SuSE, and anyone else who cares about this thread....
I think we have every right to be critical of SuSE.
We, after all, pay them for a product. When the
product comes out half-baked (or under documented) we
tend to get sour. While we as customers sometimes
make brain-dead mistakes, SuSE, as a vendor does, too.
Just looking at Michaels replies - how the hell were
we supposed to know what suse or RH do with their
kernels, unless they tell us? Does he REALLY want to
stand behind me while I work on my system - for what?
Do I need SuSE to tell me that the problems are MY
problems? - No duh, they're my problems.
Also, SuSE wants a bug report for everything. Some of
this stuff is very basic, and a low level of QC or
Documentation could easily have kept people from major
frustration.
Right now, the feeling I get is
"This is SuSE, you like it, you told me so, so shut
up. If you got a problem, fill out a bug report, and
we'll tell you that we already knew about it. We save
ton's of money letting the customer QC our
distributions, so we can hire egotistical people to
respond to your concerns and really make you feel like
an idiot."
Truthfully, I am not really bothered by the whole
ordeal. I think it's rather funny seeing these kind
of responses from vendors, especially in this day and
age. It's kinda like the old days, when you could
treat the customers poorly, because there was no
alternative. I said WAS.
Oh, and SuSE, before you get started on this - I know
you need details, and general statements don't help
much, blah blah. But, perhaps the marketing and
management folks should attend to this issue. It is
clearly not an engineering problem. It is a QC,
Documentation, Customer Relation, and Packaging
problem. That was the reason for the generality in
the original post. If I actually wanted help fixing
the problems (I didn't ask for help, did I?) then I
would have posted in that matter.
But, on a positive note, I did learn alot about the
kernel packaging!
Ron
--- Monte Milanuk
Ron Heron wrote:
Hello, I have been using SuSE since 6.0. I
upgraded
to 6.2, and then 6.4. It seems to me, though,
getting the system usable, and maintaining current software is becoming more and more difficult with SuSE. Maybe it is just me, but I have noticed
I cannot agree.
numerous postings where people have MAJOR
using SuSE upgrades and patches, or basic Linux
This is a ridiculous observation. Who else would
--- Michael Hasenstein
wrote: that problems post anything here?! This mailing list is for problems and their solutions.
upgrades on a SuSE-installed system. Here are my examples:
1) Upgraded to Kernel 2.2.16, and the system was unusable. Why can't I upgrade to a new kernel
a) That is hardly a SuSE problem if you choose to upgrade one of hte major components without knowing what you're doing.
b) Correct, the stock 2.2.16 is next to unusable. This is why the SuSE 2.2.16 is a 2.2.16 + several MB of patches, for both stability and features.
downloaded from the internet? Every time (5 times now) I tried to put in a new kernel on a SuSE distro, it failed miserably. But, I was able to upgrade other Linux systems at work (RH and Debian) I had to fall back to the SuSE kernel. Is not linux linux?
It is, and I never had problems. Of course, one has to know what one is doing.
2) Installed "Almost Everything" and Almost nothing works! Fresh, out of the box, ran an Almost Everything install on my test box, just for fun. Well, I was utterly amazed at how many things just do not work!. I try to open up Kgrabber, and it tells me I don't have this installed, or that installed, so it cannot function, and the program is just taking up space. Why would SuSE package and install software that can't work?
??? Thanks for the detailed bug report.
So, are you saying you want a bug report for every package that doesn't work right, or has unresolved dependencies _out_of_the_box_? That would be more than a few, imho. People are somewhat used to stuff working when it comes from SuSE, and I think the beef here is that some stuff doesn't just flat doesn't work out of the box, or downloaded, from the SuSE mirrors. I had one box that the kernel upgrade (using the binary rpms, thank you very much) was a complete nightmare. Another one, piece of cake. Using the same files downloaded from a SuSE mirror, shared over the lan via nfs.
Oh, I know. Now you are going to complain that we don't give specific examples. But when I do, are you going shuffle me off w/ a 'why didn't you submit a bug report?'? Why? Because for one, these are pretty basic. If SuSE was going to do something about them, I think they would have done it before the software came out, as there is little chance they could have missed them (I could be wrong)
a) kblade: Requires bladenc -- where is it? finding a source package on the bladenc homepage is a PITA, why bother even including the package in 6.4?
b) opso: Upgrading to the kernel 2.2.16 breaks the oss package that comes w/ 6.4. So if you use opso, you now have no sound, but a nice new kernel. Use alsa 0.5.8 you say? It claims amixer needs reinstalled, but amixer isn't a separate package. amixer complains about needing libasound.so.1, when the system has libasound.so, and the normal link of libasound.so to libasound.so.1 doesn't work. Fun, fun, fun.
If you want more examples, I know I can dig them up, and others can to, if we have time. The point is, particularly w/ ones like these, updates from suse that break previously working packages, or depend on packages that suse doesn't even package, are below what we the consumers expect from SuSE.
Monte
3) Decided to upgrade to XFree86 4.0. I
the software from SuSE, and followed SuSE instructions EXACTLY, and it absolutely would not work. After several hours, I ftp'd via command line to XFree86.org, downloaded the precompiled binaries, followed THEIR instructions, and it worked
The only exception was the gray screen instead of background, and missing xsession file. Still have the background problem, but the xsession problem was
fault of SuSE erasing the file during install.
I'd really love to stand behind you when you do
downloaded perfectly. the this...
4) Did everyone see the post from the poor guy
who
upgraded apache, (again, a SuSE upgrade) and it now doesn't work?
There's ALWAYS someone where everything go wrong, and (almost) always it's NOT our fault.
What is going on here? I cannot believe that SuSE is releasing 7.0 in 10 days, and their 6.4 is such a heap. Or maybe that is the plan.....
=== message truncated === __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
Ron Heron wrote:
SuSE, and anyone else who cares about this thread....
I think we have every right to be critical of SuSE. We, after all, pay them for a product. When the product comes out half-baked (or under documented) we tend to get sour.
I find the product to be quite 'well-done' myself
While we as customers sometimes make brain-dead mistakes, SuSE, as a vendor does, too.
That's called 'life'.
Just looking at Michaels replies - how the hell were we supposed to know what suse or RH do with their kernels, unless they tell us?
How the hell do they know you want to know? Try asking.
Does he REALLY want to stand behind me while I work on my system - for what?
Probably so he can help you with what is (seemingly) not a real common problem.
Do I need SuSE to tell me that the problems are MY problems? - No duh, they're my problems.
Also, SuSE wants a bug report for everything. Some of this stuff is very basic, and a low level of QC or Documentation could easily have kept people from major frustration.
How does QC work? People report problems - problems get fixed.
Right now, the feeling I get is
"This is SuSE, you like it, you told me so, so shut up. If you got a problem, fill out a bug report, and we'll tell you that we already knew about it. We save ton's of money letting the customer QC our distributions, so we can hire egotistical people to respond to your concerns and really make you feel like an idiot."
This must be why SuSE made a nett loss last fiscal year - not enough bug reports!
Truthfully, I am not really bothered by the whole ordeal. I think it's rather funny seeing these kind of responses from vendors, especially in this day and age. It's kinda like the old days, when you could treat the customers poorly, because there was no alternative. I said WAS.
There is an alternative - it's called good manners and common courtesy.
Oh, and SuSE, before you get started on this - I know you need details, and general statements don't help much, blah blah. But, perhaps the marketing and management folks should attend to this issue. It is clearly not an engineering problem. It is a QC, Documentation, Customer Relation, and Packaging problem. That was the reason for the generality in the original post. If I actually wanted help fixing the problems (I didn't ask for help, did I?) then I would have posted in that matter.
Customer Relation problem? Perhaps with one customer
But, on a positive note, I did learn alot about the kernel packaging!
See, there's an upside to everything! :-)
--
This Email is 100% Virus Free!
How do I know? Because no Microsoft
products were used to generate it!
Regards Don Hansford
ECKYTECH COMPUTING/
SQIT Warwick
I'm with Don. Let's look at it like this: you pay less than thirty quid
(6.4 anyhow) for 4-odd gigabytes of stuff, a really helpful book (that could
easily have cost 25 quid itself and not been expensive), several weeks of
telephone support, and a lively (!) user community. Tiny bits of it are not
perfect. I was massively inexperienced when installing 6.4 - now I've
traded up to just very inexperienced, but even that's enough to tell me I've
not been robbed.
Right enough, kpackage didn't start properly, and Netscape was a bit wobbly.
(That could never, of course, happen with another kind of OS - Netsape's
always been rock-solid with three windows open. Not.) I had to wait a
whole day before downloading the fixes from the SuSE site, which took about
five minutes, even over a modem and ordinary phone line. Then I came
downstairs in the morning and, damn me, no-one from SuSE had been round to
cook my breakfast or iron me a shirt. Where's my lawyer?
I'm not that sure even that Ron's right in saying we're buying a 'product',
as such - OK, it is in one way, but in fact all the stuff that has been
beefed about is actually available free. The added value is the media and
the documentation. Oh, and those little stickers. And you get enough
documentation to fill the Enc. Britannia. Oh, and you can install it on as
many machines as you can eat without paying anyone a penny.
I suppose SuSE could indeed expand their workforce by tenfold, release a
version every three or four years, and hide behind monster corporate
attorneys who would make sure no-one ever got an honest answer again ('sorry
sir, it must be your buggy hardware / other software / ugly girlfriend - our
software is canonically perfect' - you've all heard it).
Great, the product would then cost five hundred bucks and eliminate all
experimental features. Plenty of companies have gone this way, and guess
what? Their stuff still has broken bits and needs fixing.
Let's get real, this stuff is fantastic value.
Cheers to all at SuSE once again, 'nuff said,
Fergus Wilde
Chetham's Library
Long Millgate
Manchester
M3 1SB
UK
Tel: +44 (0)161 834 7961
Fax: +44 (0)161 839 5797
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hansford"
Ron Heron wrote:
SuSE, and anyone else who cares about this thread....
I think we have every right to be critical of SuSE. We, after all, pay them for a product. When the product comes out half-baked (or under documented) we tend to get sour.
I find the product to be quite 'well-done' myself
While we as customers sometimes make brain-dead mistakes, SuSE, as a vendor does, too.
That's called 'life'.
Just looking at Michaels replies - how the hell were we supposed to know what suse or RH do with their kernels, unless they tell us?
How the hell do they know you want to know? Try asking.
Does he REALLY want to stand behind me while I work on my system - for what?
Probably so he can help you with what is (seemingly) not a real common problem.
Do I need SuSE to tell me that the problems are MY problems? - No duh, they're my problems.
Also, SuSE wants a bug report for everything. Some of this stuff is very basic, and a low level of QC or Documentation could easily have kept people from major frustration.
How does QC work? People report problems - problems get fixed.
Right now, the feeling I get is
"This is SuSE, you like it, you told me so, so shut up. If you got a problem, fill out a bug report, and we'll tell you that we already knew about it. We save ton's of money letting the customer QC our distributions, so we can hire egotistical people to respond to your concerns and really make you feel like an idiot."
This must be why SuSE made a nett loss last fiscal year - not enough bug reports!
Truthfully, I am not really bothered by the whole ordeal. I think it's rather funny seeing these kind of responses from vendors, especially in this day and age. It's kinda like the old days, when you could treat the customers poorly, because there was no alternative. I said WAS.
There is an alternative - it's called good manners and common courtesy.
Oh, and SuSE, before you get started on this - I know you need details, and general statements don't help much, blah blah. But, perhaps the marketing and management folks should attend to this issue. It is clearly not an engineering problem. It is a QC, Documentation, Customer Relation, and Packaging problem. That was the reason for the generality in the original post. If I actually wanted help fixing the problems (I didn't ask for help, did I?) then I would have posted in that matter.
Customer Relation problem? Perhaps with one customer
But, on a positive note, I did learn alot about the kernel packaging!
See, there's an upside to everything! :-)
--
This Email is 100% Virus Free! How do I know? Because no Microsoft products were used to generate it!
Regards Don Hansford ECKYTECH COMPUTING/ SQIT Warwick
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
I'll second that. I really wish people would quit whining about all this. I mean really... SuSE is a company that needs to make some money in order to survive - if they can't, then this REALLY becomes a mute point, as you would hten have to go elsewhere to get your Linux fix and make ridiculous posts.
Frommy point of view, I'd much rather pay $10US more for the Pro edition, even if a few packages have bugs (let's be realistic... SuSE isn't exactly resposible for a lot of these packages) which will likely get fixed once someone posts the bug. Compare the SuSE Pro edition to TurboLinux Server or RedHat Pro... Personally, even at $59US, SuSE is a bargain over the $169-199US cost of the others.
- Herman Fergus Wilde wrote:
I'm with Don. Let's look at it like this: you pay less than thirty quid (6.4 anyhow) for 4-odd gigabytes of stuff, a really helpful book (that could easily have cost 25 quid itself and not been expensive), several weeks of telephone support, and a lively (!) user community. Tiny bits of it are not perfect. I was massively inexperienced when installing 6.4 - now I've traded up to just very inexperienced, but even that's enough to tell me I've not been robbed.
Right enough, kpackage didn't start properly, and Netscape was a bit wobbly. (That could never, of course, happen with another kind of OS - Netsape's always been rock-solid with three windows open. Not.) I had to wait a whole day before downloading the fixes from the SuSE site, which took about five minutes, even over a modem and ordinary phone line. Then I came downstairs in the morning and, damn me, no-one from SuSE had been round to cook my breakfast or iron me a shirt. Where's my lawyer?
I'm not that sure even that Ron's right in saying we're buying a 'product', as such - OK, it is in one way, but in fact all the stuff that has been beefed about is actually available free. The added value is the media and the documentation. Oh, and those little stickers. And you get enough documentation to fill the Enc. Britannia. Oh, and you can install it on as many machines as you can eat without paying anyone a penny.
I suppose SuSE could indeed expand their workforce by tenfold, release a version every three or four years, and hide behind monster corporate attorneys who would make sure no-one ever got an honest answer again ('sorry sir, it must be your buggy hardware / other software / ugly girlfriend - our software is canonically perfect' - you've all heard it).
Great, the product would then cost five hundred bucks and eliminate all experimental features. Plenty of companies have gone this way, and guess what? Their stuff still has broken bits and needs fixing.
Let's get real, this stuff is fantastic value.
Cheers to all at SuSE once again, 'nuff said, Fergus Wilde Chetham's Library Long Millgate Manchester M3 1SB UK
Tel: +44 (0)161 834 7961 Fax: +44 (0)161 839 5797
----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Hansford"
Cc: Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2000 1:50 PM Subject: Re: [SLE] Disgruntled Customer Ron Heron wrote:
SuSE, and anyone else who cares about this thread....
I think we have every right to be critical of SuSE. We, after all, pay them for a product. When the product comes out half-baked (or under documented) we tend to get sour.
I find the product to be quite 'well-done' myself
While we as customers sometimes make brain-dead mistakes, SuSE, as a vendor does, too.
That's called 'life'.
Just looking at Michaels replies - how the hell were we supposed to know what suse or RH do with their kernels, unless they tell us?
How the hell do they know you want to know? Try asking.
Does he REALLY want to stand behind me while I work on my system - for what?
Probably so he can help you with what is (seemingly) not a real common problem.
Do I need SuSE to tell me that the problems are MY problems? - No duh, they're my problems.
Also, SuSE wants a bug report for everything. Some of this stuff is very basic, and a low level of QC or Documentation could easily have kept people from major frustration.
How does QC work? People report problems - problems get fixed.
Right now, the feeling I get is
"This is SuSE, you like it, you told me so, so shut up. If you got a problem, fill out a bug report, and we'll tell you that we already knew about it. We save ton's of money letting the customer QC our distributions, so we can hire egotistical people to respond to your concerns and really make you feel like an idiot."
This must be why SuSE made a nett loss last fiscal year - not enough bug reports!
Truthfully, I am not really bothered by the whole ordeal. I think it's rather funny seeing these kind of responses from vendors, especially in this day and age. It's kinda like the old days, when you could treat the customers poorly, because there was no alternative. I said WAS.
There is an alternative - it's called good manners and common courtesy.
Oh, and SuSE, before you get started on this - I know you need details, and general statements don't help much, blah blah. But, perhaps the marketing and management folks should attend to this issue. It is clearly not an engineering problem. It is a QC, Documentation, Customer Relation, and Packaging problem. That was the reason for the generality in the original post. If I actually wanted help fixing the problems (I didn't ask for help, did I?) then I would have posted in that matter.
Customer Relation problem? Perhaps with one customer
But, on a positive note, I did learn alot about the kernel packaging!
See, there's an upside to everything! :-)
--
This Email is 100% Virus Free! How do I know? Because no Microsoft products were used to generate it!
Regards Don Hansford ECKYTECH COMPUTING/ SQIT Warwick
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
SuSE, and anyone else who cares about this thread....
I understand the frustration at so many patches for v6.4 but having used some other distributions and been on their support lists, this list that SuSE runs is as useful as anything I have seen. Good, timely information is as valuable as any other feature of a distribution to me. So thanks SuSE! I have a new interest in ways to "mine" this and other lists since I saw Miguel's Evolution at LinuxWorld. My idea is to create aliases for lists/topics of interest such as: suse@somesite.com apache@somesite.com mysql@somesite.com kde@somesite.com Subscribe to the lists then using the rule creation capability of the Evolution email component make subtopic finding rules to create search keys in Evolution's database. You sit lurking on the bunch of lists, backed by a big hard disk, and create some knowledge bases. Every week or two, you scan through a sampling of message subjects and bodies to look for new rules that need to be added. Looking over the SuSE list since about mid May there has been a great start on such a knowledge base even with all the OTT (off technical topic) stuff. It would of course take up disk space but typically no search keys would be generated for the OTT things, unless of course your interest in knowledge bases stretches to the bazaar. Some kind of scheme like this would even be a great way for SuSE to make list archives more useful and much less effort to generate. I suspect that anyone subscribing to all the distros in this way, would find the SuSE list builds up a useful knowledge base faster. Not a typical benchmark, but perhaps something useful to consider. Ed Scott ed.scott@jpl.nasa.gov Opinions expressed here are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer or other orgnizations. -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq
participants (5)
-
donh@halenet.com.au
-
edscott@worldnet.att.net
-
fwilde@chethams.org.uk
-
herman@knief.net
-
heroron@yahoo.com