On Sat, 7 May 2011 20:58:19 -0700 Randall R Schulz wrote:

People go on endlessly about whether Linux is suitable for desktop purposes. Well, to be so, it needs to have content indexing.

Hi Randall, I have no problem with these utilities being available, I just think they should be /optional/, not installed by default. And the present arrangement is not all that 'harmless' either. I can remember at least three or four incidents ... until I figured out what was going on ... where my time and attention were diverted from working productively to suddenly troubleshooting and diagnosing an unexpected sudden drop in system responsiveness with a sustained grinding at the hard disk. Until I caught on, I was worried that my app was going to freeze or X would crash or /something/ along those lines was happening and my filesystem might get trashed or corrupted. I say make them available but optional instead of 'springing it on them' without warning. regards, Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday May 7 2011, kanenas@hawaii.rr.com wrote:

On Saturday 07 May 2011 06:16:36 pm Carl Hartung wrote:

...

On Sat, 7 May 2011 20:58:19 -0700

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

People go on endlessly about whether Linux is suitable for desktop purposes. Well, to be so, it needs to have content indexing.

...

a long time ago users had to have the knowledge and abilty to define what they wanted in a new install. Now we get about 3 gigabytes of shtuff with even the simplest install with a functioning x engine and too much nonsense slips in hidden from our eyes. perhaps there is a need for a more detailed install menu?

What is an acceptable amount of disk space to use in an installation of a desktop, consumer- or engineering-oriented computer with a graphical user interface? As for a detailed install menu, it exists already. You have package-level control of what is included when you install openSUSE Linux.

d.

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday May 9 2011, kanenas@hawaii.rr.com wrote:

On Saturday 07 May 2011 06:55:08 pm Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

...

As for a detailed install menu, it exists already. You have package-level control of what is included when you install openSUSE Linux.

...

d.

Randall Schulz

have you tried to use it? every time i tried, i was hit with dependency hell harder than asterix was hit with bearaucracy... d.

I always use it and I always do fresh installs. There's no dependency problems unless you insist on not letting the automatic dependency management system do its own thing. Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday May 9 2011, Togan Muftuoglu wrote:

On 05/10/2011 05:04 AM, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

...

have you tried to use it? every time i tried, i was hit with dependency hell harder than asterix was hit with bearaucracy... d.

I always use it and I always do fresh installs. There's no dependency problems unless you insist on not letting the automatic dependency management system do its own thing.

Automatic dependency is based on the developers and/or packagers idea of what is required with package A. That does not mean always that package B should be required by package A.

And so you substitute your superior knowledge of the dependencies, things break and you call it "dependency hell?"

Togan

Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Togan Muftuoglu said the following on 05/10/2011 10:11 AM:

On 05/10/2011 03:17 PM, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

On Monday May 9 2011, Togan Muftuoglu wrote:

...

And so you substitute your superior knowledge of the dependencies, things break and you call it "dependency hell?"

Please do not twist what I said

"Automatic dependency is based on the developers and/or packagers idea of what is required with package A. That does not mean always that package B should be required by package A."

It has nothing to do with having superior or inferior knowledge of dependencies. I have given an example for the case.

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-05/msg00187.html

Indeed! Perhaps people who make use of the Build Service can do more intelligent packaging ... and can bring this to the attention of people "upstream". -- A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective. Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Strategic Assessments -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2011/05/07 18:35 (GMT-1000) kanenas@hawaii.rr.com composed:

a long time ago users had to have the knowledge and abilty to define what they wanted in a new install. Now we get about 3 gigabytes of shtuff with even the simplest install with a functioning x engine and too much nonsense slips in hidden from our eyes. perhaps there is a need for a more detailed install menu?

It's detailed enough I have no problem finding strigi, apparmor, splashy, kdepim4, gtk2-immodule*, bluez, ktorrent, and other nuisances and bloatware and setting taboo on them before proceeding to the main installation step. It would be nice to have a minimal KDE install that leaves out anything not strictly necessary to reach a KDE desktop with working app launcher, minimalist panel, YaST2, KControl, Konsole and nothing else. The way it is now it seems for every other needed app selected 3-6 recommends get yanked in with it. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Felix Miata said the following on 05/08/2011 01:28 AM:

On 2011/05/07 18:35 (GMT-1000) kanenas@hawaii.rr.com composed:

...

a long time ago users had to have the knowledge and abilty to define what they wanted in a new install. Now we get about 3 gigabytes of shtuff with even the simplest install with a functioning x engine and too much nonsense slips in hidden from our eyes. perhaps there is a need for a more detailed install menu?

It's detailed enough I have no problem finding strigi, apparmor, splashy, kdepim4, gtk2-immodule*, bluez, ktorrent, and other nuisances and bloatware and setting taboo on them before proceeding to the main installation step. It would be nice to have a minimal KDE install that leaves out anything not strictly necessary to reach a KDE desktop with working app launcher, minimalist panel, YaST2, KControl, Konsole and nothing else. The way it is now it seems for every other needed app selected 3-6 recommends get yanked in with it.

I-would-if-I-could-but-I-can't I don't use KDE's PIM. I use T'bird for mail addresses and Firefox for bookmarks. Piles of other "Personal Information" stuff I don't need to "manage". So: # rpm -e kdepim4-runtime-4.4.11.1-3.4.i586 error: Failed dependencies: kdepim4-runtime is needed by (installed) koffice2-2.3.1-83.4.i586 kdepim4-runtime is needed by (installed) plasma-addons-4.6.3-5.1.i586 kdepim4-runtime is needed by (installed) kgpg-4.6.3-4.3.i586 Well, I could do without koffice at a pinch, but there are some .ppt files that OOo/LOo upchucks on... but Kgpg is a necessity. When I look though my installation I find I have a LOT of cruft. Yes, a desktop workstation has plenty of disk, memory and CPU, but what if I want to run KDE on my netbook? Al this is pretty heavy stuff! And it gets worse! I've got Postfix. Its a lovely applciation .... to run on your mail server. Not on your workstation! Modern Mail User Agents can be pointed at a mail server for IMAP and SMTP. You don't need a SMTP server on your workstation. Certainly not on your netbook or tablet. But I can't get rid of it! # zypper rm postfix The following NEW package is going to be installed: exim The following package is going to be REMOVED: postfix 1 new package to install, 1 to remove. Overall download size: 1.2 MiB. After the operation, additional 145.0 KiB will be used. Continue? [y/n/p/?] (y): It seems I have to have either Postfix or Exim. Oh, right, I shouldn't have installed it to start with. Well Thank You! Then there's LDAP. Same logic. But its hard-coded in as a requirement for things like passwords. Excuse me? Look, PAM is plugable. In /etc/nsswitch.conf I can select where the various data lives. Why do all the alternatives have to be hard coded compile-time links? Ldap is 'pluggable for Moiall: # rpm -q -a | grep ldap libldap-2_4-2-2.4.23-10.1.i586 yast2-ldap-2.20.1-3.1.i586 yast2-ldap-client-2.20.14.1-0.3.1.noarch mozldap-6.0.7-3.1.i586 openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 libldapcpp1-0.2.1-6.1.i586 # rpm -e mozldap-6.0.7-3.1.i586 # echo $? 0 Gone! Good! But # rpm -e libldap-2_4-2-2.4.23-10.1.i586 error: Failed dependencies: liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) dirmngr-1.1.0-4.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) sudo-1.7.2p7-7.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) pwdutils-3.2.14-3.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libsmbclient0-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldb0-0.9.7-2.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldapcpp1-0.2.1-6.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-client-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) subversion-1.6.16-1.3.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) postfix-2.7.2-13.14.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libpt2_6_7-2.6.7-12.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) autofs-5.0.5-55.1.i586 liblber-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libkdepimlibs4-4.6.3-4.2.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libcurl4-7.21.2-9.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libapr-util1-1.3.9-9.2.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) dirmngr-1.1.0-4.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) sudo-1.7.2p7-7.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) pwdutils-3.2.14-3.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) nfsidmap-0.23-13.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libsmbclient0-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldb0-0.9.7-2.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libldapcpp1-0.2.1-6.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) gpg2-2.0.16-7.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) cups-1.4.6-6.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-client-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) samba-3.5.7-1.17.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) subversion-1.6.16-1.3.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) postfix-2.7.2-13.14.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libpt2_6_7-2.6.7-12.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) autofs-5.0.5-55.1.i586 libldap-2.4.so.2 is needed by (installed) libkdepimlibs4-4.6.3-4.2.i586 libldap-2_4-2 = 2.4.23 is needed by (installed) openldap2-client-2.4.23-10.1.i586 Now most of those are ridiculous. The dependency tree all gets back to pwdutils-3.2.14-3.1.i586 (things like getpwent(3). getgrent(3), and gethostbyname(3)) because passwords _could_ be stored in an LDAP repository. But what if they are not? What if this is a "standalone" machine or a laptop that doesn't operate in the kind of network where a LDAP service is available or used? Now I know there are many people who are going to give arguments as to why I'm wrong. I know somone is going to tell me that Postfix is needed so that the underlying system can deliver warning messages. Well that's nonsense! I can think of two counter arguments. The first is the old "well look how Windows does it". Weak, yes, I know. The second is that many people these days don't use local mail. At all. They use something like Gmail with a web browser or read from some other remote repository. I use Thunderbird to read via IMAP from the mail on my mail server. There is NOTHING in my /var/spool/main on my workstation. Yes, I'm smart enough to configure Postfix to punt system mail to my mailserver. But Joe Sixpack isn't. And Postfix is one hell of a big application and configuration setup for something as trivial as that. I wonder how many Linux users that make use of Gmail (or similar) have a slowly increasing /var/spool/mail/root and are unaware of any system problems? Suse as SLED or SLES is great. But not everyone is in a corporate setting and has the IT staff to support Big Linux. Home or SOHO or cloud-oriented instalations don't need all this complication. Its not the 'patterns' that Carl Hartung speaks of, so much as amount of stuff that is hardwired in. Its like pulling at a loose thread on your jumper. You end up with something other than what you actualy wanted. Its enough to drive people away and in search of another vendor or package. BeOS anyone? -- Passwords must be impossible to remember and never written down. All of them. They must be changed every month All of them. At the same time. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 9:45 AM, Anton Aylward wrote:

Its not the 'patterns' that Carl Hartung speaks of, so much as amount of stuff that is hardwired in.  Its like pulling at a loose thread on your jumper.  You end up with something other than what you actualy wanted.

SuSE has always had an issue with dependency hell. It gets better and then it gets worse. As for editing the patterns, when you deselect something useless and a security risk, like irDa, it breaks all kinds of other needed stuff(haven't checked 11.4 yet tho). Linux will always fail on the desktop because too many packagers feel the need to require too many things that aren't neccessary. As an owner of a small computer shop for years, I have NEVER had a customer who actually used these Desktop search tools. When I ask them if they use it and then explain what it is and how it can slow down their computer, they want it gone. I had a customer who worked for a lawyer who had over 1GB of word files she had transcribed. She didn't need the search, the lawyer did, and then he didn't use it. So, where's the benefit? For the average user? Not the developer. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 22:06:43 Larry Stotler wrote:

As an owner of a small computer shop for years, I have NEVER had a customer who actually used these Desktop search tools. When I ask them if they use it and then explain what it is and how it can slow down their computer, they want it gone.

Yeah. "Hey, here is a garbage feature that no one likes and it will make your computer slower than syrup. Do you want it?" Have you ever worked for gallup? Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 5:40 PM, Anders Johansson wrote:

Ask Apple users. It has been a major selling point for Mac OS for years. Next time you explain it to one of your customers, try this: it will run in the background the first time you start up, for a few minutes, depending on how many files you have. After this you won't even notice it's there and you'll be able to search all your files by content in an instant

Yeah, that was why everyone basically disabled Beagle. It DIDN'T work properly. Now we have npeomuk/stringi and this other one. How MANY of these things do we really need???? They should be set to use no more than 10-15% of the system period. Especially on a new install where someone is trying to get things running and starting to get some work done. And a few minutes is nowhere near the amount of time they take. Heck, on a fresh install, what exactly are they even indexing???? Unless you have other network shares or installed with existing storage what is the point of it indexing a fresh install? Windows XP does pretty much the same thing as Vista/7 with about 25-50% of the resources. And it's been proven repeatedly that Vista/7 isn't really more secure. So, what exactly is the system doing that requires all those resources? Some many things in Linux are on the same road. And there's still no easy why to disable things that some of us don't want/need. SuSE used to have a deserved reputation for a solid, STABLE system(yes there were a few versions that had issues). While I still use it(11.0) I gave up recommending it. It's a question of resources vs usefulness. The "average" person doesn't use a lot of things that "we" use. They: 1. Browse the web. They don't CARE about licenses or other stuff. They EXPECT that if they go to YouTube that they can watch a stupid cat video(or whatever). 2. They already have 50 things wasting processor resources on their "windows" system - Java, Quicktime, Antivirus, iTunes, and a host of other crap that the developers think that needs to run at startup and waste the systems resources that get installed automatically or because the user didn't see it or read it to disable the installation of it. Amazingly, if you turn all that crap off, you can actually use the system and it's responsive. 3. Read email. They generally use clients like Outlook or Thunderbird. Those programs already have decent search funtions in them. 4. They usually use some kind of Bittorrent client to download music and videos. These types of things generally give them malware and then I have to explain the US Legal stuff about why they aren't supposed to do that. 5. They expect to go to a website, download a program they want, and click to install it. They don't care about package managers. The Linux way means that we have to customize every program for every version of every distro. While the App stores are getting closer to how Linux does it, it's still nowhere near as easy for Linux as it is on Windows. Firefox for windows runs on 2000-7 with the SAME executable. For openSUSE, we have to support Firefox for several versions - 11.1(SLEx). 11.2, 11.3, 11.4. How exactly is this a better system???? How much storage space is used for Firefox installs over 200+ distros and their various supported versions? So, when I get the same system back in a few months, it's got the same issues and the same garbage running on it and then I get paid again because they don't listen. I use linux because it's secure and stable. I use openSUSE because of YaST and because I've actually used it for over 12 years. That doesn't mean I recommend it to my customers. I can just imagine the support nightmares with answering questions about why it doesn't work like Windows. No thanx. So why am I still around? My hope is that at some point I can actually help people(which is why I joined these lists to begin with) and because I still hope that things will eventually improve so I can return to the current. No idea if that will happen. Rant off. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 09 May 2011 01:33:11 Rodney Baker wrote:

On Mon, 9 May 2011 07:10:02 Anders Johansson wrote:

...

[...]

Ask Apple users. It has been a major selling point for Mac OS for years.

Maybe because Apple had the resources (people and money) to develop it properly and make it an integral part of the OS, not a tacked-on extra.

Perhaps. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get there though.

Yeah, right. That explains why my laptop would become unusable/unresponsive for minutes at a time at periodic intervals with tracker using up 90-100% CPU while it did whatever it does. And that was not just at boot time - that would happen regularly, every time tracker woke up.

I had to go hunt it down and kill it. Then I burned the corpse and scattered the ashes to the four winds to make sure that it could never do a Phoenix and rise again from the ashes of its funeral pyre. ;-)

Well, it is a bug that tracker starts in KDE, because it is a gnome thing. It may also be that tracker has other bugs, Carlos mentions the excessively high CPU setting for example, but bugs are made for fixing, not for throwing out the entire program from the default install. I'm not saying the thing is perfect, but we can't restrict the default install to just perfect programs. If we followed that strategy, we would install exactly no programs by default My vision of openSUSE is as a desktop platform competing on equal terms with Mac OS X and Windows. In some areas we are ahead, in some we are lagging behind. We shouldn't throw out provably useful features that are popular on other platforms, we should improve and extend them. Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday, May 08, 2011 06:59:23 PM Anders Johansson wrote:

Well, it is a bug that tracker starts in KDE, because it is a gnome thing.

Then it is also system bug that makes not good idea to have GNOME and KDE installed on the same computer, as strigi and tracker will do the same thing on the same resource, user home directory. In other words, use different users if you want to run both (necessary to answer support questions), or better use virtual machine for one as that will prevent competition and duplication of activity on the same resource. It also asks for answer how many other applications compete for the same system resources? -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 11:40:02 am Anders Johansson wrote:

On Sunday 08 May 2011 22:06:43 Larry Stotler wrote:

...

As an owner of a small computer shop for years, I have NEVER had a customer who actually used these Desktop search tools. When I ask them if they use it and then explain what it is and how it can slow down their computer, they want it gone.

I had a customer who worked for a lawyer who had over 1GB of word files she had transcribed. She didn't need the search, the lawyer did, and then he didn't use it. So, where's the benefit? For the average user? Not the developer.

Ask Apple users. It has been a major selling point for Mac OS for years.

Next time you explain it to one of your customers, try this: it will run in the background the first time you start up, for a few minutes, depending on how many files you have. After this you won't even notice it's there

this sounds just like a pre-election promise. When the opposite has been proven true time after time after time, and when the attempt to shove it down everyone's throat continues, one is bound to assume there are other reasons for such a promotion. Just who really needs this indexing thing? and why does it keep getting all these different names, is that an effort to sort of hide it from a novice user? why is there an indexer dependency issue for someone who only has 50 or 100 addresses in their addressbook? Isn't that real bloat and humongous abuse of cpu cycles? are we to start conspiracy theories now? d.

and you'll be able to search all your files by content in an instant

Anders

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 07:28:11 Felix Miata wrote:

It's detailed enough I have no problem finding strigi, apparmor, splashy, kdepim4, gtk2-immodule*, bluez, ktorrent, and other nuisances and bloatware

Call them nuisances if you want, but calling it bloatware just tells me you don't know the meaning of the word "bloat". Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 21:12:38 Felix Miata wrote:

On 2011/05/08 16:02 (GMT+0200) Anders Johansson composed:

...

Felix Miata wrote:

...

It's detailed enough I have no problem finding strigi, apparmor, splashy, kdepim4, gtk2-immodule*, bluez, ktorrent, and other nuisances and bloatware

Call them nuisances if you want, but calling it bloatware just tells me you don't know the meaning of the word "bloat".

I wrote that when I should have been sleeping, so maybe I could have chosen a better word. That said, maybe it's you who needs to look up its meaning. Synonyms: swell, inflate, enlarge, balloon http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bloat

I know what bloatware means, and it is not what you seem to think. It doesn't mean "things I don't want", it refers to software that uses 1MB to implement something that could be done in 1KB, something that is very inefficiently implemented. It does not mean "I don't like it and don't want it installed on my system" Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Felix Miata said the following on 05/08/2011 04:52 PM:

I use Quattro Pro for DOS daily, LO Calc or KSpread rarely. QP is old (and compact), but it lacks very few features I need. The tail doesn't wag the dog.

Drool! I suppose that a minimalist thing like QP for Linux that starts up *fast* and does just that basic stuff we need for time-sheets and adding up lists, or just lists in column format (like membership lists that are really a mini database) which is 90% of the use of a spreadsheet is not geeky enough to engage a programmer. *sigh* -- How come wrong numbers are never busy? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 22:52:44 Felix Miata wrote:

"Bloat" was your quote, not "bloatware". Nevertheless, the latter term applies to more than just inefficient space utilization or coding. It also applies to feature bloat (cf current Excel or LO Calc to Lotus 1-2-3, or current Word or LO Writer to WordPerfect 4), and excessive system resource demand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloatware summarizes nicely. I use Quattro Pro for DOS daily, LO Calc or KSpread rarely. QP is old (and compact), but it lacks very few features I need. The tail doesn't wag the dog.

No it doesn't, but at the same time you are about as far removed from the computer mass market as is possible. If we designed openSUSE for your usage patterns, no current mac or windows user would give it a second look. I said before, there seems to be a preponderance of people in this thread who consider anything more complex than xterm to be useless bling and frivolity. With this mindset, we can forget market share Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 09 May 2011 00:19:45 Felix Miata wrote:

On 2011/05/08 23:31 (GMT+0200) Anders Johansson composed:

...

Felix Miata wrote:

...

"Bloat" was your quote, not "bloatware". Nevertheless, the latter term applies to more than just inefficient space utilization or coding. It also applies to feature bloat (cf current Excel or LO Calc to Lotus 1-2-3, or current Word or LO Writer to WordPerfect 4), and excessive system resource demand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloatware summarizes nicely. I use Quattro Pro for DOS daily, LO Calc or KSpread rarely. QP is old (and compact), but it lacks very few features I need. The tail doesn't wag the dog.

No it doesn't...

What doesn't what?

The tail doesn't wag the dog Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2011/05/07 20:58 (GMT-0700) Randall R Schulz composed:

If you're human, then a disk indexer is scarcely optional.

Others might disagree, but IMO I've been human 60 years, using puters for roughtly half of them, have too many disks to easily keep track of (est. 50 spread amongst 30+ puters and more than one shelf), and have yet to find a use for a disk indexer of the Magellan, Bob, Beagle, Akonadi & Nepomuk ilk. Since beagle is a keyword in my filters I only stumbled on this thread looking for something else before emptying the day's trash. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 8 May 2011 07:22:49 -0500 "Rajko M." wrote: <snipped>

1) "using puters for (30) years" Compare that to new user that knows what he/she can see on the screen. To me it seems that such users will benefit of desktop search.

2) "too many disks to easily keep track of" And you say that you don't have use of automated system to track your data :) Maybe some program/utility that will know that some disk is not online, but that will have idea what is on that disk will help you to know not only that you have disk, but also what is on that disk.

:-) I still prefer findutils: 'updatedb' then 'locate <textstring>' If I can remember, roughly, the name of the directory or a partial filename I'm all set. It updates itself every X hours, discreetly. As for offline and nearline devices, creating updated indexes is not that hard. I do it all the time. It only takes a few minutes. IMHO the problem is there are now too many and overlapping 'specialty' (or 'boutique') indexers, each stepping on my and each other's toes when I'm trying to just concentrate on my work. Notwithstanding the added privacy and security implications, if these things just worked silently in the background, virtually undetectable and unobtrusively, I'd have no complaints. But the fact that I was compelled to track the processes down and disable them, then remove them, says a great deal about their efficacy and desirability. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 14:23:24 Carl Hartung wrote:

On Sun, 8 May 2011 07:22:49 -0500 "Rajko M." wrote: <snipped>

...

1) "using puters for (30) years" Compare that to new user that knows what he/she can see on the screen. To me it seems that such users will benefit of desktop search.

2) "too many disks to easily keep track of" And you say that you don't have use of automated system to track your data :) Maybe some program/utility that will know that some disk is not online, but that will have idea what is on that disk will help you to know not only that you have disk, but also what is on that disk. : :-)

I still prefer findutils: 'updatedb' then 'locate <textstring>' If I can remember, roughly, the name of the directory or a partial filename I'm all set. It updates itself every X hours, discreetly. As for offline and nearline devices, creating updated indexes is not that hard. I do it all the time. It only takes a few minutes.

IMHO the problem is there are now too many and overlapping 'specialty' (or 'boutique') indexers, each stepping on my and each other's toes when I'm trying to just concentrate on my work. Notwithstanding the added privacy and security implications, if these things just worked silently in the background, virtually undetectable and unobtrusively, I'd have no complaints. But the fact that I was compelled to track the processes down and disable them, then remove them, says a great deal about their efficacy and desirability. +1 far better

-- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.8-0.2-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) 16:03 up 3 days 5:01, 5 users, load average: 0.16, 0.13, 0.19 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday, 2011-05-08 at 22:45 -0500, Rajko M. wrote:

I can imagine guy downloading iso file and running disk burning software when tracker silently starts to index the same file with maximum speed :)

!! Good one. Another doubtful one: I searched for "search", and it found .xvid videos. And .css files. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk3H4z8ACgkQtTMYHG2NR9ULrACeMJy0n3R70V2zAtS7k5hFouXj APEAnRZgp4ti48KCvo7/+ZUNHgxjROwy =xw6H -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 05/08/2011 03:58 PM, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Sunday 08 May 2011 07:11:51 Felix Miata wrote:

...

On 2011/05/07 20:58 (GMT-0700) Randall R Schulz composed:

...

If you're human, then a disk indexer is scarcely optional.

Others might disagree, but IMO I've been human 60 years, using puters for roughtly half of them, have too many disks to easily keep track of (est. 50 spread amongst 30+ puters and more than one shelf), and have yet to find a use for a disk indexer of the Magellan, Bob, Beagle, Akonadi & Nepomuk ilk.

akonadi is not a disk indexer. Akonadi is a centralised information storage. Some disk indexers may use it to store what they scan, but akonadi itself does not scan.

Information is useful

Yes but humans decide what is useful hence I should be able to disable/enable what to gather as information even be free to choose if I want such a service in the beginning Togan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 05/08/2011 04:04 PM, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Sunday 08 May 2011 16:02:03 Togan Muftuoglu wrote:

...

Yes but humans decide what is useful hence I should be able to disable/enable what to gather as information even be free to choose if I want such a service in the beginning

You are. We are talking about what the default is.

Essentially what you are saying is the system should be optimised for the highly experienced user who already knows how to configure stuff, and let the newbies go through all the hassles of getting the features they might want.

I am saying there is a difference of being something required or recommended (suggested). Novice can/should go with the recommended but making it obligatory for everyone should not be the way forward

I don't think this is a good way of getting new users

Idiotproof systems always fail because no one is idiot togan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday, 2011-05-08 at 16:11 +0200, Togan Muftuoglu wrote:

On 05/08/2011 04:04 PM, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

You are. We are talking about what the default is.

Essentially what you are saying is the system should be optimised for the highly experienced user who already knows how to configure stuff, and let the newbies go through all the hassles of getting the features they might want.

I am saying there is a difference of being something required or recommended (suggested). Novice can/should go with the recommended but making it obligatory for everyone should not be the way forward

Novices don't know that. You, on the other hand, know that you can disable/remove such things on install - so do it :-) The default is correct. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk3HKYgACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UcKQCgjssgMRmFVc3iFGMaeWMJJvfH LlwAn1vb1TdKPp/giYsKX0zT7Q/jC+R3 =sADE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 2011-05-07 at 20:58 -0700, Randall R Schulz wrote:

On Saturday May 7 2011, David C. Rankin wrote:

...

Guys,

...

... or is it just another waste of cpu cycles and index db space?

That's so cute. "Waste of CPU cycles and [disk] space."

These things are, for all practical purposes now, unlimited. It's nearly impossible to actually waste them.

Generally speaking CPU cycles may be unlimited, I guess. But if I have a measurement application that should do something as close to 'now' as is possible, these indexing apps reek havoc. They never seem to run as 100% nice processes. If they did, you would not know they were running. Since you do notice, they are being less than nice. This is especially a nuisance in systems that get rebooted often. Seems they like to do some resource intensive things when they start. As our systems are in vehicles on the road, they do get powered off/on rather regularly. So we too nuke these features, preferring the unlimited CPU cycles be available to our own applications. Of course, YMWV. Yours sincerely, Roger Oberholtzer OPQ Systems / Ramböll RST Office: Int +46 10-615 60 20 Mobile: Int +46 70-815 1696 roger.oberholtzer@ramboll.se ________________________________________ Ramböll Sverige AB Krukmakargatan 21 P.O. Box 17009 SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden www.rambollrst.se -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday, 2011-05-09 at 09:37 +0200, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

Generally speaking CPU cycles may be unlimited, I guess. But if I have a measurement application that should do something as close to 'now' as is possible, these indexing apps reek havoc.

The reads should be interrupt driven. Otherwise, this is where a RT operating system should be useful. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk3H4+oACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UrPQCeJXSTMycWJX9NVbyYklqE7LGa /i0An3DNX559iM13EeR5IqW6QNZJ7Y0p =Jwqg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Content-ID: On Monday, 2011-05-09 at 15:00 +0200, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

...

The reads should be interrupt driven. Otherwise, this is where a RT operating system should be useful.

They are event driven. No polls here. But still, the handling process needs to run. When indexing as discussed is not happening, this works great. It is, I think, the disk activity that is the issue. The system is quite active when the disk is busy for indexing. So even if an application can run, some resources seem to slow everyone down. So we also turn it off.

Event driven is good enough for desktop things, not for data acquisition. If you have software that requires operations to happen at certain times, no matter what, you have to use either a Real Time OS (and use its facilities) or use interrupts to drive those operations. No matter how busy the system is, those operations have to run on time. Otherwise, the system will run ok on certain circumstances, with no guarantee of when it fail to be there on time. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk3JwFYACgkQtTMYHG2NR9VqrQCePAY+HxoJQiwKAIl+g80bRhZQ yFIAnjs4KMZo7Ge3SHoUqyLjlj8308fr =x6mc -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 07:58:41AM -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* David C. Rankin [05-07-11 23:33]:

...

I restarted 11.4 and had a flurry of sustained hard drive activity and I took a look at what was running in top. I was quite surprised when I found:

4955 david 39 19 319m 18m 10m R 47 0.5 0:11.26 tracker-extract 4666 david 20 0 192m 19m 5788 S 38 0.5 0:19.49 tracker-store 4550 david 39 19 279m 22m 6604 S 8 0.6 0:06.54 tracker-miner-f

.....

...

So what is this thing? Is it worth keeping? Should I just nuke it? What is the collective wisdom on whether it works or is it just another waste of cpu cycles and index db space?

I don't have tracker & co. on my virgin 11.4 install and it is not installed by *default*, so it must have been something that *you* deemed necessary and desirable when you choose what you wanted included in your installation :^).

Do you not keep indexes of anything, anywhere? How do you find something that is seldom used and doesn't have a "perfectly logical location"?

It is in the GNOME pattern at least. Also pulled by some GNOME software if you are using KDE. Ciao, Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 18:06:27 j debert wrote:

the children?" tactic used by politicians. It doesn't seem to occur to them that new users may more likely be put off than experienced users by the resource greedy and untimely behaviour of these disk indexers.

Except that it only happens once, at the very beginning. Once everything has been indexed, it only looks at new activity, one file at a time. The people complaining about it have never let it run once to completion (which doesn't really take that long or cause that much trouble), so they have never seen the use Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 19:42:30 Togan Muftuoglu wrote:

On 05/08/2011 07:23 PM, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

On Sunday 08 May 2011 18:06:27 j debert wrote:

...

the children?" tactic used by politicians. It doesn't seem to occur to them that new users may more likely be put off than experienced users by the resource greedy and untimely behaviour of these disk indexers.

Except that it only happens once, at the very beginning. Once everything has been indexed, it only looks at new activity, one file at a time. The people complaining about it have never let it run once to completion (which doesn't really take that long or cause that much trouble), so they have never seen the use

Please do not generalize

I have yet to see anyone say "it doesn't consume resources anymore but I still don't want it". Every comment I have seen indicates that they have never let it run to completion on the initial scan. If I am unfairly generalizing, please do speak up. I would love to hear "I have a scanned database, it doesn't consume large amounts of resources, but I still don't want it, I want to find my things manually" Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 08 May 2011 20:27:02 Togan Muftuoglu wrote:

On 05/08/2011 07:55 PM, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

On Sunday 08 May 2011 19:42:30 Togan Muftuoglu wrote:

...

On 05/08/2011 07:23 PM, Anders Johansson wrote: I have yet to see anyone say "it doesn't consume resources anymore but I still don't want it". Every comment I have seen indicates that they have never let it run to completion on the initial scan. If I am unfairly generalizing, please do speak up. I would love to hear "I have a scanned database, it doesn't consume large amounts of resources, but I still don't want it, I want to find my things manually"

What part of "I do not want it" is not understandable wonders me

No part, that is entirely valid. But that is not what is said in this thread, it is "resource heavy, bloated" and similar. If you don't want it, that is completely fine with me, I won't argue against it. I will keep arguing in favour of including it by default though, if that's ok with you Anders -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 08 May 2011 20:38:21 +0200 Togan Muftuoglu wrote: <snipped>

As long as it is recommended not required by packages, if it is default or not, doesn't bother me. yet to make it a required part of packages and forcing the user either accepting and fighting to stop it afterwards or not accepting and working with the broken dependency is much worse the sounds.

These are my feelings, exactly. Default or not is much less the issue than the unnecessary dependencies. However, since that aspect of the problem has already been exquisitely described, I'd like to try another track: I think the proponents of these indexing utilities need to do a better job of explaining the use cases and benefits. If there are time savings and conveniences to be enjoyed, *sell* them to me. Don't sneak the software in the back door while I'm not watching. Don't leave me swearing and scratching my head and investing time diagnosing <what is claimed to be> a non-problem. In fact, if these indexers are truly as fantastic as is claimed, then no expense to properly educate the community, including me, should be spared. *Whet* my appetite. *Make* me thirsty. I want to *drool* with anticipation over that very first hard disk grinding experience. Really. I won't complain if the benefits are really that great. As for my system, there simply is no way to escape that initial hard disk grinding behavior, and my environment is not all that unusual. Each new Linux displaces a prior installation. It 'wakes up' in a large, mature, well organized and densely populated *already existing* filesystem. It doesn't take just a few minutes to index, it takes many many many minutes and it repeats at random; when you least expect it. It works very hard and takes over the entire disk IO. On Mon, 9 May 2011 01:59:23 +0200 Anders Johansson wrote:

Well, it is a bug that tracker starts in KDE, because it is a gnome thing. It may also be that tracker has other bugs, Carlos mentions the excessively high CPU setting for example, but bugs are made for fixing, not for throwing out the entire program from the default install. I'm not saying the thing is perfect, but we can't restrict the default install to just perfect programs. If we followed that strategy, we would install exactly no programs by default

I can't argue with anything you've written here, Anders

My vision of openSUSE is as a desktop platform competing on equal terms with Mac OS X and Windows. In some areas we are ahead, in some we are lagging behind. We shouldn't throw out provably useful features that are popular on other platforms, we should improve and extend them.

I agree with these sentiments, too. But my real world experience is that we are already light years ahead of Mac OS X and Windows. We can accomplish work seamlessly, intuitively, work with our data and programs fluidly, in ways that Windows and Mac OS X users can only dream of. Why? Because our environments are open and their environments are not. I'd really like to 'get on board' with these indexer thingies. If they worked well, didn't get in my way, and had clear benefits that I could comprehend, I probably *would* get on board. But as their implementation stands now, I see no benefits only drawbacks. IMHO, installing them by default or silently pulling them in with other packages or suddenly making other packages dependent upon them should be avoided. regards, Carl -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 11:38 PM, Doug wrote:

I've been following this thread for a while.  I never had beagle, and never heard of tracker until the thread started, but I have Recoll that seems to do the same thing, and it's no hassle at all.  (Running kde on pclos.)  A month or so ago I installed a version on a machine that had been in use for 7~ months or so--it didn't take that long to load, altho I didn't time it.  (You could always load something like this just before leaving the office, or just before going to bed, if time is a problem.)  I've had to reinstall the system for other reasons, and I put in Recoll from the start, and it took only  seconds to initialize itself. I really don't know that it's running, now. Either I don't understand the situation, or Recoll is not the same as tracker, or something. It finds things pretty doggone quick--including some things I'd just as soon *not* store, which makes it harder to search--but I guess you can't have everything.  Maybe if the drive fills up. . . .

According to Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoll) Recoll was designed not to require a permanent daemon. It updates its index at designed intervals (for example through Cron tasks). Only if desired, the indexing task can run as a file-system monitoring daemon for real-time index updates. So it doesn't work all the time. Since Beagle is no longer maintained maybe the devs need to take a longer look at what they are including in the system before adding it in. Attachmate/Novell recently laid off all the Mono devs in the US (see: http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2011/05/attachmate-lays-off-mono-emplo.... ), I wonder what the status of all these mono apps will be. Personally, I've never been much on mono, so I won't shed a tear if it goes away. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2011/05/08 19:55 (GMT+0200) Anders Johansson composed:

I have yet to see anyone say "it doesn't consume resources anymore but I still don't want it". Every comment I have seen indicates that they have never let it run to completion on the initial scan. If I am unfairly generalizing, please do speak up. I would love to hear "I have a scanned database, it doesn't consume large amounts of resources, but I still don't want it, I want to find my things manually"

Might depend on what you mean by manually. I don't store all my files in the root of "My Documents". I have functionally named subdirs and subdirs of subdirs as deep as need be. Since I'm not in the GUI most of the time I'm doing file management, fancy GUI indexers are of little use, while the search functions built into the OFM I'm already using works well enough to supplement my non-removable organic DB while navigating the subdir system in place. Even while in X I always have an OFM instance running in Konsole, which is the first (and only) place I think to go to look for something whose name or location does not immediately spring to mind on need. -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Disk indexers should be built into the FS, should run in the background, only ever wake up when the CPU is idle and get the hell out of the way when another process asks for CPU cycles. The user should never know that they're there, until they want to search for something.

So far, I've never yet seen one work that way on Linux. That might be the programmers' intention, but the reality is far different. Until someone can make one work properly, they're just an exercise in frustration for the user who wants to simply get the job done.

It's not just cpu. By reading files all over the disk that you're not actually interested in at the time, and writing the index which you're also not otherwise interested in at the time, they blow away the disk cache, which slows everything down regardless how low the cpu priority of the analyzer/indexer part. There are always _some_ free cpu cycles for the indexer to run in, and as long as it's allowed to run at all, it will bog down the disk i/o both by simply using it, and by flushing the cache. (same as running a backup) There is a kernel interface for telling the kernel not to cache a given transaction exactly for this kind of reason, but I don't know if any indexer, or anything else, actually uses it. The rsync developers say the interface is somewhere between impractical to impossible to use. Even if that interface _were_ used, it probably only affects the disk buffer the kernel maintains in ram. Who knows if it has any effect on the hardware buffers on the disks and in raid cards. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 9:23 PM, Rajko M. wrote:

The only solution, as  Anders Johansson pointed out, is to have data indexing as a system service (for instance with btrfs that has such ability) and desktops should provide means to access data. It is similar to current case with NetworkManager.

Excellent summary. Problem as I see it is that the devs of each program probably think theirs is the best version so they won't budge. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday, May 16, 2011 01:25:07 PM j debert wrote:

Actually, this would make tracker faster because it will no longer need to search for changed files.

I'm not tracker insider, but I suspect that it is using some (kernel) magic to check only changed files, but when such file is huge, then it will take time to index content anyway. -- Regards, Rajko -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org