers, testers, and other contributors. It is recommened of a user uses Cooker to also have a partition with a stable (ROME or Rock) system for production work.
Rolling - Is a new concept where OM developers at some point move latest Cooker packages to a rolling release we call ROME. It is for users that want the latest and greatest packages. ROME is generally very stable but any LInux release that gets frequent software upgrades may have a problem from time to time.
Rock/Stable - Stable is the point (point in time) release of OpenMandriva. Rock is Stable but the difference is that the Rock repo files are designed to automatically upgrade user when there is a new stable release. Using OMLx 6.0 as an example since it is current. If you use âreleaseâ repos you will always have packages and updates from the 6.0 repository. If however you enable Rock instead today you will get packages from the 6.0 repository but when OMLx 6.1 (and subsequent) release happens you will be automatically switched to 6.1 repositories and automatically upgraded to 6.1 if you use the command sudo dnf dsync --allowerasing --refresh.
The work flow model for OpenMandriva packages might help make things more clear
Cooker>Rolling>Rock/Stable
That is packages go from Cooker to Rolling to Rock. Packages do not go the other way. Thus newest packages=most problems=least stable more used/developed/tested packages=least problems=most stable. However users and testers generally report both ROME and Rock to be stable systems.
The two most important things about OMLx Releases are:
Donât mix them. If you use Rock use rock repos only. If you use ROME(rolling) use rolling repos only. If you use Cooker use cooker repos only.
You can upgrade your system up to the next branch, for example from Rock>ROME(rolling) or ROME(rolling)>Cooker. It is not recommended to downgrade you OMLx system, for example donât go from ROME to Rock or Cooker to ROME. If you downgrade and have problems do a fresh install you wonât want to try to fix that.
If you have problems open a new thread in Support forum with a descriptive title and all relevant information. Remember for someone to help you they need to know exactly what you did. We can not fix âItâs brokeâ.
If you find a mistake I made just send me a PM and Iâll correct it.
If users encounter any issues with this do not post here. Please open a new topic with a descriptive title in the âSupportâ forum and detailed description of what you were trying to do and what you have done to try to correct the problem.
If you do what is shown here and donât know what you are doing you can unleash all manner of havoc and bad things upon your OpenMandriva system.Know what you are doing first.
If you are at all in doubt ask questions in the Support forum first.
There is a way to edit repo files with Dolphin/Kwrite (or Kate if you prefer). Letâs see if this can be described in pictures.
There is another quick way to do this from command line (Using x86_64 Rock system as an example):
Note (2025-05-18): These instructions are for dnf4 which is currently in use in ROME(rolling) and Rock. In Cooker we have now dnf5. These instructions may need to change for dnf5.
To enable main repository (should be already enabled by default):
If you wish to disable any repo substitute the option --disable for --enable. With the above example you should be able to extrapolate the commands to enable or disable anything you wish for any version. (Hint if you wish substitute either release, rolling, or cooker for rock.) (For different arch substitute znver1 for x86_64.)
And this is extremely, ultra, majorly, important. Do not mix the repository versions. If you use Rock use rock repos only. If you use ROME(rolling) use rolling repos only. If you use Cooker use cooker repos only.
