SuSE Presents The YaST2 Package Manager

AnonyMouse writes "SuSE presented the brand new version of YaST2 which includes a new package manager for the upcoming SuSE 8.1. OSNews posted an article about it, pointing off the mistakes made by SuSE in the design of this new package manager." Eugenia's review seems unduly harsh to me, but you can look at the screenshots and judge for yourself.

Comments

Screenshots

[infornogr]

"Eugenia's review seems unduly harsh to me, but you can look at the screenshots and judge for yourself. " If you _can_ judge a program solely by its screenshots, you probably don't even need to.

Re:Screenshots

[skroz]

On the other hand, what business does he have writing a review of a product he's never used? Not unly is that unduly harsh, it's unfair. That's like reviewing a movie based on the trailers.

Re:Screenshots

[bockman]

Yes & No.

You can't judge program performance from screenshots, but you can have a good idea of program UI design. And the article focus on UI design.

The thesis in the article is quite simple: if this is supposed to be used by first-time Linux users (and it is assumed that this is the case), then SuSE made an huge mistake.

Only, SuSE is not Mandrake (or windos XP). It aims at office desktop and server deployments (which can procure support contracts), as well as (or more) than at home desktops (which cannot). Both in case of servers and in case of office desktops, there are experienced people dedicated to install/deinstall applications. These people may appreciate a powerful tool that help them to cope with Linux complex system of packages.

Re:Screenshots

[abischof]

That's like reviewing a movie based on the trailers.

Well, that is actually possible, and not always inaccurate, either ;).

Looks Good

[cscx]

Not as glitzy as WinXP's "Add/Remove Programs" but it's uncluttered and seemingly easy to use. Finally a step in the right direction.

Re:Looks Good

[reaper20]

It's not a step in the right direction - it's just as closed as WinXP's Add/Remove Programs.

Re:Looks Good

[cscx]

Why is that bad? Are YOU going to dive into the code and make it "better?" Please.

Re:Looks Good

[bryanbrunton]

Since when can you get the source to WinXP Add/Remove Programs?

You can get the source to Yast.

Nice theme.

[e_n_d_o]

Is there some requirement that states that media reviewers of an operating system must modify its default color scheme and appearance in such a way as to make the user interface appear as undesireable as possible?

Yes, the user interface is configurable. But the distributor spent a great deal of time deciding on defaults that will appeal to most of its customers. It's unprofessional to review a product and post screenshots with modified settings.

Re:Nice theme.

[e_n_d_o]

Yup, you're right. I didn't realize the screenshots were coming from suse.de. Well, I guess it's nobody's fault but their own. Well, actually, I imagine its just the theme that that developer was using, and he probably wasn't expecting his screenshots to be showcased on /.

This was simply the most recent case of a non-default theme I've seen in a review, and finally figured I'd make a comment. The actual issue that bothers me is when independent reviewers create a review with their own screenshots, after they've spent an hour in the theme prefs adjusting it to their own personal taste. I've seen it done way too may times to the RedHat 7.x series, for example.

Re:Nice theme.

[Josuah]

The screen shots were posted by Stefan Hundhammer and aren't part of the offical SuSE web site. This was just a single developer putting up some stuff on YaST2 with screenshots from his personal working environment.

Just the snapshots?

[Bloody Bastard]

Am I going insane, or this woman judged the package manager only by some snapshots? Does she want us to take it as a serious analysis?

Oh... wait!! It is the same woman that cannot make her Gentoo GNU/Linux work and then blame the package system, because they are source and not binary based!!!

Re:Just the snapshots?

[Billly Gates]

Actually her Gentoo Linux article was a great summary unlike this one. I had the same bug on my system with grub. I just emerged lilo to fix it. Gentoo is not a newbie distro. If you want a quick "everything works out of the box" distro then RedHat, SuSE or Mandrake would better fit the bill and this is what she rated poor.

She stated that the portage is clearly an advantage over other distro's> . Try not to be so quick to flame anyone who has a different opinion. What she did not like about it was ease of use, too cuting edgeness, and also you need to configure everything. The part about kde3 running slower then mandrake was accurate. Mandrake uses special optimized patches when compiling kde. Gentoo does not use the patches or switched by default becaue they will brake many apps but you can compile kde yourself this way if you wish. This will be fixed with the next version of gentoo compilied with gcc 3.2.

I have thought of emailing the gentoo crew and suggesting that Gentoo should have a debian like release schedule. You can have a stable/trusted distro, a bleeding edge one, and a beta one.I would also recommend that they should update emerge so the user can select if he/she wants a stable version, or cutting edge version, or beta version of whichever package. As an example, I could still use my legacy perl 5.6 code if the distro ships with perl 5.8 by default. I would just select the version number or type "emerge perl -stable" as an example. And last but not least it would be nice to also have an iso with a preconfigured gui installer which setups up everything automatically. If they did this, gentoo would rock and finally give many users a chance to leave binary hell. Linux is about configurability and hacking and sadly windows and mac have the lead because you point and click and the package installs. No dependancies to worry about.

Doing all of these thing would probably make a much better review and finally make gentoo the killer distro.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> I don't think the target audience of this program (Linux newbies) care very much about whether their package manager contributes to "GNU freedom".

It is not about catering for any particular class of users, but about making GNU a coherent, open platform, not simply a fragmented, proprietary product.

In the long run, freedom and coherence matters, even for newbies. Or perhaps especially for them, as hackers can always find their way around.

OSNews Reviewer does not understand.

[beernutz]

That this package manager does not FORCE anything on you. If you dont want to know about versions and such, simply ignore them. If you dont want to search for which packages contain a certain library, then DONT!

The reviewer seems to believe that since HE is confused by the screenshots, that everyone will be. Personally, I find the shots encouraging! This manager seems to have a LOT of power, and honestly, it seems to be fairly straightforard in its design. (as much as you can tell without using it.)

I really wish people would refrain from reviewing things based solely on opinions of screenshots. I realise that opinion has a LOT to do with shaping a review, but to pan a product, simply because the screenshots confuse you seems both stupid and short-sighted.

Re:OSNews Reviewer does not understand.

[eyez]

It's not even that; What the reviewer doesn't realize is that even though they want to appeal to new users, SuSE does NOT want to alienate any of their CURRENT userbase. And although I don't particularly love SuSE, I know a fair amount of competent Linux users who swear by it.

Re:OSNews Reviewer does not understand.

[TeknoDragon]

From their comments, they should review Debian. ;->

I don't think they even understand the differing phillosophies between Windows and Linux distros...

ALL BINARY BASED DISTROS WILL HAVE DEPENDANCY PROBLEMS FOR ONE SIMPLE FACT:
There is (almost) NO amount of quality control or procedures that will allow 3rd parties to blindly submit packages (esp library packages).

This is complicated by the fact that binary-only commercial products often ship as RPM, but without enough release & quality control because Linux is a second-class citizen in the developer's world.

Debian avoids these problems by: 1) accepting packages to be maintained in the proper format by their developers, who can compile and link against the correct libraries and avoid dependency problems... and 2) by including many many more libraries in the standard distribution than any RPM based distro.

Never the less, Debian testing & unstable experience dependancy problems. Unless you run unstable and don't update for a few months you won't (to my experience) have an unresolvable dependancy.

Mac OS X's framework structure makes it much easier to maintain and link against multiple libraries. Their application configuration phillosophy (no registry, no dll's.. hmm NetInfoManager might be breaking that) and new tools (xml/dtd based configuration) prevent many other installation & maintinance problems.

Windows has only begun to avoid the old "DLL hell" (i.e. dependancy problems) that have existed for ages. When you uninstall a Windows program have you uninstalled all of the DLL's that came with it, or did you risk a missing dependancy? When you install a new application have you ever found that an old one doesn't work? Was it a DLL or a registry or an application extension problem? All of these are dependency conflicts.

Windows XP's rollback features promise to solve some of the DLL hell at the cost of disk space & complexity. Other standardizations (MSFT's ODBC api's, DirectX, Driver Certification) have avoided many dependancy conflicts, but some problems (file extension mapping, registry brokenness, broken links, uninstall leftovers) have existed for so long that developers simply work their way around them instead of developing new standards as gnu/linux tends to do (for example, package managers themselves, the menu and alternatives systems).

Eugenia is a whining bitch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything which if commercial is better in her little world. Freedom means nothing.

In her world GCC sucks because ICL6 optimizes better and VC++ has a pretty editor bundled (never mind that those are c and/or c++ only and VC can't even compile my code!).

Everything sucks especially when compared to BeOS (something about moving windows around which isn't 'smooth' enough or whatever under any other OS).

Valgrind is 'better than nothing', but a mere toy compared with PurifyPlus (closed source and only $4800 for a unix license!) because... well, her husband who happenes to use PurifyPlus said so (guess there's no reason to think he'd rationalize it's superiority, especially if he paid $4800 for a license :-).

I'm amazed her opinions gets so much attention, they mostly seem skin deep to me.

Re:Eugenia is a whining bitch.

[Reality_X]

I couldn't agree with you more.

Her husband later said that he'd never used valgrind. He just had a glimpse at the webpage.

When people realise Eugenia is a moron, the world will be a better place.

I really would like to know what, if any, qualifications Eugenia has. Why do people pay any attention to her? What makes her reviews so much more important than someone elses?

All you need to know

[Webmonger]

This quote sums up the reviewer's whole attitude: "you can't be a Unix and try to sell your product to plain users too."

Seems the reviewer's upset that Suse is, well, a Linux distro. Her prescriptions for dealing with dependencies suggest she's never used apt, either.

And pointing at Windows as a good example of installation behavior is just silly. On Windows, dependencies are shipped with the application, and sometimes you wind up with system libraries getting overwritten with older versions. And sometimes the older version's better, and gets overwritten with a newer one. Microsoft's had to write new features like "Windows File Protection" because of this.

On one point, I will agree: an installer or package manager should be as simple as it can be. If you install a package, any dependencies it requires should be automatically installed.

But all this stuff is a solved problem. It boggles the mind that people would rather use their own wierd solution than build on apt.

Re:All you need to know

[rossz]

sometimes you wind up with system libraries getting overwritten with older versions

Only if the person writing the installer is stupid. Unfortunately, with the economy in the dumper, installation specialists such as myself are considered a luxury. They usually toss the InstallShield or Wise package to the junior programmer and tell him to "find some time to throw together the installer". This is typically done the week before they ship to the packaging company.

BTW, if anyone needs an installer written correctly, contact me. I'm available. InstallShield and InstallAnywhere are my specialty.

Re:All you need to know

[rossz]

It's not just dropping files onto a computer. If it were just that, there wouldn't be a need for specialty programs (and programmers) to do it. Besides putting the correct files on a system, which can be different depending upon the operating system and other variables, you may need to configure the program to run. This could be very simple or as complex as initializing and loading up an sql database.

One of the worse installers I have ever seen was for the Informix database. If you followed the instructions to the letter, you were GURANTEED to fail. And no, I did not write that installer. In my opinion, they never fixed this problem because a large amount of revenue was generated from the support services that helped install and configure the package.

For the consumer world, the user should never have to manually configure anything to run the program This should also be true in the business world, especially if hundreds of workstations need that software since manual steps guarantee headaches for the IT department.

Re:All you need to know

[Nailer]

It boggles the mind that people would rather use their own wierd solution than build on apt.

The apt frontend which supports LSB packages (rpm, as opposed to dpkg) works well, but can be confusing. Many new users becomes confused about the difference between update and upgrade, and sometimes forget the need to run update at all.
Additionally, apt lends itself to resolving dependencies fro mmultipel sources - its not possible to say `update my entire os, but only from the a single source' unless you want to keep reediting your sources.list whenever you'd like to do so. This makes support a bit of a problem, as apt is inclined towards treating third party packages the same as distribution packages.

I'm not sayign apt is bad (every freshrpms fan knows its quite good), it just isn't perfect, and there's more to package management front ends than apt. Checkout redhat-config-packages from the current Null beta - its much more polished, but not quite as flexible as up2date or apt. But for the average desktop user, it just might be good enough to take away the pain of installing software on Linux.

Re:All you need to know

[Asic Eng]

On one point, I will agree: an installer or package manager should be as simple as it can be. If you install a package, any dependencies it requires should be automatically installed.

I'm not familiar with apt, it could well be great, but I think that feature has been part of YAST for a long time, too.

Re:All you need to know

[great throwdini]

For the consumer world, the user should never have to manually configure anything to run the program. This should also be true in the business world[.]

Now I understand why there's all that nonsense involving default admin passwords for databases connected to the 'Net. (Sorry, it was too easy to pass up.)

Re:All you need to know

[rseuhs]

So I guess you won't use XFree86? (SuSE is the main sponsor and developer)

You won't use ALSA? (SuSE pretty much the only commercial developer)

You won't use ReiserFS? (SuSE also the only commercial developer for that project)

What about KDE and the Linux kernel?

SuSE did more for the community than most other Linux distributors.

Re:All you need to know

[rossz]

Now I understand why there's all that nonsense involving default admin passwords for databases connected to the 'Net. (Sorry, it was too easy to pass up.)

Actually, you nailed it. I had a bit of a disagreement at one company. They wanted me to hardcode the ms sql password into the installer and they expected their customers to set the admin password to this. This was for a program that would have access to large amounts of personal financial information. I refused to do something so stupid and implemented a dialog box that asked for the admin password, properly hidden by *'s, of course. It then validated the password (by trying to connect with it) before continuing with the installation.

Re:All you need to know

[rossz]

Windows might have a pretty UI, but I have yet to see a better way of installing programs than typing "apt-get install mozilla". No EULAs, no library problems, no ugly installer that grabs your screen, and usually no questions. Just wait until it finishes the download and it's done. Looks like you'd agree with me.

I'm a big fan of apt-get and think it should be implemented in the United Linux standard. One change needs to be made, however, to the application. It should realize when it is being executed for the first time for each user and automatically fire up the configuration tool and step the user through the configuration process. Not all programs need to be configured. Many will not needed to be configured, of course, but just as many do.

Re:All you need to know

[Webmonger]

Apt isn't a front-end. It's more like a library.

The commandline tools "apt-get" and "apt-cache" are utilities that use APT, not APT itself. It's also used in graphical projects like Synaptic and gnome-apt, as well as the console-menu tool Aptitude.

This is why I said "build on" APT.

Better versioning system and installing standard ?

[miffo.swe]

While i can admit that the package manager is too complicated for the averege user it reflects something vital. Versioning and installing of programs in linux needs a standard that makes it esier to install applications. I have no problems whatsoever but i can imagine how frustrated a newbie could get. It should be possible to change the versioning system to someting more coherent and easier. If you polish todays system it wont help the underlying problems of dependencies and versioning. automatic download of depending packages solves the problem but in a very advanced way. There must be a simpler way to fix this. Small programs should be compiled statically since an increse of a couple of megs is well worth not having to grind your teeth over missing packages.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> integration into a commercial product is not allowed.

What a pity! I wonder how one can think it sustainable to be the only free rider to keep its code proprietary in a sharing community.

SuSE 8.1's YaST2

[noodlez84]

Please, note, folks: it's not out yet. SuSE actually listens deeply to its customers, and if people don't like it, it will be fixed (of course, SuSE listens more to the real customers who hang out at the suse-linux-e mailing list which generates >200 messages a day.)

Please note, also, that SuSE is not designed for the "Average Joe", which the OSNews.com review brings up all the time. SuSE is designed more for the intermediate-professional level. One piece of evidence for that is the existence of a NCurses (i.e., console) version of YaST2.

Eugenia Loli-Queru, the author, also bitches about the ability to remove system libraries and about the ability to find which pickage provides a certain library (or what needs it). Frankly, I find that a lovely feature, and will be sure to use it.

The author ends with the question: "Does this truly solves the problem for the customer?" The answer is a true yes (IMO), because SuSE's customers are not first-stage newbies. As a longtime SuSE user, I have found that if SuSE has to choose between power and simplicity, power will win, and I applaud them for that.

As one of the few Linux companies with a _profitable_ software division, there's real concrete proof that SuSE knows what they are doing. At least wait until the product launches before writing a scathing review...

Reviewer needs a smack

[ZeLonewolf]

"Advanced search: Which package provides that library my program needs?" Do you truly think that Joe User needs or should be forced to know or search about this? If your answer is "yes", then, Mr SuSE, you got no clue about desktop system design.

The reviewer clearly doesn't have A CLUE! That's an extremely useful functionality. I can certainly empathize with trying to install an rpm that isn't listed in YaST...because often times it breaks because of a missing dependancy...and it usually takes AGES to find what package it's in!

So... clearly the reviewer is just spouting on this point or, more likely, simply doesn't understand what it means.

Re:Reviewer needs a smack

[Watts Martin]

Or perhaps you're missing the reviewer's point. While I've occasionally sparred (mildly) with Eugenia, she's right on target here; unfortunately, she's not expressing herself too clearly (English being her second language sometimes does show through). Whether the "advanced search" is useful for fixing broken dependencies is honestly irrelevant. The point is that desktop users shouldn't need to know about things like library dependencies.

It's a generally well-accepted principle of human-computer interaction that if you allow this kind of "under the hood" access because occasionally you have to--in other words, because of the scenario that you're describing--the program isn't well-designed. If it often breaks, as you say, that means this isn't an "advanced" mode, it's a "we can't get our dependency handling right" mode.

I think the earlier comment someone had about using apt as a back-end is right on target. From a UI standpoint, even (gasp) typing "apt-get install emacs" stomps over any GUI package manager with poor dependency handling, no matter how elegant and refined the GUI might be.

Re:Reviewer needs a smack

[MobyTurbo]

I can certainly empathize with trying to install an rpm that isn't listed in YaST...because often times it breaks because of a missing dependancy...and it usually takes AGES to find what package it's in!

SuSE has for a while had a nice program called pin that searches for libraries in packages very well. That having been said, judging from the screenshots, SuSE 8.1's package manager looks neat.

Re:Reviewer needs a smack

[Dr. Spork]

desktop users shouldn't need to know about things like library dependencies

I'm sorry. I really don't think that's right. Linux is a system with shared libraries. That's something which doesn't need fixing. But as long as that's the case, I see no reason to insulate the user from this fact. Yast2 seems to reveal dependencies in a very straightforward way, so noobs only need to press OK whenever they don't understand something, and all will go well. However, at no expense to them, they learn something about the internal structure of their software environment. This is exactly what they need if they are one day going to graduate from the noob status and start seeing the real power of *nix. BTW, this graduation is not going to happen for someone on OSX unless they really work at it. I think SuSE's utility does a much better job informing them what's under their hood without asking them to do anything more than press "OK". How this could be a bad thing, I don't understand.

Objective journalism

[slavemowgli]

I'm certainly no friend of either SuSE in general or YaST in particular, but after reading this article, I am left with the uneasy feeling that this was just not objective journalism, but in fact outright bashing, and I'm kinda saddened by this. is this really necessary? Debating things, even in a controversial way, is certainly a good thing, but let's try to not get personal - the last thing we need is this kind of mudslinging amongst ourselves.

This is typical

[ViceClown]

This is the second time this week I have seen Eugenia express a knee-jerck opinion on something without putting much thought into it. The first was calling for a user friendly Gentoo but that's a different argument. I don't care who you are - calling a program a "UI disaster" without even actually using it is VERY irresposible. As a reporter she should be doing due dilligence and research before forming an opinion or dare I say "review" on a new piece of software. The good people at SuSE are working VERY hard at trying to make managing binary packages easier and here's someone slamming them before it's even out the door. This is irresposible reporting at it's worst. OSNews has become a soundboard for Eugenia's opinions and she has no problems shelling them out at her every whim. This was the last article I plan to read at OSNews. I'de prefer to get unbiased news elseware.

Sincerely, Former OSNews Reader

UI is difficult.

[Error27]

Well it's not really that difficult, but it does require some thought.

The main problem with the screenshots is that they seem to be of obscure features rather than the ordinary things I would do all the time.

apt-cache search
apt-cache show
apt-get install
apt-get upgrade -u --fix-missing

That's all I need 95% of the time.

I'm confused by what the color scheme was meant to represent, and what the problem is with the project versions.

These screenshots are obviously designed by programmers for programmers. That's why there is a screenshot of dependency hell. A marketter would not have included it. On the other hand, I trust open source because I know the developers are going to be honest even if it doesn't make business sense. It would be nice to fix dependency hell, but it can't realistically happen. Microsoft fixes it by controlling the entire process and by releasing new versions less frequently than even Debian. Linux is developed too fast, and by too many different people for the problem to go away entirely.

"Actually, all the user needs to know is that there is a new version available. Nothing else." I disagree, I sometimes wonder what version is going to be installed. They could make all the new versions a different color, that way everyone wins.

The article let's windows off too easily. I have never liked windows update. It always makes me nervous. To download a patch to active X, I had to turn on active X. How do I revert changes? It never tells me what it is doing to my system. These days windows update seems to be turned on by default. It pops up when I use other people's systems. Windows update is like X-10 ads without the buxom babysitters. I don't think it ever gives any information about what program is going to upgraded. I never know if I should press yes to upgrade, or if it is going to trash the system.

Eugenia's articles are great. We need more discussion about user interfaces.

Wrong name?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Shouldn't it be named YaYast instead of Yast2?

Nobody uses SuSE?

[Anthony Boyd]

Wow. Lots of people posting about SuSE who don't appear to actually use it. I want to make just two points. First, while I understand that their installers are not GPL'd, I also understand that this is what makes them a profitable enough company to be stable. I don't want SuSE to be like Mandrake, asking for handouts. I want Linux to survive, and companies teetering on the edge make me uncomfortable. Second, YAST is not new (obviously), so any hype about managing packages is overstated. YAST has done that for a while. But what is new, and -- sorry -- what I and other customers asked for, is the ability to search inside a package for libraries and such. For me personally, I wanted to get Xine and Xmms working from a compile, and there were cascading dependencies. I didn't want to compile everything. So it is NOT that SuSE put that there because they screw up dependencies and have "advanced search" as a bandaid. They have it there (at least in my case) so that I can select a library, get all the sub-dependencies taken care of, and then I only need to use gcc for the app itself.

Re:Free or proprietary

[Jason Earl]

What's the point of switching from Windows if you are just going to tie yourself to a different vendor? The fact of the matter is that the openness of a technology matters, and if you don't believe me, talk to some of the fools that got sucked into using Caldera's proprietary installation routines. Caldera's management tools were cool, but it wasn't too long before they were charging per processor fees, and now their Linux distribution has all but vanished and they are back to beating the SCO Unix dead horse. So now their customers get to unlearn all of the Caldera specific stuff they learned and start again. Similar things have happened with several of the other proprietary Linux distributions including Corel's brief foray into the world of Linux.

The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of distributions that have good Free Software management tools. For newbies I would recommend either RedHat or Mandrake, and if you really want to see a Linux box that is easy to keep up to date install Debian. The apt packaging tools make Windows update look pitiful. They aren't graphical, but a single one line command will download and install any package and all dependencies.

Or you can learn the hard way. The market has been particularly brutal to companies that have tried to take Linux in a more proprietary direction. In fact, the reason that RedHat is at the top of the food chain is that they have consistently given away their software. SuSE, Caldera, Corel, and many others have at times had niftier products, but it has always been RedHat's tools that have spread because they were free. Apparently SuSE still hasn't learned it's lesson.

Newbie WHATNOW?

[The Pi-Guy]

It all depends on your newbie. If your newbie is computer-literate, they can install SuSE 7.3 over FTP.

My newbie could get around Win32 adequately. His home box always seemed "slow." He saw KDE 3.0.3 running on my Gentoo box, and noted I was always raving about Linux and how he should try SuSE. So, he went home, and grabbed SuSE 7.3 bootdisks, on his own. He then did everything the installer asked - I just gave him some names of IRC clients and the name "KDE", and he installed it all himself. And that was YaST1. (Which IMHO was a better package selector in ncurses, but apparently it works nicely again in 8.1's YaST. I've installed a 7.2 and 7.3, ran 8.0 for some time, but I've just recently installed Gentoo. I love it :) But that's getting a little OT... )

In any event, later, SuSE apparently installed sendmail so he could send email, and he could run pine and successfully send me email.

So is he a brighter newbie than normal? Or is Eugenia a dumber newbie? I think that SuSE gets high marks in terms of usability for me - my one gripe about 7.3 was that it didn't start XDM/KDM/GDM automagically. (I love that word...) It was fixed in 8.0. And it used YaST2 for installation under X or some FBDev... it was a dream to upgrade from 7.3 to 8.0. I just hit "upgrade", fed it its 7 CDs (HEH), and it went. He's a convert now. (I've been a convert for 4 years - now I only boot win2k if there's a game that I wanna play - WineX is helping with that, love it already! - or... well.. I don't boot win2k otherwise!)

Happily,
pi

Re:Newbie WHATNOW?

[sg_oneill]

my one gripe about 7.3 was that it didn't start XDM/KDM/GDM automagically. (I love that word...) It was fixed in 8.0

Hmm.Personally I prefer installs that don't automatically turn on GDM on install. Particularly if you've seen those many distros that simply thrash and flip out in cycles if it doesn't work (I note that woody nails gdm if it doesnt come up after 5 tries... Last time I looked at redhat it still flipped out if the X setup was wrong.)

It's pretty easy to first tune X up and *then* set the default inittab level to x windows afterwoods

Re:Newbie WHATNOW?

[Nachtfalke]

I'm using RedHat 7.3, and if the X server keeps crashing (like when you forget to recompile the NVIDIA module after upgrading the kernel *ahem*), a friendly text mode dialog pops up, asking you if you want to reconfigure X or if you want to fix it yourself in text mode.

Re:Newbie WHATNOW?

[The Pi-Guy]

But that's not very newbie-friendly... The newbie doesn't wanna see "login: ", the newbie wants to see a big graphical "Welcome! Enter the username you set up when you installed: " or something like that. .. or maybe that's just me.'
--j

OK...I DO use SuSE....

[kikensei]

I've been using it exclusively on the desktop for 2 years and on a few servers at work. This is a step in the right direction for the distro. In SuSE 8, the developer's sought to become more compliant to the LSB (Linux Standard Base) and to streamline their distro. Prior to 8.0, SuSE was sporting both Yast and Yast2. Yast was a carry over from ealier distro's which included an NCURSES based package manager (among many other things). Yast2 provided a clean GUI that could be run under X or via NCurses at a terminal (or over SSH...great!) allowing for easy system updates and administration for newbies and exerienced alike. Those who don't like Yast can turn it off and take responsibility for managing the system manually. With 8.0, Yast was removed from the distro and a BIG complaint from their user base was the loss of the Yast1 package manager. This clearly is a response to their user base to integrate a package manager into Yast2 (and a powerful looking manager at that). Please. If you don't use SuSE refrain from the constant "apt" this and "emerge" that. SuSE works very well with apt4rpm if you so desire and if you like Debian or Gentoo (I don't have the patience, it was fun to get it working, but when I'm building several workstations, Gentoo ain't happening), then use them. Linux distro's can peacefully coexist, and as an admin and desktop user of SuSE's distro, I'm glad to see a GUI and console package manager re-integrated into the distro. I'm sure it will only get better.

YaST review

[Daimaou]

I don't know how many of you frequent OSNews, but Eugenia is always very critical of Linux, Java, OS X, or anything not Microsoft or BeOS.

I personally think it is poor reporting to post such a rancorous review of a program based entirely on screenshots. In her forum section, she admits to having never used YaST, so the review is based entirely on nescience, sensationalism and a dislike for anything Linux (although she regularly denies it).

Eugenia has a bad habit of telling her readers to f**k off and die and deleting posts she doesn't like, so it won't do any good to try and reason with her to be more intellectually honest in her articles. It's best just to take this horrid review with a grain of salt.

YaST is a very good tool, and from the screenshots, they have fixed some things that needed to be fixed. It looks very good to me and I look forward to trying it out when 8.1 is released.

Re:YaST review

[Daimaou]

She does delete posts. I've had a couple of mine removed when I disagreed with her. At least my criticism is base on personal experience and fact. Not on screenshots of OSNews.

Re:Free or proprietary

[Jason Earl]

If it doesn't matter if YaST2 is Free or not, then why doesn't SuSE simply free it? The answer is simple, SuSE believes their proprietary installer/management console sets them apart from the competition. They also want to be able to charge you for each and every installation. I agree that the risk is minimal. Anyone who can learn YaST2 can learn to use someone else's tools should something happen to SuSE. However, why take the chance. The other distributions have perfectly acceptable tools, and their tools are Free Software.

SuSE's choice to use proprietary software in their distribution has already hurt them quite a bit. SuSE's popularity is declining steadily despite the fact that they have pretty neat tools. Apparently enough people care about Freedom to effect SuSE's market share.

Plenty of distributions have tried differentiate their products with proprietary value adds. RedHat has taken a completely different tack, however. They have seeded the market with their technology by making in Free Software. By doing this they have guaranteed that the technologies that they are expert in are the ones that are copied. Everytime that someone wants a base distribution to build their new idea on, they choose one of the Free distributions, and usually that means RedHat. That's why RedHat is synonymous with Linux, and that allows them to get the best Linux consulting gigs.

With power comes responsibility.

[wen]

With power comes responsibility. I welcome more information and control over the packages that are installed. I have tried many of the popular distributions, and I often find packages that I never use but are installed by default in the distributions. These packages are potential security risks and uses up valuable disk space.

I have used SuSE 6.x - 7.x in production and have found the tools included to be better and more comprehensive than the most popular distributions. And SuSE does not charge for online updating.

If you don't know which packages you want to use, use a default selection.

Yet another case of ...

[sheriff_p]

Self-important journalism. Let's take a few examples..

Firstly, they decry the fact that YaST2 doesn't simplify the version numbers. And *then* they get upset that YAST2 does try a simplification using colour. YaST2 says "We're trying our best here, and it seems to work pretty well" where petulant reviewer mumbles something about hating versioning systems on Linux. Frankly, it seems they don't understand the nature of open-source.

Then they complain about a search feature to see which package provides a given library, and tries to convince us that that's only something 'power users' need - personally, it was one of the first things I learned to do with the RPM tool when I installed Linux for the first time - non-standard packages off the net would often complain about missing libraries.

To add to everything else, this article is written by someone who by their own admission hasn't used the tool yet, and is going purely off screenshots. What a retard.

Re:Better versioning system and installing standar

[Asic Eng]

Ok, having sensible versioning standards in OS would be great, some of the systems used are horrible, I agree.

However:

Look what the lack of standard versioning scheme throughout the open source community is forcing SuSE to do [...] A commercial OS would have enforce such a standard on all its engineering teams

What is she smoking exactly? There is no Windows standard for version systems. Every app comes with it's own scheme. There is not even a scheme for Windows itself: Win98, Win2k, WinMillenium, WinNT4, Win3.1, WinXP. Ask a newbie to put those in order. Their apps version system is similar "clear".

Re:Waaa Waaa!!!

[Zemran]

The blank you missed was Beos. The author of the article is a Beos advocate looking for a new direction in life. She is lost and does not know what she is talking about.

Re:Free or proprietary

[platypus]

They also want to be able to charge you for each and every installation.

Wrong.
No, not only wrong, this is FUD.
Please read up on the yast(2) license before spouting off such a nonsense.
If they won't change the license in suse 8.1, and you know more than I know about this change, I have no idea where you get this from.

If not, I can only ask you to inform yourself and tell me how your sentence above can hold.

OSNews reviewer is clueless

[Idaho]

Things like these (among others):

"Advanced search: Which package provides that library my program needs?" Do you truly think that Joe User needs or should be forced to know or search about this? If your answer is "yes", then, Mr SuSE, you got no clue about desktop system design.

Well...the thing is, SuSE is really aimed at companies (they want support contracts!) with professional sysadmins. It is used on the server a lot, and if it is rolled out on the desktop it will probably be done by a companies admin.

So, if something breaks, our happy sysadmin could look up missing dependencies of a certain package - rather usefull I'd say.

And no, Joe Avg User probably doesn't want this, that's why it says 'ADVANCED search', i.e. Joe Avg Stupid User shouldn't go there in the first place, but just select 'Automagically use my harddisk as you see fit', then 'Default Desktop Install', and that's just about how much he should see of the install process.

But for sure, I would *love* this advanced search thing (fortunately, Gentoo Portage has it built-in :)

The problem with suse

[SCHecklerX]

I too (am forced to) use suse at work.

My biggest complaint is the way that yast operates. rather than work with the config files for a particular part of the system directly, it keeps its changes in a databases, than shits them out to the actual config files afterwards.

If you have ever made manual changes to any config, you are fscked as soon as you use yast for that 'quick change' you couldn't remember how to do with the text files...or if you have multiple machine admins, good luck.

And yast doesn't support all of the possible config options available for certain things either, so you HAVE to tweak them by hand (1152x864 resolution on the video card I use at work, for example).

My last gripe is that ridiculous mix of /etc/rc.d scripts and /etc/rc.config for configuring what gets started or not. Come on! Pick one method and use it. That mix is just confusing to anybody using that distro for the first time. Having to muck with it in two places is wrong.

Re:Better versioning system and installing standar

[smittyoneeach]

A commercial OS would have enforce such a standard on all its engineering teams, eliminating such problems, and therefore eliminating the need that the user should check out if there is a new version available or not!

Eugenia seemed to agree with you in the 'review'.
Maybe the community could lean on some of the more creative folks and urge them to apply their creativity more to the product and less to the version numbering system.
Or the Linux Standard Base could weigh in. I know, we view standardazation as the Siamese twin of censorship, but it can have the effect of lowering the entropy in the system.

Re:Free or proprietary

[Asic Eng]

What a pity! I wonder how one can think it sustainable to be the only free rider to keep its code proprietary in a sharing community.

I don't understand where this attitude to SuSE comes from. That they don't contribute to Linux is simply not true. If you want to argue that they don't contribute enough, you can - but I think if you look at their performance you'll see that they'll do a lot for the community. Xfree, reiserfs and lots of translation efforts come to mind.

To call them free riders is mean spirited, whether you like their proprietary management tool or not.

Re:Free or proprietary

[Paul the Bold]

Yes, that is their business model. It makes sense, but it's annoying. If you read the README, they at least come out and say it. You can always pool resources with a few friends.

You can download a trial CD, which is a live bootable CD. I've never done it. You can download CDs of prior versions of SuSE (perhaps the 8.0 images are out now?). You can install the current version via FTP, but their FTP site is several months behind the CDs, so it is probably beyond everybody (not just newbies) to make the CD 1.

Re:Read the License - YAST(2) is closed

[rseuhs]

Maybe you should start to read it.

You are allowed to copy, modify and redistribute yast just like with any GPL-program.

The ONLY difference is that you are not allowed to distribute it commercially (sell it, make a commercial distribution out of it).

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> That they don't contribute to Linux is simply not true.

No one said that. It is well known that they contribute to GNU the OS, Linux the kernel and several utilities and applications.

The thing is that they keep fragmenting the platform from the end user point of view by keeping such an important tool proprietary. As long as they do it, no other distribution will be able to use it; they will have to duplicate effort and probably keep the user experience different even if everyone agreed YaST is the best and greatest. Even a one-year delayed GPLing like Ghostscript's would avoid this.

They are free riders indeed. No matter how much they contribute elsewhere, people like Debian or even Red Hat do not hold back anything. That SuSe does hold things back is what sets them apart. This is what fragmented the original Unix: no matter how much Sun contributed to X or NFS NIS or whatever else more, they never made things like the desktop or the kernel and core libraries free software. So it is the same story all over again, just that now the chances of fragmentation and of proprietary lock-in are much smaller, because both the totally proprietary competition (MS W32) and the totally free one (GNU/Linux) are much stronger.

Summing up, they help prolong the agony of proprietary software as a concept. All things considered, YaST is unmitigated evil.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> that is their business model. It makes sense, but it's annoying.

I fail to see how annoying users into trying competitors makes sense to your bottom line. If it was really so much better than anything else, it would still be wrong but at least they would be rich.

Bad conscience does not give good dreams, even in silk sheets; but he way it goes, they might as well have the bad conscience nightmares and in a slum.

At least suffering the consequences gives one an incentive to repent.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> It will be around as long as linux is around.

Can you lend me your crystal ball, or put your powers of prophecy to better uses, like when Microsoft will be forced to a niche or to free its code?

Seriously, perhaps you are right. Perhaps such stupid takeovers of perfectly nice free software code by proprietary lock-in suits will give GNU/Hurd the chance it has been denied until now.

But I guess the free software, international communities like Debian will give Linux a lease on life until the Hurd is ready, even if now decent companies like Red Hat are taken over by suits, First World patents and the such.

Re:Free or proprietary

[Asic Eng]

> That they don't contribute to Linux is simply not true.

No one said that.

Well sorry, but that is the implication by calling someone a free rider.

As for the fragmenting: that's one area where proprietary or not, does not matter at all. The fragmentation is caused by a variety of different tools to do the same thing. Nobody is picking up one of the free tools, and makes it standard. Debian is not going to use rpms any time soon, neither will others switch to Debian management tools.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> apparently freedom and coherence are conflicting targets in the open source world.

Dear AC, probably you are just trolling from the heights of your ignorance, since you proved to not grok freedom and community. Moreover, your comment is currently scored zero, thus it will not be read by many, perhaps not even yourself.

But because I have a Charlie Brownesque belief in grace and the consequent second chance, I will try to enlighten you and whomever else happens to share in your cluelessness and come to read this.

Yes, there is much unnecessary forking and lots of Not Invented Here syndrome around. Yes, GNU/Linux is yet painful in many aspects, like internationalization and hardware drivers availability.

But freedom is a long-term tool, process and goal together, not a quick fix. The current state of software bloat and badness comes not from freedom, but proprietarization -- hoarding.

It was software hoarding that kept the POSIX desktop fragmented, thus giving closed systems the current lease of life they are enjoying. And it were proprietary systems which have most contributed to change the preparation of practitioners from education to training, thus keeping the whole field in a permanent state of immaturity. Much like the beautiful White Witch in CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe kept Narnia in permanent winter, without ever allowing Christmas to come.

It is freedom what is allowing people to have the information they need to at least try to educate themselves. It is freedom that allows developers to try different approaches, and allows users to at least choose what they think best instead of being forced into stupidity by software hoarders' products.

With freedom, Microsoft would have stick to Xenix and today we could have a Microsoft OpenXenix or the like, that would be a fast, lean, really free and standards-compliant cross platform Mac OS X, including its ease of use. We have lost that train, but with freedom we are trying to catch up on what is missing, and given the pragmatic climate of opinion unfortunately that will be by trial and error.

So please learn you History, or you will be condemned to keep repeating the errors already committed by people who at least had less examples to learn from than you have now.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

>>> That they don't contribute to Linux is simply not true.

>>No one said that.

> that is the implication by calling someone a free rider.

No, the implication is that they are getting something from free and not retributing. Open source types may accept that one contributes partially, holding some cards; free software, on the other hands, calls for total cooperation.

> As for the fragmenting: that's one area where proprietary or not, does not matter at all.

Most obviously it matters. With free software one has the opportunity of, while not being compelled to, reuse. With proprietary code one cannot reuse.

> The fragmentation is caused by a variety of different tools to do the same thing.

No, no, not! You are committing the most basic rhetorical error, trying to explain something merely by repeating it in other words.

Fragmentation is not caused by, it is different tools to do the same thing.

The explanation is quite another stuff, and is multiple: imperfect decisions out of lack of knowledge, divergent goals, hope of lock-in or Not Invented Here syndrome.

> Nobody is picking up one of the free tools, and makes it standard.

Because of previous fragmentation, and none of the existing ones is up to the task yet. But even so it is not entirely true. Debian is pretty much the same whatever distribution you pick, but the derived ones initiated tools like PGI that are now being broadened to allow for inclusion in the official, original Debian. RPM is a confusion, but that is because it was a bad idea in the first place.

> Debian is not going to use rpms any time soon, neither will others switch to Debian management tools.

Wrong, and wrong. Debian ideed will not ever use RPM, because that would be regressing. But a common format is being worked on to succeed both .rpm and .deb.

And others are switching to Debian management tools. UnitedLinux is probably using Conetiva's port of Debian's apt for rpm, and when both Debian and UnitedLinux migrate to the new, yet unfinished commom package format, then mostly what will differentiate them will be policies. If that works as expected, even Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSe will be forced to pay attention.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> SuSE follows the LSB, so there's no fragmentation.

Many people cannot find their way around without a nice GUI. So for these people there is real fragmentation. Not to mention packaging, policies, etc.

Re:Read the License - YAST(2) is closed

[rindeee]

And the license verbiage on the SuSE web site adds to what the e-mail says, and is worded completely differently than the license info with the commercial package that I have. It states (as an earlier poster pointed out): # "3. Dissemination It is forbidden to reproduce or distribute data carriers which have been reproduced without authorisation for payment without the prior written consent of SuSE Linux AG or SuSE Linux. Distribution of the YaST programme, its sources, whether amended or unamended in full or in part thereof, and the works derived thereof for a charge require the prior written consent of SuSE Linux AG. All programmes derived from YaST, and all works derived thereof as a whole or parts thereof may only be disseminated with the amended sources and this licence in accordance with 2b). Making YaST or works derived thereof available free of charge together with SuSE Linux on FTP Servers and mailboxes is permitted if the licences on the software are observed." So it would seem that I was wrong, and grumbling about nothing. I like being proven wrong especially when it saves me money. Toodle pips.

Re:Free or proprietary

[Asic Eng]

the implication is that they are getting something from free and not retributing.

Agree - and that's a lie, so why call them free riders, when they are clearly not?

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

>> the implication is that they are getting something from free and not retributing. Open source types may accept that one contributes partially, holding some cards; free software, on the other hands, calls for total cooperation.

> Agree - and that's a lie, so why call them free riders, when they are clearly not?

Would you read, please? Free software, especially the GNU project that started all of GNU/Linux, calls for total contribution. It is no good to contribute where others also do, but then keep pieces proprietary so as to generate a proprietary lock in?

But then you are excused of being confused, because even Linus himself has been using proprietary tools and calling Linux open source, instead of free software, besides forgetting GNU.

Re:Free or proprietary Fragmentation??

[leandrod]

> Linux will never be one size fits all.

But this gives no excuse for SuSE to enforce fragmentation by denying other people the right to see and use the source code it has created to use a free installer and configure a free OS.

Next time, if you want an answer, please identify yourself and read the arguments before repeating something that has nothing to do with the issue.

Re:Free or proprietary

[Asic Eng]

Sorry, but that's crap - just because someone does not buy into your philosphy doesn't entitle you to claim they are doing something which they are clearly not.

And you are quite right, most contributors to Opensource don't buy into RMS' philosophie. If you can't accept other people having other ideas and their own philosophies, then you shouldn't even talk about freedom.

What GNU software calls for is what's stated in the license - asking for stuff which is not covered in there is cheating.

Re:Free or proprietary

[leandrod]

> just because someone does not buy into your philosphy doesn't entitle you to claim they are doing something which they are clearly not.

What I am claiming they are doing is to create proprietary lock-in by developing and distributing proprietary software. This way they benefit from other distributions work without giving the expected counterpart. This they are doing, and this is free riding as I understand it.

> If you can't accept other people having other ideas and their own philosophies, then you shouldn't even talk about freedom.

I can accept, and I do, that people have other ideas. What you cannot expect is that they go unchallenged. As we see it, challenging proprietariness, free riding and software hoarding is called standing for freedom.

> What GNU software calls for is what's stated in the license - asking for stuff which is not covered in there is cheating.

No.

The GNU GPL is a part of GNU. Other parts are GNU FDL, GNU LGPL, all the source code and documentation under these licenses, the philosophy and political papers, education and political activism, up to and including the advocacy of the necessity of free software and open standards for all users, specially government, by legal means if necessary.

Licensing, including the GNU GPL, is just one of a range of fronts in this wider battle.

Please read the GNU philosophy if you doubt me.