Having Trouble Installing Software on CentOS 5

[Ascendancy]

Hey Everyone,

I just did my first Linux install last week of CentOS 5, and I have been trying to install LAMP on it, but to no avail. Whenever I choose to open Applications->Add/Remove Software, I always get an error that says the following:

Unable to Retrieve Software Information:
Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: base. Please verify its path and try again

I read online somewhere that somebody suggested going into /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo and changing the # sign from baseurl to mirrorlist. I tried that and restarted the system, but that didn't solve the problem either. Below are the contents of the [base] settings:

[base]
name=CentOS-5 - Base
#mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=5&arch=i386&repo=os
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os/i386/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-5

If anybody can help me out with this I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

[Roxoff]

I tried that and restarted the system, but that didn't solve the problem either.

Restarted the system? You really don't have to do that. Other, lesser operating systems may require that you restart if you do a minor update or change an insignificant operating system setting. But this isn't one of those lesser operating systems.

I must admit I never use the 'Add and Remove Software' tool. I always use Yumex on CentOS, it gives you much more control.

Try installing this from the command line, you'll get better information about what's not working. Try this as root:

yum install apache php mysql

and post up here what the system tells you.

[Ascendancy]

Sorry for the long delay of my response, I hadn't had any time recently to get to the computer. I tried entering that command and this is the message I got:

http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/os...ta/repomd.xml: [Errno 4] IOError: <urlopen error (111, 'Connection refused')>
Trying other mirror.
Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: base. Please verify its path and try again

[garry_3peace]

There is possibility you are blocked because you haven't set the proxy yet? Do your connection through proxy? if so you must set the proxy by typing in terminal :

export http_proxy="http://xx.xx.xx.xx:yyyy"
export ftp_proxy="http://xx.xx.xx.xx:yyyy"

after setting the proxy, try it again.

[Ascendancy]

Resetting the http and ftp proxy seems to have done something, but I'm not sure if it is in the right direction or not. Below is the message I got after setting the http and ftp proxy, and then running the install command again:

base                      100% |=========================| 1.1 kB    00:00     
primary.xml.gz            100% |=========================| 853 kB    00:01     
base      : ################################################## 2458/2458
updates                   100% |=========================|  951 B    00:00     
primary.xml.gz            100% |=========================| 245 kB    00:01     
updates   : ################################################## 547/547
file:///media/CentOS/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 5] OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/media/CentOS/repodata/repomd.xml'
Trying other mirror.
file:///media/cdrom/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 5] OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/media/cdrom/repodata/repomd.xml'
Trying other mirror.
file:///media/cdrecorder/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 5] OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/media/cdrecorder/repodata/repomd.xml'
Trying other mirror.
Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: c5-media. Please verify its path and try again

[berthalynx]

Try adding to /etc/yum.conf
proxy=http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:yyyy

This is what I added.

[wss8848]

I also get this problem today.
I have no proxy,and my network DNS is OK