Getting the latest software?
Hiya! I'm new to SuSE Linux, and I like it a lot! But I've got a couple of questions as I start out with it... (1) SuSE uses RedHat RPM's, right? Will any rpm file that works on RedHat also work on SuSE? It can't use Debian .deb files, correct? (2) SuSE comes with Gaim 0.59, but the latest version is 0.69. I see that the Gaim web site offers rpm's for RedHat and for Mandrake, but none specifically for SuSE. Will the RedHat version work on SuSE? Or is there somewhere I can obtain the latest version specifically for SuSE? (3) In general, is there a central place to go for SuSE software that's not part of the standard distribution yet? Like, SuSE comes with KDE 3.1.1, but is KDE 3.1.3 available in a way that SuSE can be easily upgraded to? (4) Where does the name 'SuSE' come from, and why is it capitalized weird like that? (5) Bonus question: anybody know how to change the behavior of the KDE Konqueror web browser, so that if I enter 'apple' into the location bar, it goes to 'www.apple.com' instead of doing a Google search on 'apple'?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday September 28 2003 15:04, Brian Kendig wrote:
Hiya! I'm new to SuSE Linux, and I like it a lot! But I've got a couple of questions as I start out with it...
(1) SuSE uses RedHat RPM's, right? Will any rpm file that works on RedHat also work on SuSE? It can't use Debian .deb files, correct?
RH rpms, as well as other distro rpms may or may not work in SuSE as you might hope. Over all they do but in certain cases they may not because RH puts some files (libs, etc) in different places. One example is KDE. SuSE and Mandrake put them in /opt dir whereas RH puts them in /usr (unix systems resources rather the the "optional" aka /opt dir). One needs to look at the site, readmes, install docs, etc...
(2) SuSE comes with Gaim 0.59, but the latest version is 0.69. I see that the Gaim web site offers rpm's for RedHat and for Mandrake, but none specifically for SuSE. Will the RedHat version work on SuSE? Or is there somewhere I can obtain the latest version specifically for SuSE?
This situation is similar to the above statement. If you look at the gaim files and see where they are located you might be able to determine if they install in essentially the same place. Mandrake rpms tend to be similar to SuSEs in this respect. However RH rpms can work in some case and not in others. Generally if a program defaults to /usr or /usr/local and so forth then chance are it may not be a problem. This is the whole reason for the LSB initiiative (LSB = Linux Standards Base). The LSB is used to make it so that the devs can make software without having to tailor it for a specific distro - a one size fits all method.
(3) In general, is there a central place to go for SuSE software that's not part of the standard distribution yet? Like, SuSE comes with KDE 3.1.1, but is KDE 3.1.3 available in a way that SuSE can be easily upgraded to?
Two places to look for SuSE rpms besides the SuSE site are: http://packman.links2linux.org/ (if you get the German language site click the flag in the right corner of english) http://rpm.pbone.net/
(4) Where does the name 'SuSE' come from, and why is it capitalized weird like that?
http://www.suse.com/us/company/suse/suse/portrait.html "Since being established by university students in 1992 in Germany, SuSE Linux has made a genuine quantum leap. Called the "Gesellschaft für Software- und Systementwicklung mbH", SuSE has grown to become one of the world's leading providers of the Open Source operating system, Linux." Therefore SuSE stands for Software und SystemEntwicklung ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^
(5) Bonus question: anybody know how to change the behavior of the KDE Konqueror web browser, so that if I enter 'apple' into the location bar, it goes to 'www.apple.com' instead of doing a Google search on 'apple'?
There's probably a way to do this but I haven't ever wanted to change this behavior so I never tried to - Maybe someone else can help you with this. HTH, Curtis. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2-rc1-SuSE (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/dyw1iqnGhdjCOJsRAukZAKCAN8cqhdc4qFG9SbGfmUfFxK53pQCdFc6w WuNJydKw/1kJdp13ZbmuZ7w= =ga4m -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sunday 28 September 2003 22:04, Brian Kendig wrote:
(1) SuSE uses RedHat RPM's, right? Will any rpm file that works on RedHat also work on SuSE? It can't use Debian .deb files, correct?
"RedHat RPMs" is redundant, btw. The R in RPM is RedHat. Originally RedHat, other distros started using the package manager. However, different distros have different quirks, so an RPM for one distro may not work for another. While you may find some packages made specifically for RedHat that will work on SuSE (I've found a couple), there's no guarantee it will work. Best thing you can do if there's no SuSE option is just give the RedHat RPM a try. Worst case is it won't work and you'll have to uninstall it.
(2) SuSE comes with Gaim 0.59, but the latest version is 0.69. I see that the Gaim web site offers rpm's for RedHat and for Mandrake, but none specifically for SuSE. Will the RedHat version work on SuSE? Or is there somewhere I can obtain the latest version specifically for SuSE?
http://www.usr-local-bin.org/ has Gaim and other RPMs for SuSE. Another site to bookmark is: http://packman.links2linux.de/ which has another load of SuSE RPMs, including the stuff for MPlayer that SuSE can't distribute for legal reasons. ;-) Also, I keep up two programs: DCGUI-QT - Direct Connect client EasyTag - MP3/Ogg file tagger for whatever the current SuSE version is (8.2 now) at http://www.firechild.net/SuSE/index.html May add more programs later, but for now those are the only two I've needed to package for myself. :-P
(3) In general, is there a central place to go for SuSE software that's not part of the standard distribution yet? Like, SuSE comes with KDE 3.1.1, but is KDE 3.1.3 available in a way that SuSE can be easily upgraded to?
SuSE FTP mirrors have KDE 3.1.4. Go into the nearest mirror (list at suse.com ) and troll down to /suse/i386/supplementary directory. You'll find KDE and other stuff there. (Provided but not supported by SuSE. Read the README files there before using.) Plus the above sites...
(4) Where does the name 'SuSE' come from, and why is it capitalized weird like that?
(5) Bonus question: anybody know how to change the behavior of the KDE Konqueror web browser, so that if I enter 'apple' into the location bar, it goes to 'www.apple.com' instead of doing a Google search on 'apple'?
I'll stop at 3 out of 5. Never thought about (4), and (5) I use Mozilla or Opera for surfing. Joe -- Now Playing: Baton Rouge - Young Hearts [From Shake Your Soul (1990)] (2:36/4:19) Powered by XMMS and SuSE Linux 8.2 Pro
(4) Where does the name 'SuSE' come from, and why is it capitalized weird like that? A quick google and ref to my old 6.3 docs tells us this:
Just so you know, SuSE is pronounced "Soose"--it rhymes with moose. Previously represented as the acronym S.u.S.E., the company name was simplified to just SuSE to avoid growing confusion (and who likes acronyms, anyhow ;). Said acronym turns out to stand for "Gesellschaft für Software und Systementwicklung mbH", which is roughly translated as "Company for Software- and System-Development." As far as 5 is concerned? Get Mozilla. :) -- "Turd Ferguson. Yeah, he's a funny guy." ~Burt Reynolds (As portrayed by Norm McDonald of SNL)
BTW, google was wrong on the pronunciation. I noticed that after I sent the message. I believe the most common pronunciation is "soo-suh". Kind of like how the "e" in Porsche makes it "por-sha". :) </Jared> On Sun, 2003-09-28 at 15:18, Turd Ferguson wrote:
(4) Where does the name 'SuSE' come from, and why is it capitalized weird like that? A quick google and ref to my old 6.3 docs tells us this:
Just so you know, SuSE is pronounced "Soose"--it rhymes with moose. Previously represented as the acronym S.u.S.E., the company name was simplified to just SuSE to avoid growing confusion (and who likes acronyms, anyhow ;). Said acronym turns out to stand for "Gesellschaft für Software und Systementwicklung mbH", which is roughly translated as "Company for Software- and System-Development."
As far as 5 is concerned? Get Mozilla.
:) -- "Turd Ferguson. Yeah, he's a funny guy." ~Burt Reynolds (As portrayed by Norm McDonald of SNL) -- "Turd Ferguson. Yeah, he's a funny guy." ~Burt Reynolds (As portrayed by Norm McDonald of SNL)
On Sunday 28 September 2003 23:21, Turd Ferguson wrote:
BTW, google was wrong on the pronunciation. I noticed that after I sent the message. I believe the most common pronunciation is "soo-suh". Kind of like how the "e" in Porsche makes it "por-sha".
Wow... finally somebody got it right and found a pretty good example. :) Hansen -- Powered by SuSE 8.1pro - KDE 3.0.3 - KMail 1.4.3 At least, try asking smart questions: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Funny quotes: 11. Atheism is a non-prophet orgainization.
Brian Kendig wrote:
Hiya! I'm new to SuSE Linux, and I like it a lot! But I've got a couple of questions as I start out with it...
(1) SuSE uses RedHat RPM's, right? Will any rpm file that works on RedHat also work on SuSE? It can't use Debian .deb files, correct?
<snip>
The last 2 posts explained it pretty good. The only thing I will add is what I have found using Mandrake and Red Hat rpm's over the years. You can usually find much more up to date files on rpmfind.net than you will find on a suse server but there may be some risk to using them. Many times, I try to upgrade to a specific version of a software package only to find it requires a newer version of a library than is included with the suse release I'm using. A good example was last week when I tried to install the latest transcode for ripping dvd's. I had to update several packages, and trying to compile them myself didn't work. Since there was no suse package available, I downloaded the package I needed from rpmfind. When I tried to install it, I found that that package required 3 other packages. This turned into a web of dependencies you wouldn't believe. At this point I set out to find mr. pacman's address which I had lost. I eventually had to uninstall all the Mandrake packages because they put certain libraries separately in it's own package and bundled others together which made dependencies which could only be satisfied by mandrake packages of the same build. Some of the suse packages would each fill the dependencies of 3 or 4 of the Mandrake packages. In other words, you can sometimes get by with a red hat or mandrake rpm, but it can also lead to problems, so if you can get a suse package that's always the better choice. It will also make upgrading in the future less complicated. JS
On Sunday 28 September 2003 9:04 pm, Brian Kendig wrote:
(5) Bonus question: anybody know how to change the behavior of the KDE Konqueror web browser, so that if I enter 'apple' into the location bar, it goes to 'www.apple.com' instead of doing a Google search on 'apple'?
Yes, it is possible to do something like this. Open Konq, Settings -> Configure Konq -> Web Shortcuts -> Add. Fill in the three boxes in the form: Name.com (or whatever) http://www.\{@}.com go (or whatever) Click OK, and then OK again. In the address bar, type go: apple, and the address will be rewritten to www.apple.com (remember the colon, or you will still get Google). This will work for all .com addresses, but not for others, of course - you would need to do different shortcuts for them :-) HTH -- Best wishes Kevin Donnelly www.kyfieithu.co.uk - Meddalwedd Rydd yn Gymraeg
participants (8)
-
Brian Kendig -
Curtis Rey -
Dylan -
Joe Sullivan -
Johannes Liedtke -
js -
Kevin Donnelly -
Turd Ferguson