On Tue, 8 May 2001, Tara L Andrews wrote:
[BCC'd to feedback@suse.de so as to avoid list replies going there]
Thanks!
Having recently gone through the SuSE 7.1 installation four times in quick succession (yay for reinstalling after a break-in) I have some comments that the folks at SuSE, and users of SuSE, may or may not be interested in. Many of these are minor issues, but it's the attention to detail that makes a distro great, right?
Indeed, an we appreciate your feedback.
1) When you are asked to choose a root password and a user password in the installation process (and presumably anywhere in YaST2) it doesn't allow the '@' character. I assume this is a bug.
I am not sure, but you may be right here. I still haven't found a reference that describes all valid chars for usernames/passwords. If anyone has some docu about that, feel free to send me the info.
2) The RPM update for apache conflicts with the update for mod_ssl; the update for apache also conflicts with various Perl apache modules. Easily gotten around with --nodeps, but annoying nonetheless.
Hmm, does it conflict, or are dependencies missing? These are two different things.
3) If you install using YaST2, then attempt to save your installation config using YaST1, it will succeed, but the package list will not be recognized by YaST1 if you try to use it later. It really sucks to find this out right after your disk has been wiped for a reinstall.
Yes, unfortunately both YaSTs use a different format for this file :(
3a) YaST2 should really have a way to save the config of a particular machine to floppy, and to load said configuration during an install, a la YaST1. It would have saved me loads of trouble.
That's a good suggestion - I will forward it to the SaX developers.
4) The DM option in /etc/sendmail.cf is set to YAST_ASK, which is really annoying, because YaST never asked. So when sendmail didn't work I had to go track this down.
I assume, SuSEconfig is using a default value in this case, but I have no real clue here.
5) If you're using YaST2, and select "minimal install", it doesn't install X. This is fine, until the system installs LILO and restarts, at which point you get a blank screen because the system automatically went to tty7. If you know enough to press alt-f1, you get YaST2 back, but you have to know to do it.
AFAIK this has been fixed by now.
6) If you want ypbind, and try to configure it using YaST1, it won't let you specify that you want to find an NIS server by broadcast instead of by IP. This has been a problem since at least SuSE 6.4.
Our YP maintainer (and original author of NIS for Linux) is against doing this - I assume he has a valid reason for it.
7) The default configuration of the 3c90x ethernet module generates the following warning message on boot: insmod: Warning: /lib/modules/2.2.18/net/3c90x.o parameter switchdelay has max < min! Not a big deal, but it looks bad.
This should be fixed in the kernel sources, then.
8) Right after my installation, I downloaded and installed the updates that SuSE had posted on the website. I later discovered the YaST2 online update. It's a great tool (and free, unlike RH up2date!), but it doesn't recognize when I've manually updated a package. So I had to let the program re-download and re-install all the patches that I'd already installed. Waste of bandwidth, really.
Well, there is not much we can do here :)
9) When I configured my static IP (no special routing or anything) I found that the default route wasn't ever added. So I had to go into the "expert" configuration and add it myself.
How are we supposed to find your default route, if you do not provide it? Black magic? Or are you rather saying, the user interface is not optimal here?
So those are my nitpicks. I also want to express my happiness that the init scripts are now in /etc, and that the runlevels now match Redhat's.
No, they now match the current LSB specification draft, which happens to be similar to Red Hat and other distributions. :)
It makes it a lot easier to tar up and save system configurations, and to install generic RPMs without having to move around rcN symlinks.
Glad you like it! Thanks for your suggestions. LenZ -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Lenz Grimmer SuSE GmbH mailto:grimmer@suse.de Schanzaeckerstr. 10 http://www.suse.de/~grimmer/ 90443 Nuernberg, Germany Say something soft & sweet. Marshmallow.