-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Robert Lewis wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote:

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Robert Lewis wrote:

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I would like to get a better handle on the SUSE oss and non-oss repositories. Are these static ?

Yes

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If so are they identical to the installation media? Meaning, if I put the installation ISO image on my harddrive and point YaST installation sources to it is their any purpose in pointing to the above repositories? The oss repository that's available from servers on the internet has more packages than what is available on the CD/DVD ISOs.

It indeed makes sense to also add the internet repositories to YaST2's list of installation sources.

Thanks! One more question. If I purchase the Commercial DVD-9 release of 10.2 then is this the same as the repositories or is there still a benefit to pointing to them?

Even the DVD has less packages than the internet repository. (the "commercial" DVD is exactly the same as the DVD ISO you can download on the internet) So, yes, even when you have the DVD, it still makes sense to add the internet repositories. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFmRxor3NMWliFcXcRAqFiAJ9aVIkwQEFHimQWa3AD8ApmYRqShQCfS3dl rCE8MhZgDrQQsl1HBBERLv0= =K/uu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 01 January 2007 05:52, Randall R Schulz wrote:

Does the boxed edition ship with a dual-layer DVD that combines the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of binary packages on a single DVD, or has even that distinction vanished?

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.. -o) Pascal Bleser

Randall Schulz

Yes. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

Pascal Bleser wrote:

Robert Lewis wrote:

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Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

Robert Lewis wrote:

...

I would like to get a better handle on the SUSE oss and non-oss repositories. Are these static ? Yes

...

If so are they identical to the installation media? Meaning, if I put the installation ISO image on my harddrive and point YaST installation sources to it is their any purpose in pointing to the above repositories? The oss repository that's available from servers on the internet has more packages than what is available on the CD/DVD ISOs.

It indeed makes sense to also add the internet repositories to YaST2's list of installation sources.

Thanks! One more question. If I purchase the Commercial DVD-9 release of 10.2 then is this the same as the repositories or is there still a benefit to pointing to them?

Even the DVD has less packages than the internet repository. (the "commercial" DVD is exactly the same as the DVD ISO you can download on the internet)

So, yes, even when you have the DVD, it still makes sense to add the internet repositories.

cheers The download off the internet is a 3.8-GB DVD roughly for the I386 version. The boxed set has the combined 32-bit/64-bit version with extra DVD's. It is close to 8.4-GB for that version. I was not aware that you could download the boxed version of the 8.4-GB Dual Layer DVD. If so where?

If one purchases the 8.4-GB version and puts that as an image for YaST installation sources is there anything at the repo's that go beyond that? Sorry to be a pest on this but I just want to close the confusion in my head. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 01 January 2007 08:01, Kenneth Schneider wrote:

It never hurts to add more repo's as long as you know what you are doing.

Well, yes, Ken it does hurt. It hurts every time you launch yast to install something because it has to connect to those repos. In 9.3 you could be in and out of yast to add a new package very quickly. Now I dread loading yast because of the time it takes just too say "Hi there" to all the repos. Add to that the dodgy mirrors that come and go based on the phases of the moon, and you soon learn to keep your repo list to a minimum. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2007-01-01 at 14:37 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

Each configured repository can individually be set to "Refresh" or not. Only when the repository's refresh is "on" does it retrieve the content information every time you launch the Software Management module.

Where is that explained? :-o It sounds very interesting, but even firing the part of yast to change repos is half an hour. ...

Repositories that change infrequently are better left with their refresh off. If they happen to change at some point, you can refresh them manually in the Installation Source YaST module

Firing that module takes half an hour or more in my system (10.1).

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Add to that the dodgy mirrors that come and go based on the phases of the moon, and you soon learn to keep your repo list to a minimum.

It's true that if a given configured repository is under load too great for it to bear that launching Software Management can take a very long time to get to the point of interaction with that module, but I don't see a practical alternative, since the installer really needs to have up-to-date information on the state of the repository from which it is retrieving packages to install.

It could use an rsync method instead of full download of the metadata. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFma6StTMYHG2NR9URAvgdAJwLqoLBGnw04YqChWXvoGMw4ma2AgCfQmxK TBn80yLlb2amRFgfA40feho= =EPIu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 01 January 2007 17:06, John Andersen wrote:

Yup, 10.1 pretty slow. I found 10.2 much better in this regard. I still have one 10.1 machine to upgrade.

It's not much slower than 10.2 . I leave only the update,and the opensuse distribution repos turned on and set to refresh, and it takes about a minute to open. I only turn on guru or packman when I need to add something. I'd like to use 10.2 but it breaks CrossOver Office, which I still need. -- Bob Smits bob@rsmits.ca

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Carlos E. R. wrote:

The Monday 2007-01-01 at 14:37 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

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...

Each configured repository can individually be set to "Refresh" or not. Only when the repository's refresh is "on" does it retrieve the content information every time you launch the Software Management module.

Where is that explained? :-o

It sounds very interesting, but even firing the part of yast to change repos is half an hour.

...

...

...

Repositories that change infrequently are better left with their refresh off. If they happen to change at some point, you can refresh them manually in the Installation Source YaST module

Firing that module takes half an hour or more in my system (10.1).

Definitely get rid of ZMD on 10.1 http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.1

...

...

...

Add to that the dodgy mirrors that come and go based on the phases of the moon, and you soon learn to keep your repo list to a minimum. It's true that if a given configured repository is under load too great for it to bear that launching Software Management can take a very long time to get to the point of interaction with that module, but I don't see a practical alternative, since the installer really needs to have up-to-date information on the state of the repository from which it is retrieving packages to install.

It could use an rsync method instead of full download of the metadata.

Most servers don't provide rsync but only HTTP and/or FTP. And it wouldn't help much anyway because when the metadata is generated again, all the metadata files are modified. RPM-MD metadata files are even gzipped, so it's very unlikely rsync's binary deltas would be a big help to reduce the download size. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFmjAQr3NMWliFcXcRAiuMAJ9WxczH0zVSBkZ4Ij2EfbO8UVWPZwCgjWqY ppQtXFMCTs5s2Er2q2GLT5o= =Dqvl -----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 jdd wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote:

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Definitely get rid of ZMD on 10.1 http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.1

I can't agree with such assertion.

I don't know about smart (safe for your numerous mails) and don't want to unless it becomes the official openSUSE tool

You don't know about smart, so why are you giving your opinion anyway.

I use daily 10.1 and yast/zen works perfectly for me. the initial problems are gone.

I can definitely see the opposite on #suse every day. Syncing to ZMD is a big pain and makes the repository metadata updating a lot slower + the architecture is braindead and very error-prone in the first place. As long as syncing like that will be involved, there will always be major issues with it. And ZMD's behavior as a process is still horrible. ZMD got less worse on 10.2 but it's still a brain-dead concept.

don't forget zen in the main Novell product and will probably stay so, so we can only expect enhancements for it and permanent use through the new openSUSE releases.

I sure hope we can push for the ZMD backend *not* being the default option on 10.3. At least on 10.2 you can more or less easily switch to the zypp backend instead of zmd, but unfortunately the ZMD backend is still the default. Zen being "in the main Novell product" doesn't mean we can't fix it.

I think we should better learn zen and debug it if necessary than switch for an other system, that is not bugfree (as nobody can be)

The zypp backend works a lot better than the ZMD backend. And, as I wrote above, the ZMD backend will always be broken as it is by design. It involves using a lot more resources, a misbehaving daemon that takes a lot of CPU and RAM, duplicating repository metadata between yast and ZMD, ... With the zypp backend there's no duplication nor syncing.

I don't mean _you_ won't have to advertise smart, but don't take it anyway "semi-official" as you do

What is "semi-official" supposed to be ? And where have you seen me being "semi-official" ? Referencing pages on opensuse-community.org ? Well, it's not "semi official", it's 100% "unofficial", which is the whole point of the opensuse-community.org wiki. My advice: make yourself a favor and dump ZMD in favor of the zypp backend or smart. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFmkU/r3NMWliFcXcRAgQ5AJsFLhWZ5gphYCk+VJnXVrfs0hQsEgCgoNLu awxtYwn5vQvbgcGiJDDbIXg= =iK9P -----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 jdd wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote:

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You don't know about smart, so why are you giving your opinion anyway.

because for me SuSE = Yast and I wont change that. I also have seen bugreports for smart, there are also other systems (bare rpm, apt...) smart is only _your_ choice

Sure. And given my experience, it's what I recommend on 10.1 On 10.2, use either the zypp backend or smart, as you prefer. Personally, I stick with smart because I like it better than yast2/zypp or zypper, but the zypp backend works fine on 10.2 (as on 10.1, but even more so on 10.2).

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Zen being "in the main Novell product" doesn't mean we can't fix it.

fix it in the meaning of making it better, for sure, it's needed. Replacing it by an other product when it's the core product of our only sponsor is probably not a choice (I attended a SLES/SLED conference, half of the time was about the hole Zen suite)

Replace it with the zypp backend, definitely. Don't attend SLED/SLES marketing conferences, spend time with the people who use openSUSE. Since when is this novell-marketing-dept@opensuse.org ? Zen gives you no advantage on openSUSE unless you already bought Zenworks to manage your park of workstations/servers. It only gives headaches. Lots of them.

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And, as I wrote above, the ZMD backend will always be broken as it is by design.

what is mainstream is the zen suite. I presume that it's updater can (and hopefully will) evolve. I don't say it's perfect, but switching for an entirely different system is for me exactly like switching for red hat, debian or mandrake.

How is zen any "mainstream" ? It's broken and it is broken by design because the integration architecture with yast is sick. Use the zypp backend, don't use ZMD. And let's push for zypp being the default yast2 package manager backend on 10.3.

anyway, my personal concern is nor zen but YaST. Is there where a YaST smart module, situation would be entirely different, but is it to be any?

Ridiculous. Whatever your religious sales belief or your loyalty to Novell's SLED marketing powerpoint slides are, using smart on 10.1 is about having a package manager that *works*.

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It involves using a lot more resources, a misbehaving daemon that takes a lot of CPU and RAM, duplicating repository metadata between yast and ZMD, ...

I know all the problems, this costed me one hour in a year... but why not working to fix them inspite of forking?

Fork ZMD ? yast2 ? You gotta be kidding. Vote to have the zypp-backend as default in yast2 for 10.3, that's what we should do.

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Well, it's not "semi official", it's 100% "unofficial", which is the whole point of the opensuse-community.org wiki.

as I understood, opensuse-community.org was to discuss things impossible to discuss on opensuse.org. smart is _not_ one of these points. the simple "opensuse-community" wording means this represents the hole opensuse community (without "-"), isn't it?

Why isn't smart one of them ? If it wasn't for smart, at least half of the people who tried 10.1 would have dropped SUSE and never look back. And as *active*, committed community members who help lots of people to use SUSE on IRC every single day, if we want to put a page about setting up smart and recommend using smart on 10.1 because we saved lots of people from the ZMD mess, then we just do so. That has been the best and most helpful approach on 10.1 from our experience. On 10.2, it's a different story because the zypp backend works well. If you prefer smart, use smart. If you prefer apt, use apt (although it's not biarch-capable). If you prefer yum, use yum. And if you like yast2, use yast2 with the zypp backend. The latter actually being what we explain and recommend, here: http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.2 And yes, the first section recommends and explains how to remove ZMD in order to use the zypp backend.

if the opensuse-community wiki was to take such direction like your smart switch, I would definitively tag is unrecommended.

Oh really. I wonder what makes you think you've got a better clue than me wrt package managers, problems people ask for help on IRC and the technical architecture of the ZMD backend in yast2.

smart is _a_ choice, yours. this is nice as long as you don't advertise it as the only choice

*gasp* I never "advertised it as being the only choice" but 1) definitely remove ZMD, whatever you use, just remove ZMD 2) *recommended* using smart on 10.1 -- if you want to stick with yast2, use the zypp backend http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.1 "Sources here can either be added using YaST, or by using the rug command-line tool, or thirdly by using the excellent Smart package manager. Since there were problems with ZMD (of which rug is the command-line tool) we recommend that you use the Smart Package Manager, instead of YaST and rug." - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFmllzr3NMWliFcXcRAs8bAJ49/AZy/QLvRkr2mDcqvAS7sew7FQCgmC/d WFko7xHsf7ii0YSbA46f10g= =LlRf -----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 Gustav Degreef wrote:

On 1/2/07, Pascal Bleser wrote:

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And if you like yast2, use yast2 with the zypp backend.

Yes, that is what I'd like to do on 10.1

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The latter actually being what we explain and recommend, here: http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.2

And yes, the first section recommends and explains how to remove ZMD in order to use the zypp backend.

Is it the same command for 10.1?

Almost. On 10.1 you also have to remove the package "suseRegister"

...

1) definitely remove ZMD, whatever you use, just remove ZMD

That's clear from your posts.

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2) *recommended* using smart on 10.1 -- if you want to stick with yast2, use the zypp backend

Once you remove ZMD, do you have to activate/enable zypp, or does it just happen? Are there any further steps? Pascal, thanks for taking the time to give very clear explanations.

AFAICR, it just happens. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFms2Fr3NMWliFcXcRAutnAJ9CasH8OcmXWvTvpWszlNXSmKLsjgCghpHf 50n+msXoo08BEDNy9EYn+YU= =rnT1 -----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 jdd wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote:

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Personally, I stick with smart because I like it better than yast2/zypp

and nobody prevent you from doing so, this is linux's choice :-)

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Don't attend SLED/SLES marketing conferences, spend time with the people who use openSUSE. Since when is this novell-marketing-dept@opensuse.org ?

here, _you_ are kidding. if Novell wants to make some choices, do you think we won't be impacted with them ?

Of course we are. But it doesn't mean we can't object on it and push to have a better solution on openSUSE. They do what they want on SLES/SLED, but we do have a word to say about openSUSE -- our opinion, at the very least.

if Novell wants really to make zen they main product, I beg they will make also the zen-updater works, eventually revisiting it's specifications if necessary. In this respect it's good to have valuables remarks on this product. I never said to accept it without concern.

Note that the problem is really that it will never work fine with its current architecture. It's a level of abstraction no one needs _unless_ you buy ZenWorks licenses and use it to manage your park of servers and/or workstations. That's hardly the case for openSUSE users or if, at all, only a very small percentage. It probably makes sense on SLED though. And any level of abstraction is a potential source of issues. In the case of ZMD, it uses a lot of memory, misbehaves as a process (uses a lot of CPU, takes ages to "wake up", etc...) - well, I guess almost everyone who used ZMD knows what I'm talking about.

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How is zen any "mainstream" ? It's broken and it is broken by design because the integration architecture with yast is sick.

cure it (not you, of course, it's Novell's works)

IMO the "cure" is simply the zypp backend.

I'm in no way Novell's (I was SuSE user before Novell know about it :-). I only think the main openSUSE sponsor wants to push a product and seems to be ready to spend money for that. I expect this to give results.

I'm usually fine with that _unless_ it sucks from a technical point of view. And ZMD does, definitely.

I don't think smart will gain users for openSUSE. What I like is Yast and I always liked the Yast package manager. I used Mandrake and didn't notice it to be faster than suse.

smart already has a lot of users on openSUSE.

whatever system is underlying should not be a problem

Sorry, that's wrong. What system is underlying is precisely the point. The yast2 package manager UI is fine, has a lot of options, all nice and well. It seriously lacks a good CLI interface though, something we had with y2pmsh and installation_sources. zypper (which directly builds upon zypp) is OK to add repositories (zypper sa URL) but doesn't cut it to install packages because the UI is really bare-bones -- at least atm. Hopefully more work will be put into zypper to give us a first-class CLI frontend, like apt, smart or yum. Using yast's ZMD backend and ZMD causes issues, so you can't say the underlying system shouldn't be a problem.

...

...

anyway, my personal concern is nor zen but YaST. Is there where a YaST smart module, situation would be entirely different, but is it to be any?

Ridiculous. Whatever your religious sales belief or your loyalty to Novell's SLED marketing powerpoint slides are, using smart on 10.1 is about having a package manager that *works*.

my yast package manager works nearly each day and it's default. It _was_ much too slow when 10.1 was released, but it's no more.

You probably never used apt or smart.

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I know all the problems, this costed me one hour in a year... but why not working to fix them inspite of forking?

Fork ZMD ? yast2 ? You gotta be kidding. Vote to have the zypp-backend as default in yast2 for 10.3, that's what we should do.

is that smart? or are you changing position ?

If you don't even know the difference between zypp and smart, then I really wonder why you are so vocal about your opinion here. zypp is not smart: http://en.opensuse.org/Libzypp http://en.opensuse.org/Understanding_zmd And this is what I called "sick" in my previous post: http://en.opensuse.org/Image:Package-management-in-code10.png

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Why isn't smart one of them ?

because you can (and did) write about smart on opensuse.org without any problem AFAIK, so why ask users to go on an other web site (YaOWS Yet an other Web Site ?)

Because that wiki page explains how to add the Packman and Guru repositories (in order to install full-fledged amarok, mplayer, etc...). That part may not be posted on opensuse.org

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If it wasn't for smart, at least half of the people who tried 10.1 would have dropped SUSE and never look back.

your are kidding. of course if the first thing you do if making people changing for smart, all the people you know of use smart of go elsewhere :-)

You weren't on IRC when lots of people came whining about SUSE 10.1 sucking so bad because of yast2's package manager module. It was awful. If we hadn't recommended to use smart instead, those people would just have wiped SUSE and would never come back. Stop talking about things you have no idea of.

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And as *active*, committed community members who help lots of people to use SUSE on IRC every single day, if we want to put a page about setting up smart and recommend using smart on 10.1 because we saved lots of people from the ZMD mess, then we just do so.

I also help a lot of people, but not on IRC. and if you want to have a "pascalbeseler.org" web site, it's your problem. I also have my own mediawiki, but I don't call it opensuse-community. I have also a fr.susewiki.org web site I stopped to work on opensuse.org as any body should do for the community, wherever possible...

opensuse-community.org is not "my" wiki

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Oh really. I wonder what makes you think you've got a better clue than me wrt package managers, problems people ask for help on IRC and the technical architecture of the ZMD backend in yast2.

may you are not the only suse user in the world. This is at all ridiculous. I think you are in a bad mood these days :-(

Well, unqualified posts like yours do put me in a bad mood.

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*gasp* I never "advertised it as being the only choice"

I quoted your own text : "If it wasn't for smart, at least half of the people who tried 10.1 would have dropped SUSE and never look back."

what is wrong with: http://en.opensuse.org/Using_10.1#Package_Management

please, just consider what makes openSUSE different from all other distros. It's mainly YaST. What other specific package do you see (considering sax2 is part of yaST)?

The quality standards of the distribution, the polished desktop, the highly qualified engineers who work on it (at least I can say so for the people in Nürnberg) and the good integration. YaST of course being a major asset, but not the package manager. The YaST package manager is one of the worst in my opinion.

so, I really think we first should work to make YaST better. Frankly, I don't see for now difference between patterns and the old YaST system (on a user point of view). I don't know really about zypp or zen. I was asked once: do you want to sync yast and zen a quoted "yes". I have no real problem with this.

so 10.1 works, even without smart, and I beg millions of people uses it that you will never see on IRC...

Ok, let me summarize: you just said you have no clue about ZMD nor zypp nor smart nor other package managers. Nor did you ever had to help those people who were about to ditch SUSE because the package manager sucked so bad on 10.1. Thanks for your enlightened, qualified opinion. - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFmswVr3NMWliFcXcRAjOFAJ0WeRl37gnX5vSjj+V0lbVzcFlRJQCeMN5z lAiWVfU2ZObTSk2d2s+66IA= =kDEs -----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 jdd wrote:

Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

Ok, let me summarize: you just said you have no clue about ZMD nor zypp nor smart nor other package managers. Nor did you ever had to help those people who were about to ditch SUSE because the package manager sucked so bad on 10.1.

Thanks for your enlightened, qualified opinion.

you won't ever have a good discussion with this attitude. mileage will vary and you won't see any significant percentage of suse user on IRC. the suse base is millions of users, not a handful.

I do think that what we see on IRC is at least a rather good probe of SUSE users. It varies from very experienced to first day with Linux.

and I used almost all the major Linux distributions, so, yes, I know about package managers. I simply don't want to use any non default as long as the official suse one works.

That's fine, but it should work properly in the first place.

what I don't mind (on a user point of view) is the one that works under YaST. This, for me, only means that it can be zypp, zen, smart, apt, yum... I don't care. Of course if we have the choice of what package must be under yast, I will try all the candidates and if smart is as good as you say (and I have no reason not to believe you) I will vote for it, but in the mean time I stay with YaST.

Do whatever you want. You were the one criticizing the smart recommendation for 10.1, not me.

What you say is that zen is a dead end. May be you are right, I have no sufficient knowledge to juge that, but it seems the very good programmer (you said so) of Novell said differently? If it's true one day or an other Novell will be obliged to change this or fix this, and you are perfectly right to work on this direction.

I wonder what very good programmer of Novell said differently. And I never said "very good programmer". IMO they just had to hack it into SUSE Linux in some way or another for marketing/management decision reasons and especially because SUSE 10.1 is the base for SLED/SLES 10. So, management wanted ZMD in SLED/SLES 10 and it had to be hacked into SUSE Linux, no matter if it makes sense or not. In this case, we really played lab rats for SLED/SLES. That's fine, as long as it makes sense on a technical point of view and especially, if it works.

however, as a long (nearly ten years) SuSE user, after testing, sometimes for years, the other distribution (I have several computers at home, not all with SuSE), I don't notice that YaST package manager is worst than the other distributions one. some are faster but happen to broke my system (apt), some are slow as YaST (mandrake), some are _very slow_ (gentoo)

apt is very fast, both to start up, to resolve dependencies and to process the metadata. Other package managers are noticeably slower. This is most probably related to the repository metadata format. But I'm not sure we'd want to get away from RPM-MD. It has drawbacks (gzipped but XML, so it's rather bloated, large to download, and not necessarily faster to process than some TLV format) but it is more or less of a standard. Yet, indeed, apt is not biarch-capable and is said to sometimes do the wrong thing (never witnessed it myself, but it seems it does happen). Gentoo's emerge isn't really a package manager as you end up building lots of stuff from source, it's more of a port manager like *BSD systems have. yum has its own share of issues but has a few interesting features, like a simple configuration scheme for repositories and the capability of fetching a list of mirrors from a remote location. yast2/zypp/zmd has no mirror management. But my gripes are rather with the fact that it's pretty dumb. Granted, smart sometimes tries to be too smart and never prompts the user on what it should do, but the perfect package manager should be somewhere in-between IMO. Not as dumb as yast2 but not necessarily as smart as... smart. YaST2 now also lacks a good CLI frontend, although we might have something usable with zypper at some point (not yet though). And whatever this implicit "locking" thing in yast2 is, get rid of it, it only makes problems.

I'm used to see that any advantage have it's own drawbacks, if not anybody could use the same. in the end the ultimate solution is always compiling

Everybody not using the same is more of a political than a technical decision. "Any advantage has its own drawbacks" -- not really. From a technical point of view, there are better implementations and there are worse.

and don't forget I also work on other lists and see there many apt/debian/Unbuntu or mandriva users, all with they own package problems.

Certainly. But if you forget biarch support, apt/synaptic on Debian and Ubuntu have a lot of advantages compared to yast2. Faster on startup and to install packages, good CLI, simple GUI. yast2/zypp is probably more "solid" but that also comes from the fact that it is rather dumb and turns down almost every decision it has to make on the end-user. But to come back to the original topic, the biggest issue with YaST2 on 10.1 and 10.2 is the ZMD backend. It has no advantage, uses large amounts of resources, fails with mysterious error messages in its logs, misbehaves as a process, etc... If we can get to the point where zypp is the default backend in YaST2, we're at least back to where we were on SUSE 10.0: not necessarily the best, but a decent and properly working package management module in YaST2. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFm5ssr3NMWliFcXcRAjW9AJ9FxHjRfIcN+ydhGosqq+pR1uS6yACgs1AS mSQDr+6vt5G/XvL6diy2OAE= =GZbV -----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 The Tuesday 2007-01-02 at 11:12 +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:

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Firing that module takes half an hour or more in my system (10.1).

Definitely get rid of ZMD on 10.1 http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.1

It doesn't explain there what removing ZMD would affect. | Sources here can either be added using YaST, or by using the rug | command-line tool, or thirdly by using the excellent Smart package | manager. Since there were problems with ZMD (of which rug is the | command-line tool) we recommend that you use the Smart Package Manager, | instead of YaST and rug. If removing ZMD means not using Yast, I don't see how that would solve Yast speed problem!

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It could use an rsync method instead of full download of the metadata.

Most servers don't provide rsync but only HTTP and/or FTP. And it wouldn't help much anyway because when the metadata is generated again, all the metadata files are modified. RPM-MD metadata files are even gzipped, so it's very unlikely rsync's binary deltas would be a big help to reduce the download size.

The repodata directory of packman contains about 2.5 MB for 10.2 and more than double for 10.1; yours is about 2 Mb. That's very noticiable for a modem. If than could be reduced somehow, it would be very nice. For a modem that means... seven minutes download. For an adsl at 100KB/S it's under a minute, not important compared to the half an hour it takes processing or who knows what. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFmjf/tTMYHG2NR9URAhsGAJ91004/A+VpTnGxppv8VFw9VAAMJwCfVk9y rMX7zUAC4m5XNanx1x10TG0= =YXul -----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 The Tuesday 2007-01-02 at 12:56 +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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The Tuesday 2007-01-02 at 11:12 +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

...

...

Firing that module takes half an hour or more in my system (10.1). Definitely get rid of ZMD on 10.1 http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.1

It doesn't explain there what removing ZMD would affect.

Your system will work better. Less resource scamming because ZMD is gone and the zypp backend works better anyway.

Using the ZMD backend involves syncing the repository metadata that is fetched by yast2 with the ZMD backend, for every repository. That means a lot of overhead as the metadata is most probably synced twice, which in turn is part of the reason the yast2 module takes half an hour or more to refresh repositories on your system. Even more so on 10.1.

The thing is, the paragraph (copied below) in the http://opensuse-community.org/Package_Sources/10.1 link seemed to say to remove ZMD and use smart instead of Yast - it doesn't say that Yast will work fine or better without ZMD. Your explanation makes the thing clear, but the wiki is not. | Sources here can either be added using YaST, or by using the rug | command-line tool, or thirdly by using the excellent Smart package | manager. Since there were problems with ZMD (of which rug is the | command-line tool) we recommend that you use the Smart Package Manager, | instead of YaST and rug. However, as I intend to update to 10.2 when I have some time, perhaps I will refrain from removing zmd for the time being. I would prefer having a toggle in yast to choose repo type, perhaps.

Actually you can still use yast2 as your package manager on 10.1, just remove ZMD and the yast2 ZMD backend as explained on the wiki page, and yast2 will fall back to the zypp backend. That one works fine, uses less resources, doesn't involve syncing. You'll just lose the zen-updater applet for the systray.

That's fine, I never use that applet. I don't like it. If I had users, I would remove it completely, I do not want users to be informed of things that are not their business.

On 10.2 there's the opensuse-updater applet when using the zypp backend.

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...

...

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It could use an rsync method instead of full download of the metadata. Most servers don't provide rsync but only HTTP and/or FTP. And it wouldn't help much anyway because when the metadata is generated again, all the metadata files are modified. RPM-MD metadata files are even gzipped, so it's very unlikely rsync's binary deltas would be a big help to reduce the download size.

The repodata directory of packman contains about 2.5 MB for 10.2 and more than double for 10.1; yours is about 2 Mb. That's very noticiable for a modem. If than could be reduced somehow, it would be very nice. For a modem that means... seven minutes download. For an adsl at 100KB/S it's under a minute, not important compared to the half an hour it takes processing or who knows what.

Well, what can I say. If we could reduce it some way, we would have done it years ago. A magic spell won't reduce it from 2MB to 20kb.

I know, I know.... well, no, I don't, I met repos with 10.1, didn't know it was years old. If I had designed it I would have something to say, but as a bystander I can only grumble :-)

http://dev-loki.blogspot.com/2006/11/repository-stripping.html

Yes, I remember having reading this before.

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2006-12/msg00033.html

Yes, I read that one at the time. Nothing to object as it is. I can only think of using rsync - but, as you say, not all or even many servers allow it, so it is not viable - or splitting repodata into several files, in the hope that some of them might not change. Dunno. I can only grumble ;-) - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFmo7xtTMYHG2NR9URAhrIAJ9iz3+bMCXR/t/e/5bSe9UVd6R9SgCfZ/mf PaiaHAVnbZDMlSiNwrLQE4g= =7hoK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 01 January 2007 05:34, Robert Lewis wrote:

Thanks! One more question. If I purchase the Commercial DVD-9 release of 10.2 then is this the same as the repositories or is there still a benefit to pointing to them?

Never having to dig out the dvd is one of the benefits. Especially with a traveling laptop. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2007-01-02 at 19:50 +0100, Istvan Gabor wrote:

So how can I make sure that only those packages will be installed from the repository that don't exist on the DVD?

In 10.1 it depended on the order the repos were defined: those at the top were consulted first. However, if a newer version existed at a lower repo, that newer one would be used. There was a button to move each repo up or down. You can manually change where each package will be installed from under the "versions" tab for each package. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFmraptTMYHG2NR9URAuOFAKCHD/xgVsiM/+wK/y9jKWGUneSvxACfWOD3 4j6cPO7/T8QYhyTcQE8zih8= =3Wh2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 13:49 -0600, Darryl Gregorash wrote:

On 2007-01-02 12:50, Istvan Gabor wrote:

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<snip> So how can I make sure that only those packages will be installed from the repository that don't exist on the DVD?

All the packages on the DVD are also on the repository, so you can't. Even if you turn off the DVD in Yast/installation sources, those packages will still show up from the repository information.

Asked another way, how can one make sure that duplicate packages are taken off of the DVD instead of downloaded from the repo? -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org