On Friday 09 May 2008 14:40:29 Basil Chupin wrote:

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

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On Friday 09 May 2008 13:24, John wrote:

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I have had several really bad days getting this machine up and running. Rough history is as follows. Any comments?

Yes. Rants won't get anybody anywhere. If you are interested in getting problems fixed, writing bug reports is a much better approach.

But it helps to repair the spirit...

Ciao.

-- If you want to know what a man is like, take a look at how he treats his inferiors not his equals.

Yes it does sound like a rant. Sorry I'm a none pc software engineer most used to working in assembler. I know just how things get like that. I would imagine that the installer is a nightmare to maintain and will get even worse with time. I suppose that I could post the entire rant as a bug report but I think it's more of a case of it needing a well isolated and partitioned rational solution that can rapidly adapt to change. Sorry if it sounds like a rant but wouldn't you be annoyed? Suse is basically an excellent distribution. That is the main reason why I'm annoyed. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Daniel Bauer wrote:

On the other hand it is really *not* easy to get a computer running with openSUSE.

wery bad wording... "a computer" don't mean anything today. I installed dozen of openSUSE with no problem at all or nearly.

Whatever I try to install, I have to search google, forums, mailing lists... for hours and hours.

what do you mean? You can have console only (minimal) openSUSE running on most harware in 1/4 hour. even Kde in 3/4 hour. Can you have a hauppauge Win-TV-card running and a

webcam too? No. It took me days to find out.

then you have problem with special hardware. This is bad (I know I have the same card, I not even tried to run it with Linux :-)

And I absolutely don't wonder why people stay with Windows or Mac. Linux is still just too complicated for people who have other hobbies than tinkering with computers.

do you actually have to install windows machines? I do and find this much more difficult than Linux *as soon as the hardware is not uptodate* reistalling any windows takes *weeks*

*If* openSUSE once is up and running it's great, but not every one can invest weeks on testing, searching, frustration

Anybody here (or may be I'm wrong?) knows that the hardware makers are mostly superbly ignoring Linux, and this is the problem. Of course, there are always things to do. In fact, make us a gift: you have got a valuable experience about hardware, write it down on the wiki like you did here, this can be a life saving for other... thanks jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 May 2008 17:48, John wrote:

True windoze takes a long time to install but hardware drivers are always available. Not so with linux.

Sadly enough, that's true in many cases. But it's the hardware makers who are to blame if they don't provide drivers or at least specifications how the hardware works so Open Source developers can write drivers. If the know-how of a piece of hardware is mostly in the (Windows) driver, they won't open that stuff up, so Open Source developers have to rely on reverse engineering to get anything working. Many inkjet photo printers and other kinds of hardware fall into that category. So whom do you blame for this?

There is also a bit of oss snobbery concerning closed source drivers eg Samsung printers

It's only snobbery up to a certain point. If you used such drivers for a while you will often find out that they are more of a liability than an asset, causing much more trouble again and again than you saved money by buying that cheaper hardware. I've been there. I learned the lesson that cheap hardware is very often expensive in working hours to get things working. I can't affort cheap hardware any more. ;-)

and why can't for instance nvidia drivers be maintained

Because of licensing issues. If we could, we'd ship the NVidia 3D drivers, but we can't.

Samsung for instance undated a clp500 driver for me in 3days after I complained that it no longer worked.

That's exceptionally good service. But I had personal experiences with the cash'n'carry mentality so many hardware makers have these days. A customer who already paid is no longer attractive for many of them, so they often don't bother to update anything to make it work with more recent Linux versions. CU -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John wrote:

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True windoze takes a long time to install but hardware drivers are always available. Not so with linux. Sadly enough, that's true in many cases. But it's the hardware makers who are to blame if they don't provide drivers or at least specifications how

On Friday 09 May 2008 17:48, John wrote: the hardware works so Open Source developers can write drivers.

If the know-how of a piece of hardware is mostly in the (Windows) driver, they won't open that stuff up, so Open Source developers have to rely on reverse engineering to get anything working. Many inkjet photo printers and other kinds of hardware fall into that category.

So whom do you blame for this? Bit of a missunderstanding here I meant the software interface to the driver

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There is also a bit of oss snobbery concerning closed source drivers eg Samsung printers It's only snobbery up to a certain point. If you used such drivers for a while you will often find out that they are more of a liability than an asset, causing much more trouble again and again than you saved money by buying that cheaper hardware.

I've been there. I learned the lesson that cheap hardware is very often expensive in working hours to get things working. I can't affort cheap hardware any more. ;-)

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and why can't for instance nvidia drivers be maintained Because of licensing issues. If we could, we'd ship the NVidia 3D drivers, but we can't.

...

Samsung for instance undated a clp500 driver for me in 3days after I complained that it no longer worked. That's exceptionally good service. But I had personal experiences with the cash'n'carry mentality so many hardware makers have these days. A customer who already paid is no longer attractive for many of them, so they often don't bother to update anything to make it work with more recent Linux versions. I haven't got round to the printer yet - don't get me going on cups. I expect much fun in that direction as I will install back door with the printer locally using samsungs install and then re route it manually to an axis

On Friday 09 May 2008 17:03:01 Stefan Hundhammer wrote: they supply. I may also may be being unfair to suse - it's comment that crops up on installation in ubuntu. Clearly they can't but it would be very sensable to work with it until the oss code has something as good or better to offer. It's an interesting area. On 9.3 install I was routed with great glee to the nvidia repository. They were glad that nvidia had done it. printer server.

Cups is SIMPLE http://localhost/:631

Seems to be the only way of doing it. Hope it works. It has so far but needs a KDE desktop facility with root privileges otherwise the printer can't be enabled. (As far as I'm aware) Out of interest samsungs driver seems to support there current and earlier cheap colour lasers on all linux distro's so it should be maintained.

Once a printer is "figure out" it will work on all later versions of linux, because the "driver" files are just scripts, which means there will be no compiling issues, and they are 100% portable. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

On Friday 09 May 2008 17:48, John wrote:

...

True windoze takes a long time to install but hardware drivers are always available. Not so with linux.

Sadly enough, that's true in many cases. But it's the hardware makers who are to blame if they don't provide drivers or at least specifications how the hardware works so Open Source developers can write drivers.

If the know-how of a piece of hardware is mostly in the (Windows) driver, they won't open that stuff up, so Open Source developers have to rely on reverse engineering to get anything working. Many inkjet photo printers and other kinds of hardware fall into that category.

So whom do you blame for this?

Thanks for reminding me..... I have an HP Photosmart 8450 printer and it was correctly recognised and configured in v10.3. Now in 11.0 (B1 and B2) it is no longer recognised and there is no longer a driver for it. Why? Who to blame for this? [rest pruned] Ciao. -- If you want to know what a man is like, take a look at how he treats his inferiors not his equals. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Basil Chupin wrote:

Now in 11.0 (B1 and B2) it is no longer recognised and there is no longer a driver for it. Why?

Who to blame for this?

may be it's for such things the 11 is "beta" report to bugzilla jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Basil Chupin wrote:

Something which was working perfectly well should not be fouled up, and requiring to have bugzilla reports made about it.

we are not in a perfect world jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2008-05-10 at 17:09 +1000, Basil Chupin wrote:

jdd sur free wrote:

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Basil Chupin wrote:

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Something which was working perfectly well should not be fouled up, and requiring to have bugzilla reports made about it.

we are not in a perfect world Amen.

But it doesn't mean it should be used as an excuse for making something worse than what it is.

Nevertheless, things happens; and unless you report that problem in Bugzilla it will not be solved. If you want the driver to be reinstated, or an explanation if it is not possible, you _must_ report it in Bugizlla. Posting it here will probably be ignored. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIJZlqtTMYHG2NR9URAkBYAJ9vPBc5RfhPMoW39WiuGJfdOiHpKwCfTTyx 2kvUwq1wtNyxtlz1sSQkqvE= =PEXY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday 10 May 2008 06:32:38 am Sam Clemens wrote:

jdd sur free wrote:

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Basil Chupin wrote:

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Something which was working perfectly well should not be fouled up, and requiring to have bugzilla reports made about it.

we are not in a perfect world

Basil has a valid point here.

A previously working printer type shouldn't stop working. There's no excuse for it. The filter scripts are 100% portable, without modification.

Is cups 100% the same? Please check versions and change logs. I'm busy right now, otherwise I would do that for you. -- Regards, Rajko http://en.opensuse.org/Portal needs helpful hands. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 11 May 2008 12:47:55 am Sam Clemens wrote:

Rajko M. wrote: ...

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Is cups 100% the same?

Since when are these filtering scripts subject to CUPS version?

Someone forgot to copy a file... one which has a negative affect on Basil. Why is it so hard to admit to a relatively harmless error?

...

Please check versions and change logs. I'm busy right now, otherwise I would do that for you.

Now I found time to check this. See https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=386853 -- Regards, Rajko http://en.opensuse.org/Portal needs helpful hands. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday 10 May 2008 01:53:13 am Basil Chupin wrote:

jdd sur free wrote:

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Basil Chupin wrote:

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Now in 11.0 (B1 and B2) it is no longer recognised and there is no longer a driver for it. Why?

Who to blame for this?

may be it's for such things the 11 is "beta"

report to bugzilla

jdd

Beta 2 (of v11.0) is NOT a beta of a totally new distribution but a continuation of an existing, tested, and proven line of a major and respected Linux distribution.

Something which was working perfectly well should not be fouled up, and requiring to have bugzilla reports made about it.

Latest version of an application/operating system/program are an IMPROVEMENT on what is already in place - and not a REGRESSION of what is already available and known to work.

I guess that one should be reminded that difference between openSUSE <version> could be or it is the same as between win9x - XP - Vista. The driver or program compatibility is not guaranteed. So, if something doesn't work with new kernel, cups, or whatever other base system, one has to report regression. Upstream changes in cups can brake some programs, with or without anyones fault, and when reported then there is chance to be repaired.

'You' cannot hide forever behind the "but it is just a Beta version". It is an excuse not used anywhere that I am aware of - but please do educate me - except here when someone points out a flaw in openSUSE. (All getting to be quite pathetic really.)

Than you are not aware of much. Note that there is no place called 'openSUSE labs' with a lot of hardware and employees to test that hardware with new software. If you don't report problem than who will. I report things that are problematic on my computer and I bug developers as long as necessary, explaining what is problem, testing patches, reopening bug reports if I'm not happy with reasons why they are closed. They are just ordinary folk as you or me, they do their job the best way they can. They have good and bad days, in both mood and amount of work that has to be done. So far I know they have not much time to look on mail lists for bugs, there is enough in http://bugzilla.novell.com and rant here will not help much to see problem solved. -- Regards, Rajko http://en.opensuse.org/Portal needs helpful hands. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Basil Chupin escribió:

Beta 2 (of v11.0) is NOT a beta of a totally new distribution but a continuation of an existing, tested, and proven line of a major and respected Linux distribution.

No, wrong.

Something which was working perfectly well should not be fouled up, and requiring to have bugzilla reports made about it.

I see the idea is just trolling ..

'You' cannot hide forever behind the "but it is just a Beta version". It is an excuse not used anywhere that I am aware of - but please do educate me - except here when someone points out a flaw in openSUSE. (All getting to be quite pathetic really.)

it is a BETA version of an almost completely new codebase, it has bugs for sure.. looks like you dont have any experience with software development, troll. -- "Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.” - Edsger W. Dijkstra Cristian Rodríguez R. Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 12:23 AM, David C. Rankin wrote:

For those that have experienced a distro implosion by a dramatic decrease in quality, the warning bells are ringing.

You mean like people bitching about it BEFORE its released instead of after?

A host of little issues are still up in the air like, Will the release have a working desktop?,

Why wouldn't it? Nobody is forcing any specific desktop on any given release.

I don't think anyone is trolling for a fight and I think we all share a commitment to see 11.0 be a successful release that won't adversely affect either the SuSE or Novell names.

You have to understand that Opensuse is simply a test bed for SLED/SLES. Once you figure that out, you can update on YOUR schedule, not the release date. Some of us have better things to do than test platforms. I try when I can, in a virtual machine, but I never rush to anything-dot-zero and I don't see me rushing to 11.0 either. -- ----------JSA--------- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2008-05-14 at 12:09 +0100, John wrote:

As some may have noted I had a lot of problems. I had no intention of updating from 10.1 until 11.1 came out but motherboard broke and there doesn't seem to be any 10.1 repositories about any more or there's no longer any updates. I was rather surprised when I had these problems with 10.3. I didn't have any with 10.1.

10.1 will be officially dropped this month. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2008-04/msg00001.html - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIKte/tTMYHG2NR9URAnD+AJ9Cd5wI/JR84Pq5NOxvrqeFa/dPWwCeOpzi I1y0Vrb+FM49Tx008+PTb1E= =/CPR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Cristian Rodr�guez wrote:

Basil Chupin escribió:

...

Beta 2 (of v11.0) is NOT a beta of a totally new distribution but a continuation of an existing, tested, and proven line of a major and respected Linux distribution.

No, wrong.

...

Something which was working perfectly well should not be fouled up, and requiring to have bugzilla reports made about it.

I see the idea is just trolling ..

...

'You' cannot hide forever behind the "but it is just a Beta version". It is an excuse not used anywhere that I am aware of - but please do educate me - except here when someone points out a flaw in openSUSE. (All getting to be quite pathetic really.)

it is a BETA version of an almost completely new codebase, it has bugs for sure.. looks like you dont have any experience with software development, troll.

---- "Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.” - Edsger W. Dijkstra Cristian Rodríguez R. Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/ You work for SUSE LINUX Products GmbH in Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services and you have the affrontery to call me a "troll"?! -- Minds and parachutes only function properly when open. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 15 May 2008 07:41:35 Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

Basil Chupin escribió:

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You work for SUSE LINUX Products GmbH in Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services and you have the affrontery to call me a "troll"?!

yes, you are complaining, without any constructive action about bugs of a product that has not been released and is expected to have bugs, based on the highly questionable assumption that openSUSE 11 is "continuation", It isnt, it is a new product, that even has a new codename. :P.

Just for the record.. take openSUSE 10.3 and "just" change the compiler, rebuild all stuff, then you will figure you have $N new regressions..this is much more complicated than what you think.

I think my thread has gone wildly astray looking at this comment and it's source I've made no mention of 11. My comments have been restricted to 10.3 64bit - a stable reliable release. (??????????) Following similar thoughts others have wondered what 11 will be like in this respect. If they are primarily desktop users I don't blame them. The original suse de where clearly aiming to gain a large foothold in the desktop market. Doesn't look that way to me anymore. Not that I find that surprising. I have had several years exposure to Novell in the past and am fully aware that they can be a very short sighted company. There is no point what so ever in a company becoming yet another "me too" but no doubt they will try. John "Which is most Important. the users or the need to change?" "Our object in life is to make more money for the shareholders" Interesting balance isn't it and not meaningless quote like yours. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 18 May 2008 14:22:15 Basil Chupin wrote:

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

...

Basil Chupin escribió:

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You work for SUSE LINUX Products GmbH in Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services and you have the affrontery to call me a "troll"?!

yes, you are complaining, without any constructive action about bugs of a product that has not been released and is expected to have bugs, based on the highly questionable assumption that openSUSE 11 is "continuation", It isnt, it is a new product, that even has a new codename. :P.

If it is a "new product" then name it 'newopenSuSE v0.001' and also tell everyone that it's code name is "xxxxx" - eg, "stubby" as in the way MS gave the Vista the codename of "longhorn" - so that everyone knows what we are dealing with.

...

Just for the record.. take openSUSE 10.3 and "just" change the compiler, rebuild all stuff, then you will figure you have $N new regressions..this is much more complicated than what you think.

I understand this, but nobody asked for this to be done and everyone out here expects, just like in the past, for a better put-together version of SuSE- a progression of the OS and not a regression. If 'you' want to put out a new version of the OS then say so, give it a new name to identify that it is a write-up from scratch and also tell everyone that this is what the next version - 11.0 - is all about.

I have said this elsewhere, 11.0 is little different to 10.3 from what I have seen except for the new kernel. However, the biggest difference is KDE - which is what is bringing openSUSE down and which is making me feel sorry for all the effort you fellows have put into v11.0. Even KDE3.x is now being affected by what is in KDE4 -- and KDE4 is not ready to be pushed on to the public, irrespective of what the fellow with his hair dangling down and covering half his face because he cannot afford a haircut tells 'us' in his UTube blurb.

Ciao.

-- Vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate morons. Interesting points. KDE4 seems to be at the root of my desktop problems on 10.3 64bit and from what I can gather it's causing many many problems else where too. I've been on the KDE mailing list for a long time. Activity is almost zero. Very unusual for a new release. Looks like most people have more sense. Much activity on Debian's kde mailing list - most likely on testing or unstable.

My impression of 10.3 64bit is that it isn't suitable for release. I've had more trouble with it over 2 weeks than I have had with 10.1 since it came out. I've even had to use cntrl alt del. Many people used to scream for updates. Largely because of web problems. Not so now as firefox is currently well supported. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

Wouldn't you think that that .0 in the version indicates that there are a lot new things? That's the normal way to announce major changes.

Stefan, NO. SuSE 8.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. SuSE 9.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. SuSE 10.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. Why would we not expect openSuSE 11.0 to be just as polished and ready for production use as its last three .0 predecessors? If it isn't, that would signal a fundamental change in SuSE culture showing that the rush to push release number next out the door to generate revenue has replaced dedication to putting out the best, and fully polished Linux distribution going. Stefan, you are a great help to us all and you do quality work with KDirStat. But why should anyone "expect" to have problems with an openSuSE release regardless of whether it is .0, .1, .2, or .3? Also, why does it appear that Novell is trying to "lower expectations" about the release? All this talk about a ".0" being something we should watch out for with "all the new things in it." .0 does not mean beta. Why isn't Novell proud of the upcoming release telling everyone, "The openSuSE 11.0 release will be the best openSuSE ever"?

...

I have said this elsewhere, 11.0 is little different to 10.3

This couldn't be farther removed from reality.

Apart from the new KDE4 which you mentioned:

The installation workflow is brand new.

The look & feel of the installation workflow is brand new, and ALL of the underlying subsystems are significantly changed (Qt4, mod-UI, UI now really separate from yast2-core).

Package management has gotten another major overhaul: New dependency solver (a.k.a. "sat-solver"), major changes in libzypp, much better performance.

And those are just a few points that immediately came to my mind. There are more changes, of course.

This is fantastic stuff! I look forward to it. As long as all of this is fully QA'ed, tested and working, then "bravo Novell!", "Great Job!" However, if it isn't working just right, and Novell has knowledge of problems that need to be worked .. and .. releases 11.0 anyway, then "shame on you Novell, you know better." There is no in between..

You may or may not like the new KDE4, and you are right in that it is still far from complete or polished in a way most KDE users wish it was.

But this is a chicken-and-egg problem: Without a significant user base out there using KDE4, it won't ever get complete or even polished. Many issues will go unnoticed, and developers of non-core KDE applications will feel a lot less compelled to port their apps to KDE4 (including myself with KDirStat).

Huh? KDE 4 is "alpha" software that is just "released for brave users". See www.kde.org! Surely Novell has more sense than to dump this on ordinary users as the default install. Provide it, but provide it as an option. Make 3.XX the default. Heaven forbid an ordinary user, much less a novice user is forced to deal with KDE 4 as their first look at openSuSE. From KDE's own rss feed: "Another month, another update to the KDE 4.0 series. This time, we are presenting KDE 4.0.4, dubbed File-Not-Found to the audience. KDE 4.0.4 brings improvements to KHTML, Okular and various other components. We recommend that people who are already running KDE 4.0 releases update to 4.0.4. The emphasis of this release lies, as usual in stabilising, bugfixing, performance improvements and updated translations -- no new features. The developers have again squashed quite some bugs which you can find some of in the changelog. With this release, the KDE community continues to support the KDE 4.0 series that has been released for brave users earlier this year. KDE 4.1, to be released this summer (in the northern-hemisphere) will bring new features and applications. KDE 4.1 is based on the recently released Qt 4.4 while KDE 4.0.4 is still based on Qt 4.3 as is the case with the whole KDE 4.0 series. So put on your update shoes and install 4.0.4 today." (reference: 5/6/2008; KDE 4.0.4 Out Now, Codenamed File-Not-Found)

Yet, I think that KDE4 is more than a big public beta. There are a lot of users out there eager to get it, and we should deliver something for them, too.

Why do you contradict what KDE says about its own product? Doesn't KDE know best if KDE 4 is ready for the mainstream desktop?

But KDE3 is still there. I am not sure in which way you feel that KDE3 is affected by KDE4; but we may all find this version of KDE3 to be the most stable ever, because most development efforts in the KDE project went to KDE4, so KDE3 received little more than bug fixes.

For people that need to get something done, KDE 3 is great! For people who want to sort out why their desktop crashed and help file bug reports, then KDE 4 is fine. In a year or so, KDE 4 may be ready, but obviously it isn't yet. I continue to have faith that Novell will do the right thing with the 11.0 release and put out a quality product. However, it scares the hell out of me when I see company men intentionally trying to lower expectations about a release when they should be proud to shout that "this will be the best release ever." It frightening similar to the climate immediately before the Mandake collapse with 8.0 that took 6 more releases to almost recover from. Now 11.0 hasn't been released yet, so no one can knock it. But after Novell has been provided with all the input, bug reports and warnings, if 11.0 is released as a cripple, the fallout may just be devastating. I don't want to live through it again... If the 11.0 release date arrives and 11.0 still isn't ready, history tells us it would be far better to slip the release 60-90 days and get it ready, than to dump it on the public crippled. -- David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

David C. Rankin escribió:

...

But why should anyone "expect" to have problems with an openSuSE release regardless of whether it is .0, .1, .2, or .3?

what are you talking about ? software is made by humans, it HAS bugs, and that is expected !!!

We all know all software has bugs. That is not at issue. What is at issue is whether the upcoming release will be "usable" and "stable" and "follow in the SuSE tradition of good solid polished releases" or, as it appears, will be released with "significant known problems" and an "alpha" desktop as default.

...

Also, why does it appear that Novell is trying to "lower expectations" about the release?

...

Why isn't Novell proud of the upcoming release telling everyone, "The openSuSE 11.0 release will be the best openSuSE ever"?

Why you think novell is doing that.. do you have any real proof of your statements ?

Because I have yet to see a developer post anything showing they are proud of the current state of 11.0, or give any type of assurance that it will be a solid, polished release. Further, the first response above seems like someone is putting out the company line with political talking points like "all software has bugs" ... Duh? Why no response like, "All of the significant bugs Novell is aware of are fixed, and the RCs are running great on our test machines" "Your concern about 11.0 being a release with significant problems is way over blown Rankin." and "Shut up Rankin, you don't know what you are talking about."?

...

If the 11.0 release date arrives and 11.0 still isn't ready, history tells us it would be far better to slip the release 60-90 days and get it ready,

That costs a lot of money and resources.. Im afraid what you are suggesting is not possible .. and will probably not make much sense either, in 60 or 90 days we will be working on different,already scheduled stuff, included openSUSE 11.1 and the next SLE version.

Everytime and disto has put $profit$ before "quality" the results have been disastrous. As I hopefully conveyed, these are not bitches, these concerns for the wellbeing of a distribution I have supported, filed bug reports to make better, encouraged people to try, help user learn with help on the list, etc.. and I don't want to see it shoot itself in the foot just because its newfound corporate ownership set aggressive goals for the 11.0 release that probably weren't realistic and apparently has chosen the path of dump the release on the user base, ready or not. Your a great guy, highly respected. If you are ready to say "11.0 is ready, stable and will be the best release ever", by all means, let us know. -- David C. Rankin, J.D., P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

David C. Rankin escribió:

...

Everytime and disto has put $profit$ before "quality" the results have been disastrous.

In the real world, bills and salaries have to be paid, we cannot keep openSUSE running without money ..but that does not mean we dont care about quality, in fact, we care very much, people gets evaluated according to the quality of their work.

Here's the choice, Cristian: 1: Collect a pile of money, right now...ONCE. 2: Wait a few months, and collect a pile of money, repeatedly. 5 years down the road, which choice do you want to live with?

...

If you are ready to say "11.0 is ready, stable and will be the best release ever",

Nobody can assure that, sorry, this is done on a "best effort" basis..

BEST effort? Rather good effort, marred by teenage-fanboyism would be what it's looking like in recent months. I hate to say that...because SUSE is my favorite distro. But it has to be said, and said again, over and over, until you guys start listening. More than anything, we want software that works. Not re-arrangements of software that already works well And certainly not replacements of software that works well and is stable with alpha software which is buggy and incomplete. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 19 May 2008 19:23:15 -0400 Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

David C. Rankin escribió:

...

But why should anyone "expect" to have problems with an openSuSE release regardless of whether it is .0, .1, .2, or .3?

what are you talking about ? software is made by humans, it HAS bugs, and that is expected !!!

I would 100% agree. Additionally, remember Linux components come from a large number of different sources. OpenSuSE (and Fedora) are cutting edge releases where there are expectations that the user community will find the many bugs that fall through the test harness net. This is one reason why SLES/SLED (and RHEL) releases are on a slower schedule. So, if there is a bug in Kmail, should SuSE users castigate SuSE or report the bug and hope for a timely solution. Additionally,, let's try to be more constructive and turn our flame throwers off for the time being as I seem to be developing an allergy to brimstone. -- -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix PGP key id: 537C5846 PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846

"David C. Rankin" writes:

Stefan, NO. SuSE 8.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. SuSE 9.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release. SuSE 10.0 was great, worthy of production machine service at the time of release.

Why would we not expect openSuSE 11.0 to be just as polished and ready for production use as its last three .0 predecessors? If it isn't, that would signal a fundamental change in SuSE culture showing that the rush to push release number next out the door to generate revenue has replaced dedication to putting out the best, and fully polished Linux distribution going.

We do not spend more time on a .0 release than on a .3 release. Ignore numbers, they are marketing ;-).

Stefan, you are a great help to us all and you do quality work with KDirStat. But why should anyone "expect" to have problems with an openSuSE release regardless of whether it is .0, .1, .2, or .3?

Also, why does it appear that Novell is trying to "lower expectations" about the release? All this talk about a ".0" being something we should watch out for with "all the new things in it." .0 does not mean beta. Why isn't Novell proud of the upcoming release telling everyone, "The openSuSE 11.0 release will be the best openSuSE ever"?

Stefan is not speaking for Novell, so you should not ask him this ;-) Speaking for openSUSE: I'm proud of 11.0, it will be a great realease. BUT ;-) the engineers at Novell are not marketing experts and instead of giving great marketing statements, they give a complete picture which sometimes sounds a bit pessimistic ;-)

...

...

I have said this elsewhere, 11.0 is little different to 10.3

This couldn't be farther removed from reality.

Apart from the new KDE4 which you mentioned:

The installation workflow is brand new.

The look & feel of the installation workflow is brand new, and ALL of the underlying subsystems are significantly changed (Qt4, mod-UI, UI now really separate from yast2-core).

Package management has gotten another major overhaul: New dependency solver (a.k.a. "sat-solver"), major changes in libzypp, much better performance.

And those are just a few points that immediately came to my mind. There are more changes, of course.

This is fantastic stuff! I look forward to it. As long as all of this is fully QA'ed, tested and working, then "bravo Novell!", "Great Job!" However, if it isn't working just right, and Novell has knowledge of problems that need to be worked .. and .. releases 11.0 anyway, then "shame on you Novell, you know better."

There is no in between..

You cannot fully QA a distribution of this size inside a company without the help of the community. If we would want to fully QA this internally we would need to make significant change, e.g downsize the distro in a major way. We're not at the goldmaster, so it's to early to give any clear statements. Look yourself in bugzilla to see what needs to be worked on.

...

You may or may not like the new KDE4, and you are right in that it is still far from complete or polished in a way most KDE users wish it was.

But this is a chicken-and-egg problem: Without a significant user base out there using KDE4, it won't ever get complete or even polished. Many issues will go unnoticed, and developers of non-core KDE applications will feel a lot less compelled to port their apps to KDE4 (including myself with KDirStat).

Huh? KDE 4 is "alpha" software that is just "released for brave users". See www.kde.org! Surely Novell has more sense than to dump this on ordinary users as the default install. Provide it, but provide it as an option. Make 3.XX the default. Heaven forbid an ordinary user, much less a novice user is forced to deal with KDE 4 as their first look at openSuSE. From KDE's own rss feed:

Did you install Beta3? Where did it install KDE4 as default? You have the choice between GNOME, KDE3 and KDE4 with proper wording. There were a lot of requests to add KDE4 and it should be an install option as it is.

[...]

...

Yet, I think that KDE4 is more than a big public beta. There are a lot of users out there eager to get it, and we should deliver something for them, too.

Why do you contradict what KDE says about its own product?

His personal opinion, "I think".

Doesn't KDE know best if KDE 4 is ready for the mainstream desktop?

...

But KDE3 is still there. I am not sure in which way you feel that KDE3 is affected by KDE4; but we may all find this version of KDE3 to be the most stable ever, because most development efforts in the KDE project went to KDE4, so KDE3 received little more than bug fixes.

For people that need to get something done, KDE 3 is great! For people who want to sort out why their desktop crashed and help file bug reports, then KDE 4 is fine. In a year or so, KDE 4 may be ready, but obviously it isn't yet.

I continue to have faith that Novell will do the right thing with the 11.0 release and put out a quality product. However, it scares the hell out of me when I see company men intentionally trying to lower expectations about a release when they should be proud to shout that "this will be the best release ever." It frightening similar to the climate immediately before the Mandake collapse with 8.0 that took 6 more releases to almost recover from.

Now 11.0 hasn't been released yet, so no one can knock it. But after Novell has been provided with all the input, bug reports and warnings, if 11.0 is released as a cripple, the fallout may just be devastating. I don't want to live through it again...

If the 11.0 release date arrives and 11.0 still isn't ready, history tells us it would be far better to slip the release 60-90 days and get it ready, than to dump it on the public crippled.

I'm running beta3 and do not expect that 11.0 will be a cripple. It will be another great openSUSE distribution with a nice and shiny installer, the fastest package management, several great desktops environments etc! Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, Director Platform / openSUSE, aj@suse.de SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126

Sam Clemens wrote: <a bunch of stuff about how bad kde4 is> Give them the benefit of the doubt, Sam - there's still a month to go, and kde4 is markedly more usable than it was a short time ago. otherwise you may look pretty silly when 11.0 is released... Joe -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Sam Clemens escribió:

SHAME ON YOU!

Stefan is spending his very valuable time, trying to explain you how stuff works, and then you flame him..

Again...would someone PLEASE put an ***ADULT*** in charge of the SuSE 11.0 release, as it's so f***ing obvious that people like you, Stefan are NOT mature enough to make the crucial decisions regarding this release.

ok.. that completed the pile of non-sense, I will politely ask you to shut up ..or maybe you want to be banned from this list ? -- "Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code.” - Edsger W. Dijkstra Cristian Rodríguez R. Platform/OpenSUSE - Core Services SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development http://www.opensuse.org/

On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 19:39 -0400, Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

Sam Clemens escribió:

...

SHAME ON YOU!

Stefan is spending his very valuable time, trying to explain you how stuff works, and then you flame him..

...

Again...would someone PLEASE put an ***ADULT*** in charge of the SuSE 11.0 release, as it's so f***ing obvious that people like you, Stefan are NOT mature enough to make the crucial decisions regarding this release.

ok.. that completed the pile of non-sense, I will politely ask you to shut up ..or maybe you want to be banned from this list ?

This would not be the second time..... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* Sam Clemens [05-19-08 19:56]: ...

Can't you tell the the customer base is getting QUITE ANNOYED WITH THE CONSTANT REPETITION OF BLATANT LIES.

Cheers, you have *officially* been recognized as a "Troll"! <plonk> -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 19 May 2008 17:15, Sam Clemens wrote:

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

...

Sam Clemens escribió:

...

SHAME ON YOU!

Stefan is spending his very valuable time, trying to explain you how stuff works, and then you flame him..

...

Again...would someone PLEASE put an ***ADULT*** in charge of the SuSE 11.0 release, as it's so f***ing obvious that people like you, Stefan are NOT mature enough to make the crucial decisions regarding this release.

ok.. that completed the pile of non-sense, I will politely ask you to shut up ..or maybe you want to be banned from this list ?

You've played this childish game before, rather than face constructive criticism, you throw a hissy-fit and ban me.

Sometimes I think you like to play with people who don't exactly share your opinions, tossing off unending non-sequiturs just to exasperate them. But then you claim your foul-mouthed rantings are "constructive criticism" and refer to a simple suggestion that such juvenile histrionics might be cause to have you banned as a "hissy fit." I would like to remind you that when I criticized the United States you suggested I emigrate. And when I criticized the nature of employment, you asked me why I didn't simply become self-employed. So I ask you: Why don't you just find another Linux distribution that meets your expectations? Surely if relocating from one nation to another is an appropriate response to dissatisfaction with a social, political and economic situation, then changing operating system distributions is an entirely trivial transition to make when one is unhappy with some software.

Go ahead..I've had 5 more names subscribed to the list for several months, in anticipation of this sort of thin-skinned, no-dissent allowed fascist mentality.

It's time to disallow GMail, HotMail and similar email addresses. Existing subscribers with such addresses could be allowed to continue, but new subscriptions should disallow them.

Instead of threatening retaliation, why don't you all try LISTENING to what's being told to you.

Enforcing a community standard is not "retaliation." And what you've writing is vacuous and unhelpful.

Otherwise....if SuSE fails, then you all deserve to be out of a job.

If SuSE Linux were to fail, then I'm sure its principals would accept the appropriate responsibility. However, it is _very_ far from failure. Randall Schulz -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:42:46 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

And if SuSE fucks it up, not only will I move to Debian, but I'll advise EVERYONE to go the same route.

Now that will surely frighten everyone! Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2008-05-19 at 17:58 -0700, Tony Alfrey wrote:

Philipp Thomas wrote:

...

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:42:46 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

...

And if SuSE fucks it up, not only will I move to Debian, but I'll advise EVERYONE to go the same route.

Now that will surely frighten everyone!

If we ask Aaron very nicely, maybe he will switch now?

But he'll be back. openSuSE is still a good deal ahead of Debian. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

...

...

On 21.05.2008 at 13:55, John wrote:

PS Is gnome really at the top of the list on 11?

of course.. G comes before K in 'regular' alphabets. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:42:46 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

...

And if SuSE fucks it up, not only will I move to Debian, but I'll advise EVERYONE to go the same route.

Now that will surely frighten everyone!

Fred Miller's customers are already saying that they don't want ANYTHING to do with SuSE KDE 4 in any status that is possible by the time 11.0 released. Do you honestly thing I'm the ONLY person who will leave SuSE if SuSE fucks it up that badly -- especially after being told for MONTHS that WE DON'T WANT ANY GUI THAT'S FULL OF BUGS AND MISSING PARTS. How stupid do you have to be to ignore such a simple message.

Philipp

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

Fergus Wilde wrote:

...

...

Go ahead..I've had 5 more names subscribed to the list for several months, in anticipation of this sort of thin-skinned, no-dissent allowed fascist mentality.

The name's Bond - James Bond. Or should we call you 'Agent Orange'? Of course what you *don't* know is that 'I' am in fact a composite of seven wholly separate, and very different people: a Ukrainian economist, a Bulgarian unicylist and party organiser, an exotic dancer known in most of the bars in Paris as 'Fifi La Grange', an orthodox rabbi, a florist in Wisconsin, a fur-trapper in the Yukon and a Polynesian sexual athlete known only as 'Hairy Pete'. We collude only in order to provide enlightenment to others. So do your worst, Captain Nameless, we are ready to receive your transmissions!

Sincerely, Them.

ROFL! Love it, Fifi! But you have elevated him well beyond his status- Private (no inference to 'private parts') Nameless is much closer than "Captain Nameless". Ciao. -- Vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate persons. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:15:07 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

...

You've played this childish game before, rather than face constructive criticism, you throw a hissy-fit and ban me.

You call insulting people constructive criticism? You act like a 5 year boy whom his Mum didn't buy the lollipop he wanted.

When a bunch of supposed-adults are acting like a bunch of teenage fan-boys, drooling over something just because it's NEW, regardless of the fact that it's still in alpha stage, then yes, telling them to quit acting like that is constructive criticism. And if you can't tell the difference, then you're part of the problem as well.

...

thin-skinned, no-dissent allowed fascist mentality.

You know the rules of this list and publicly insulting people is not part of it. You ignore the rules, you're unsubscribed. You show that behaviour under a new account, you get unsubscribed again.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill. Telling people to stop acting like children is a reasonable comment when the target of such a comment IS in fact, acting like a child.

...

Instead of threatening retaliation, why don't you all try LISTENING to what's being told to you.

Oh, we're listening. We're just not agreeing with you, specially as you behave like a small child.

Strange how the overwhelming majority people who disagree with me on the KDE 4 issue are those associated with SuSE....and how the USERS...you know...the people who actually send money IN to SuSE... who test it out, and send in the feedback about the current state of things, all seem to agree with me. Why is that? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:47:46 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

...

Strange how the overwhelming majority people who disagree with me on the KDE 4 issue are those associated with SuSE....

Maybe because, contrary to you, it's because they installed a beta and thus know what they are talking about?

And I haven't?

You have the choice and you will keep it. If you don't want KDE4, stay with KDE3. No one is forcing you to use KDE4! So it's *you* that's making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Except that we keep hearing the SuSE people saying that they're going to push KDE4 as the default version -- which makes it a hassle for anyone who wants a STABLE, COMPLETE version of KDE. Especially if you're upgrading several offices full of computers. It's one more operation (and possible skip by mistake) to do which shouldn't be needed in the first place. Don't break what's working. This is worse than the online update problem from last year... because that time, nobody had a clue that it didn't work. THIS time, we *DO* know that KDE 4 isn't fully working, and buggy at that. And it's a lot harder to come up with a work-around for a broken desktop than a broken online updater.

Philipp

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

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Mon, 19 May 2008 19:11:16 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

...

Again...would someone PLEASE put an ***ADULT*** in charge of the SuSE 11.0 release,

Ah, and it's perfectly adult behaviour to insult people?

When they're spewing lies about the readiness of KDE 4, then yes, those aren't insults, they're accurate descriptions.

...

Stefan are NOT mature enough to make the crucial decisions regarding this release.

But of cause you would be?

I never made such a claim. So stop with the red herrings.

...

You're just DETERMINED to make KDE4 the default KDE version on SuSE 11.0

KDE4 is *not* the default! You get to choose between KDE4, KDE3 and GNOME and Novell/SuSE gives no recommendation. So from where do you take your statement?

I make it on the basis of the SuSE personnel who post on this list, who have CLEARLY indicated, repeatedly, over the last several months, a determination to make KDE 4 the default (or heaven forbid, ONLY) version of KDE in the 11.0 release. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention.

...

Wake the f*** up.

Once again, very nice display of adult behaviour. Don't you see that you're discrediting yourself all on your own?

The non-SuSE personnel on this list who are having their valid criticisms ignored have no doubt about who is discrediting himself and who is not.

Philipp

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

Philipp Thomas wrote:

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:30:21 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

...

I make it on the basis of the SuSE personnel who post on this list, who have CLEARLY indicated, repeatedly, over the last several months,

I am reading this list and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Well then, you obviously haven't been subscribed to this list very long, and therefore, you're coming in on the end of a several months' long conversation on the subject.

How about installing the current beta on an extra partition and see for yourself? After that, I'm open to discuss the matter again. Reacting on hearsay is a bad choice indeed.

What makes you think I haven't.

...

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention.

Rest assured I did.

Really. Tell us about the problems which were discussed in February, and the assurances that KDE 4 would be ready by the time 11.0 was released, despite the fact that huge tracts of basic functionality are still missing. And lets not forget the frequently crashing Konsole. If you can't even rely on something as simple as Konsole to not crash...how anyone can pronounce that all of the other bugs will (not hopefully..."WILL") be sorted out in only a few months' time with any sort of credibility.

...

The non-SuSE personnel on this list who are having their valid criticisms ignored

Insulting people isn't valid criticism.

If an accurate characterization is insulting, then perhaps the person being characterized ought to improve themselves instead of continuing with the problematic behavior.

Philipp

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

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:53:40 -0400, Sam Clemens wrote:

Well then, you obviously haven't been subscribed to this list very long,

Like for ten years if you also count its predecessor suse-linux-e?

What makes you think I haven't.

If you had, you wouldn't have told we would be making KDE4 the one and only desktop for openSUSE 11.0.

Tell us about the problems which were discussed in February, and the assurances that KDE4 would be ready by the time 11.0 was released,

And lets not forget the frequently crashing Konsole.

Funny, my workstation is running Beta3 and I've not noticed a crashing konsole.

If you can't even rely on something as simple as Konsole to not crash...

If you call a terminal emulation with konsole's features simple, you simply have *no* idea what you're talking about and there's no use in discussing with you.

If an accurate characterization is insulting,

No, but I call using four letter words insulting. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 12:53:40 Sam Clemens wrote:

Tell us about the problems which were discussed in February, and the assurances that KDE 4 would be ready by the time 11.0 was released, despite the fact that huge tracts of basic functionality are still missing.

And lets not forget the frequently crashing Konsole.

I'm using KDE4 and KDEPIM4 here at home everyday. I find it nicer to use than KDE3 and KDEPIM3 and yes there are some things missing but I would hardly say there was "huge tracts of basic functionality" missing. In fact, Konsole does not crash for me at all and I use it a lot. Konqueror still has some annoying bugs but most of the one's I've wanted to raise have already been in bugzilla. I can read my email, schedule things in the calendar, read my rss feeds, play my music, compile my programs, connect to work and even change the way my desktop looks without virtually no hassles. So what's missing? And no, I'm not associated with Novell at all. If you want a rock solid production desktop spend the less than a hundred NZ dollars for a SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop subscription. If you don't want a cutting edge desktop install Gnome or KDE3. Or just install KDE3 from SUSE 11 until you think KDE4 is ready. My 10c worth (afraid it's the smallest denomination we have here in NZ) -- Regards Scott Newton -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 13:41:09 Sam Clemens wrote:

Scott Newton wrote:

...

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 12:53:40 Sam Clemens wrote:

...

Tell us about the problems which were discussed in February, and the assurances that KDE 4 would be ready by the time 11.0 was released, despite the fact that huge tracts of basic functionality are still missing.

And lets not forget the frequently crashing Konsole.

I'm using KDE4 and KDEPIM4 here at home everyday. I find it nicer to use than KDE3 and KDEPIM3 and yes there are some things missing but I would hardly say there was "huge tracts of basic functionality" missing. In fact, Konsole does not crash for me at all and I use it a lot. Konqueror still has some annoying bugs but most of the one's I've wanted to raise have already been in bugzilla. I can read my email, schedule things in the calendar, read my rss feeds, play my music, compile my programs, connect to work and even change the way my desktop looks without virtually no hassles. So what's missing? And no, I'm not associated with Novell at all.

If you want a rock solid production desktop spend the less than a hundred NZ dollars for a SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop subscription. If you don't want a cutting edge desktop install Gnome or KDE3.

KDE 3 is not bleeding edge.

I did say if you do not want....

Now...if you have a business with a small shop, and he decided to try SuSE 11.0, and doesn't happen to have a SuSE *expert* there when he does it....and he chooses to use the KDE desktop, what sort of experience is he going to have?

If it's a business and he really wants to ensure that what he is running is rock solid and stable then he should be paying the tiny amount that Novell asks and be using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Desktop and not openSUSE. (Same as RedHat would say don't use Fedora). If he wants to do it on the cheap then he needs to do his own research and decide what he wants to use. Even with Windows you have to decide which of the 2 XP or 7 Vista flavors you want.

Its not like your business users really give a fuck about transparency effects and other hollywood-ish special effects... they just want a RELIABLE COMPUTER WITH SOFTWARE THAT WORKS THAT DOESN'T CRASH

Have you ever worked in the software industry? You sell systems by providing "effects" that make the managers think it's brilliant even it's not. One of the companies I use to work for had a good solid system with generally better functionality than the companies we were competing against but we often lost deals because we didn't have the flash-whizz-bang effects of the other systems. Eventually we put them in even though from a business perspective they were completely useless just so that we ended up on the short list...

KDE 4 is getting there...but it's NOT THERE YET.

And neither is Vista but it doesn't stop Microsoft selling it... :-) At least you have the choice with openSUSE about what you want to install. Even if it's Gnome :-) Anyway, I'm going back to my hole now as I have work to do. -- Regards Scott Newton -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Scott Newton wrote: [pruned]

Have you ever worked in the software industry? You sell systems by providing "effects" that make the managers think it's brilliant even it's not. One of the companies I use to work for had a good solid system with generally better functionality than the companies we were competing against but we often lost deals because we didn't have the flash-whizz-bang effects of the other systems. Eventually we put them in even though from a business perspective they were completely useless just so that we ended up on the short list...

...

KDE 4 is getting there...but it's NOT THERE YET.

And neither is Vista but it doesn't stop Microsoft selling it... :-) At least you have the choice with openSUSE about what you want to install. Even if it's Gnome :-)

The one thing I cannot fathom is why people always have to bring up the M$ product(s) in their argument(s) when discussing the inadequacies of a Linux distro. such as openSUSE? Doing so is akin to what Godwin's Law states. Always comparing Linux distros against M$ 'merde' is by default admitting that M$ is somehow a "standard" - which it isn't - against which everything under the sun has to be compared and evaluated. Ciao. -- Vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate persons. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Andreas Jaeger wrote:

Sam Clemens writes:

...

This is EXACTLY the sort of KDE4 at any cost mentality that I've been complaining about KDE4 is ****NOT**** even Beta...Even the KDE website still calls KDE4 ***ALPHA***-grade software, and yet, dunderheads like you, stefan, insist on foisting it on new users as ready for production use.

Sam, did you install Beta3 and see the options listed there for the desktops?

If not:

...

SHAME ON YOU!

;-)

Andreas

Andreas, you should know more than anyone else that when people install a new release - and especially if they are new to the distro because they have heard good things about it - that they do not read closely what appears in front of them on the screen. Install the damn thing while the adrenalin is flowing! They see something called KDE4, which is placed ahead of KDE3, so they choose KDE4 ahead of KDE3. Reading that KDE4 is not as "mature" as KDE3 does not register - OK, openSUSE is stating that it is kinda of a dog's breakfast compared to KDE3 but openSUSE has placed it here so they consider it OK to install otherwise openSUSE wouldn't have put it here....... (Gnome? Oh, yeah...Gnome, the one with the big funny footprint.... Forget it! KDE (Russian, and similar languages, meaning, "Where"). Better than the black footprint thingie so let's go with KDE which many people have mentioned.) If you want to pursue your argument about seeing what the options the user sees concerning which desktops are available to install then put KDE4 under the Optional and leave the selectable options in 11.0 as in 10.3, that is as Gnome, KDE (ie, KDE3), and Optional until such time as KDE4 is "mature" enough to have its own separate entry as a serious desktop in the main list of selectable desktops. Ciao. -- Vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate persons. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

G T Smith wrote:

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Basil Chupin wrote:

I do not think that sparking off a desktop religious war is terribly helpful at this point. (Especially, with some of the other fireworks going off around this issue).

If KDE4 is moving toward a 'user friendly' == 'dumbing down' path I am among those not interested. I used to choose KDE over Gnome mainly because Gnome tended to be rather counter intuitive to use and ugly to look at, but I always felt that KDE tried too hard at being a poor mans Windows clone, (and I was never a particular fan of the Post 3.x systems).

KDE started out being based on the principles of CDE, which is re-named HP-VUE. A major improvement over CDE, however, was putting minimized processes in the task bar instead of on the desktop like in CDE/HP-VUE. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 21:57:13 Washington Irving wrote:

G T Smith wrote:

...

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Basil Chupin wrote:

I do not think that sparking off a desktop religious war is terribly helpful at this point. (Especially, with some of the other fireworks going off around this issue).

If KDE4 is moving toward a 'user friendly' == 'dumbing down' path I am among those not interested. I used to choose KDE over Gnome mainly because Gnome tended to be rather counter intuitive to use and ugly to look at, but I always felt that KDE tried too hard at being a poor mans Windows clone, (and I was never a particular fan of the Post 3.x systems).

KDE started out being based on the principles of CDE, which is re-named HP-VUE. A major improvement over CDE, however, was putting minimized processes in the task bar instead of on the desktop like in CDE/HP-VUE.

And the whole lot was started by something IBM called the Presentation Manager. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John wrote: [snip]

One thing I will say about kde4. For some reason the desktop looks even more beautiful. I have no idea why. Desktops are an art form.

It really shouldn't be forming part of a major release yet though. From the little bit I've seen it's going to get bad press before it's even ready for release.

If the analysis is honest, yes it will! As has been said often of late, if kde4 ships without ALL of the functionality of kde3, INCLUDING ALL of the admin. tools and settings, then IMHO, it will fail - miserably and painfully. And, under those conditions it should!! Fred -- Linux is an old Latin word meaning, "I don't have to support your Windows anymore." -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 21 May 2008 12:29:39 G T Smith wrote:

John wrote:

...

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 21:57:13 Washington Irving wrote:

...

G T Smith wrote:

...

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Basil Chupin wrote:

I do not think that sparking off a desktop religious war is terribly helpful at this point. (Especially, with some of the other fireworks going off around this issue).

If KDE4 is moving toward a 'user friendly' == 'dumbing down' path I am

You mean becoming part of the 21st century? The days of working in a little black box date back more than 30 years. While some enjoy entering mystical

My first contact with a GUI was with SunTools on SunOS in mid 1980s. A few years DOS based systems started acquiring a number of GUI and CUI windowing interfaces (remember GEM, Windows 2.0 etc ), Windows 3.x/OS 2 moved the goal posts somewhat.. (Even vaguely remember writing a CUI myself at some point)... current GUI is really a 20th Century technology... there is a need to innovate beyond current GUI constraints.. and I do not mean by adding more eye candy...

There are things that current GUIs are useful for and things they are bloody useless at. It is looking at the MMI to present the interaction for the latter tasks in more comprehend-able and flexible manner which is more important (not the pretty pictures).

...

...

...

among those not interested. I used to choose KDE over Gnome mainly because Gnome tended to be rather counter intuitive to use and ugly to look at, but I always felt that KDE tried too hard at being a poor mans Windows clone, (and I was never a particular fan of the Post 3.x systems).

Having no alternative other than working proffessionally with windoze I just

You have my sympathy...

...

can't view kde as a poor relation. It isn't. It's a much richer working environment that also offers the same conveniences. A user can make use of these or just use it. It's also lead the way on occasions.

That is a matter of opinion and I have no real desire to get to involved in a desktop religious war... KDE is a Curates egg, 'good in parts' there are KDE based tools I regularly use and others I never touch in preference to other options...

The main problem with the later GUIs is the very narrow and limited interaction framework, you either do it the way GUI writers say you do it or go through hoops to get it to do what you want to do, the way you want to do it. Not useful.. If KDE4 is going down this road I am not going to be making much use of it... Never was much of an enthusiast for the original MacOS environment for similar reasons...

There was a lot of very innovative work in the Xerox labs on 3D interactive interfaces in the 80s and 90s which were intended to help people work more effectively, that never seems to have been more generally adopted... (I am still unconvinced that wobbly windows, revolving cubes, and see through windows improve peoples productivity)...

...

Gnome on the the other hand has a very windoze attitude to the users and an interesting user interface

???

...

One thing I will say about kde4. For some reason the desktop looks even more beautiful. I have no idea why. Desktops are an art form.

Try out Enlightenment (16 or 17)....

...

It really shouldn't be forming part of a major release yet though. From the little bit I've seen it's going to get bad press before it's even ready for release.

John

-- =========================================================================== === I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

Bjarne Stroustrup =========================================================================== ===

All true but isn't time that bash had a change for the 21st century. Trying to effectively do that through a desktop would seem to be the only way - cock eyed as it is. There is also at least one stupid ommission. Try using ksearch with 10 to 20 gig on machine. Try uncompressing a password protected file too. No glamour in that area so no work. My view may be a bit unusual. I started writing software in the late to mid 60's storing things on paper tape. I've seen a lot come and go/rise and fall. companies, languages and os's too. I also have a thing about microshaft. Gates just doesn't know how lucky he was when ibm decided to use msdos. Intel too but that's another story. Both aspect were a long way short of state of the art at the time. Basically msdos had a similarity to cpm. From that view point I've seen what many would regard as garbage spread across the world. (and have had to use it) One of the reasons I run linux and kde is I did have hopes that linux might do something about the situation and open things up more. It wont while the mystical incantations into the black box mentality hangs around. That always reminds me of something I might do myself badly with a mix of ked,code and batch files. Times have moved on a lot since then. Having spent some time commercial hacking I can well understand why gui people have fun. I agree that rotating boxes and shimmering windows are a bit useless but can't be annoyed with them coming up with and trying gimics. Plus as I said in some respects desktops are an art form. People may as well have something nice to look at while they are working and what's wrong with mouse pushing. Never be as quick as short cut keys but it takes all sorts. Software developers should remember that a PC is just a tool to the majority of people. All people really. In some respect the black box is a little bit like choosing to saw wood with a blunt badly bent saw. Only a relatively few people are going to want to get into that and only a few will and only if they are desperate. Fine for earnings from support but useless in terms of increased use of what over all is a very attractive system. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 10:14:04 Basil Chupin wrote:

Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

Sam Clemens writes:

...

This is EXACTLY the sort of KDE4 at any cost mentality that I've been complaining about KDE4 is ****NOT**** even Beta...Even the KDE website still calls KDE4 ***ALPHA***-grade software, and yet, dunderheads like you, stefan, insist on foisting it on new users as ready for production use.

Sam, did you install Beta3 and see the options listed there for the desktops?

If not:

...

SHAME ON YOU!

;-)

Andreas

Andreas, you should know more than anyone else that when people install a new release - and especially if they are new to the distro because they have heard good things about it - that they do not read closely what appears in front of them on the screen. Install the damn thing while the adrenalin is flowing!

They see something called KDE4, which is placed ahead of KDE3, so they choose KDE4 ahead of KDE3. Reading that KDE4 is not as "mature" as KDE3 does not register - OK, openSUSE is stating that it is kinda of a dog's breakfast compared to KDE3 but openSUSE has placed it here so they consider it OK to install otherwise openSUSE wouldn't have put it here.......

(Gnome? Oh, yeah...Gnome, the one with the big funny footprint.... Forget it! KDE (Russian, and similar languages, meaning, "Where"). Better than the black footprint thingie so let's go with KDE which many people have mentioned.)

If you want to pursue your argument about seeing what the options the user sees concerning which desktops are available to install then put KDE4 under the Optional and leave the selectable options in 11.0 as in 10.3, that is as Gnome, KDE (ie, KDE3), and Optional until such time as KDE4 is "mature" enough to have its own separate entry as a serious desktop in the main list of selectable desktops.

Ciao.

-- Vulgar language is the linguistic crutch of inarticulate persons.

Wow. I'm amazed by the way my thread has gone. Maybe I should add some facts. 10.3 isn't exactly the latest release. The 10.3 installer seems to assume things rather than actually check and installs in different ways each time it runs.. While it can clearly cope with intel soft raid it gives grub some garbage that it can't cope with and even reports the discs twice. I started on 10.3 64bit. Not exactly the latest release and find that some kde4 is thrusted on me like it or not. So far all of those elements I've come across have problems. Especially around the area I would call the task bar but apps too. I'm told that I can still run 32 bit software during installation and find that this aspect is extremely limited. There doesn't seem to be a fix especially as the installer insists on going for 64bit and does as a last ditch attempt offer 32bit but then finds it can't install it. Bit late in the day. 10.3 has a updater bug that's been around for some time. Downloaded dvd's still include it and the web fix doesn't work. A manual Yast update does fix it. Sort of localises the problem. Lastly if I had payed for this as I usually do I would be annoyed. Very annoyed. Opensuse is the only desktop suse offer. I have also noted various snips on this thread by people from suse. It tends to bury the salient facts rather quickly and is against the etiquette that suse themselves suggest. It's rather clear why that person does that. They would be better employed joining the party and passing over information to people who are in a better position to do something about it rather than making comments which are bound to cause near flame war behaviour. If anyone want to try kde4 I would strongly advise wubi or a spare partition. Much easier to get rid of. You will quickly find it has problems, the desktop look great and that there is a very very limited number of applications available. (That's why ubuntu's updater is so quick). Could be that suse is chasing ubuntu and hope to rattle their box of discs shouting me too me too. Ubunto is a very young distro and has a lot to learn. While it looks to be the only linux about at the moment I don't think that will last. I suspect that much of it's success is down to gnome in any case.The world doesn't need another ubuntu. All a bit sad really because 10.1 kDE could compete on a better than even footing with windoze. Not so 10.3 or 11 by the look of it. Some distro's with up to date kernels aren't even offering it. John PS Playing with virtualbox I finished up with gnome. (By default) Oh dear I thought because it isn't as flexible as kde. I loaded the kde bit's an pieces and all of the usual things were there, some not installed in menu's. Tried gksudo for graphical root work and it didn't work. Kdesu does though. Makes one wonder. A too early major release of KDE4 is likely to harm KDE. Makes me wonder if Gates etc has major stock holdings in Novell :) and will wreck gnome later. They really are playing into his hands. A 10 point something or the other would have been a much much better route to pursue. They clearly know nothing what so ever about niche markets. Just look what happened to netware. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 20 May 2008 04:54, Ken Schneider wrote:

Andreas Jaeger pecked at the keyboard and wrote:

...

Sam Clemens writes:

Do you remember who wrote the book "Tom Sawyer". I think his pen name was Samuel Clemens.

No. Samuel Clemens was his birth name. Mark Twain was his pen name.

Does that name look familiar here? Hmmm. I wonder if Aaron plans on using Tom Sawyer next as his identity?

I think Aaron prefers the current association with a guy who was notorious for his failed get-rich schemes over the association with a clever and adventurous person who understands human nature.

-- Ken Schneider

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

Basil Chupin wrote:

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

...

On Friday 09 May 2008 17:48, John wrote:

...

True windoze takes a long time to install but hardware drivers are always available. Not so with linux.

Sadly enough, that's true in many cases. But it's the hardware makers who are to blame if they don't provide drivers or at least specifications how the hardware works so Open Source developers can write drivers.

If the know-how of a piece of hardware is mostly in the (Windows) driver, they won't open that stuff up, so Open Source developers have to rely on reverse engineering to get anything working. Many inkjet photo printers and other kinds of hardware fall into that category.

So whom do you blame for this?

Thanks for reminding me.....

I have an HP Photosmart 8450 printer and it was correctly recognised and configured in v10.3.

Now in 11.0 (B1 and B2) it is no longer recognised and there is no longer a driver for it. Why?

Who to blame for this?

If it was an open source driver, then there's always a driver for it, though it might not be included with later distros. If so, go back & get it from the earlier version and recompile if necessary. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John wrote:

what ever else they want. True windoze takes a long time to install but hardware drivers are always available.

nope. and if they are not you are stuck. Many people have to run XP when they bough Vista - for example my GPS (walk) drivers don't work under vista and wont ever work (no maker web site)... and the gps is only one year old.

Dual booting or virtual machines are also a required evil for many users. Take me for instance I have an active interest in astronomy and telescopes. Not well supported under linux plenty of oss and other types available under windows. Windows oss is a rapidly growing area.

yes and dualbooting is also require because windows is so unstable and unsecure I wont use it for web or mail, so I have to run Linux :-)) however I have better run windows on virtualbox with linux host and windows guest than the other way round. (I use windows for video and games :-)) jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Per Jessen wrote:

John wrote:

...

There is also a bit of oss snobbery concerning closed source drivers eg Samsung printers and why can't for instance nvidia drivers be maintained surely the give the interface away freely.

If the interface and the specs are freely available, someone will write the driver, I guarantee it. Chances are they're not - at best they're available under a severe NDA with promises of death and destruction if it is violated. The graphics card people tend to be very tightlipped.

And idiotically so. It's not like there's any great mysteries about how to do graphics. Even 3D graphics was fully specified in the late early 1970's, including changing point of view, and everything you could imagine having to do with ray-tracing (the math behind ALL of it is expressed completely in a handful of equations.)...and the more modern things like "textures" are hardly a secret. The DirectX API pretty much reveals any and all advancements. (the graphics card makers WANT DirectX to have functions which use whatever new capabilities the graphics card makers come up with). -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John wrote:

On Friday 09 May 2008 15:46:30 jdd sur free wrote:

...

Daniel Bauer wrote:

...

On the other hand it is really *not* easy to get a computer running with openSUSE. wery bad wording... "a computer" don't mean anything today. I installed dozen of openSUSE with no problem at all or nearly.

...

Whatever I try to install, I have to search google, forums, mailing lists... for hours and hours. what do you mean? You can have console only (minimal) openSUSE running on most harware in 1/4 hour. even Kde in 3/4 hour.

Can you have a hauppauge Win-TV-card running and a

...

webcam too? No. It took me days to find out. then you have problem with special hardware. This is bad (I know I have the same card, I not even tried to run it with Linux :-)

...

And I absolutely don't wonder why people stay with Windows or Mac. Linux is still just too complicated for people who have other hobbies than tinkering with computers. do you actually have to install windows machines? I do and find this much more difficult than Linux *as soon as the hardware is not uptodate*

reistalling any windows takes *weeks*

...

*If* openSUSE once is up and running it's great, but not every one can invest weeks on testing, searching, frustration Anybody here (or may be I'm wrong?) knows that the hardware makers are mostly superbly ignoring Linux, and this is the problem.

Of course, there are always things to do.

In fact, make us a gift: you have got a valuable experience about hardware, write it down on the wiki like you did here, this can be a life saving for other... thanks

jdd

-- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org

I think there is often a bit of missunderstanding in this area. Some people use linux for work others (like me) use it at home as pc os plus kde and what ever else they want. True windoze takes a long time to install but hardware drivers are always available. Not so with linux. There is also a bit of oss snobbery concerning closed source drivers eg Samsung printers and why can't for instance nvidia drivers be maintained surely the give the interface away freely. The community should be glad they make the effort. Samsung for instance undated a clp500 driver for me in 3days after I complained that it no longer worked.

And what's equally stupid is the hardware makers wrongly thinking that people go to the store to buy their drivers, and that there's some rational business need to keep the interface a secret.

Dual booting or virtual machines are also a required evil for many users. Take me for instance I have an active interest in astronomy and telescopes. Not well supported under linux plenty of oss and other types available under windows. Windows oss is a rapidly growing area.

As usual, the Windows crowd gets to the party 30 years late.

John

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

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

John escribió: True windoze takes a long time to install but

...

hardware drivers are always available. Not so with linux.

Please read this http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/linux_driver_project_status-2008-04.html

very interesting text. shows at least something: there is a great vocabulary gap between kernel developpers and street users... for me (a not too new linux user), I see a "driver problem" when some sort of hardware don't works, or don't works out of the box. For example, my Acer 9410Z laptop have a mike entry unusable with Linux and google said this is normal, the driver don't support it. is that not a problem (for me it's a big one!)? The "capslock" dead key *light* don't works under Kde! (works under raw console!) special keys (wlan, blutooth) don't works either of course this is of little importance, but when somebody installs openSUSE, it sucks... so, yes, there is a *reporting* problem, needs some sort of bugzilla... jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Cristian Rodríguez wrote:

I assume you opened bug reports in order to fix that right ? otherwise is yet another useless rant.. ;-P

it's not a rant, just an example. and I open many bugreports, can't do all myself :-( jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:42 AM, Sam Clemens wrote:

Daniel Bauer wrote:

...

On Friday 09 May 2008 15.01:48, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

...

On Friday 09 May 2008 13:24, John wrote:

...

I have had several really bad days getting this machine up and running. Rough history is as follows. Any comments?

Yes. Rants won't get anybody anywhere. If you are interested in getting problems fixed, writing bug reports is a much better approach.

Somehow you are right.

On the other hand it is really *not* easy to get a computer running with openSUSE. I am with Suse since 8.x (with tries since 7.x), so not really unexperienced - and (i guess & hope) not the most stupid user. I know quite a lot about programming (started with COBOL decades ago, do a lot of SQL and php stuff...), but installing openSUSE sometimes really meets my limits.

What bizarre hardware are you using that this is so difficult? I've been using SuSE since the 6.x days, and it's always been a breeze.

He told you he started with COBOL, so maybe that's a hint... ;-) (I can tease Daniel, because I started with Fortran, but spent the bulk of my career doing COBOL). I've had a couple installs that were difficult, but not with 10.3. -- ----------JSA--------- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 May 2008, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

On Friday 09 May 2008 13:24, John wrote:

...

I have had several really bad days getting this machine up and running. Rough history is as follows. Any comments?

Yes. Rants won't get anybody anywhere. If you are interested in getting problems fixed, writing bug reports is a much better approach.

CU -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany

There seems to be a lot of people these days that seem only capable of giving very useless one or two line sarcasms instead of constructive answers and suggestions , Maybe it is time some staff at suse were cycled to somewhere that sarcasm is appreaciated instead of somewhere where helpfull suggestions and answers are to be expected . not carping just stating facts thats are becoming all to common .. Pete . -- SuSE Linux 10.3-Alpha3. (Linux is like a wigwam - no Gates, no Windows, and an Apache inside.) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 May 2008 16:47:44 Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

On Friday 09 May 2008 16:56, peter nikolic wrote:

...

There seems to  be a lot of people these days that seem only capable of giving very useless one or two line sarcasms instead of constructive answers and suggestions , Maybe it is time some staff at suse were cycled to somewhere that sarcasm is appreaciated  instead of somewhere where helpfull suggestions and answers are to be expected .

Ah, what a warm feeling of helpfulness for the original poster I can sense in such a reply...

Please elaborate in what way your answer helps the OP to get his problem fixed. I don't seem do understand it.

We'd all like to have a completely bug-free Linux distribution that will not fail on any possible combination of hardware and installation scenarios. But obviously, we will only get near this ultimate goal when people cooperate.

And we have tools and procedures for that. For bugs, our tool is Bugzilla. This helps to organize things in a way so efficient work on those issues is possible. It keeps the status of issues, there is a well-defined way to relegate them to whatever maintainer is responsible, and they are documented for the future.

Do you think the same goal can reasonably be achieved by posting failure stories (intermixing facts, fiction and feelings at the same time) to a mailing list?

Try it. Not once (that's easy), but providing a sustained level of support. Then let's discuss how successful this approach was after a while.

CU -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany

If you feel that posting this as a bug will help I will do that but I don't think it is a bug as such. Also I should point out that what I have stated is fact. There isn't any fiction there at all. Try a google of "grub error suse". Something really aught to have been done about it. This mailing list is for technical aspects - again sorry if it sounds like a rant. On the comment about warm feelings I expect the author is well aware that many other people have had similar experiences - and thoughts too. Actually I have no intention of updating again - I need a rest and will at some point sort out the grub install myself. I would hope that my next update will go more smoothly. I have 2 hardware raids on my machine, one uses a redundant array. The installer had no problem at all with those or the sound,video much usb and other things on a fairly high end 64bit PCI X board - it's just sad that it was incapable of getting the on board sata stuff correct especially as that was a bit crucial in this case. My machine layout may seem a bit strange but the throughput seems to excellent and why should I throw the sata discs away. More basic machines with 2 drives running windoze are very likely to be using the sata that way in any case. John (also a Penguin by conviction - despite the problems) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

peter nikolic wrote:

Yes aggreed but half assed 2 line sarcastic coments do nothing to assist al all suggestions of where to look to extract the info wanted on the other hand WOULD help a lot it might take more time to type in than 2 line sarcasm but the result is more aggreable

Peter, your own barely readable ramblings hardly contribute to anything at all. I think you need to take a good look at yourself first before you go attacking someone else with your foul language.

Example 11b2 has an problem the problem leaves NO TRACE in ANY LOG hence noting to report how do i put that on bugzilla

Just like that. The person investigating the issue will specify what diagnostics he or she requires. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2008-05-09 at 20:46 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

peter nikolic wrote:

...

Yes aggreed but half assed 2 line sarcastic coments do nothing to assist al all suggestions of where to look to extract the info wanted on the other hand WOULD help a lot it might take more time to type in than 2 line sarcasm but the result is more aggreable

Peter, your own barely readable ramblings hardly contribute to anything at all. I think you need to take a good look at yourself first before you go attacking someone else with your foul language.

+1 - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIJMlNtTMYHG2NR9URArpKAJ9UMZP70U8hqGEVpKx6kgMoNeZjkwCggguk Gf+nq46LJrhYCOHkkd3Eic0= =Hvj5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

On Friday 09 May 2008 13:24, John wrote:

...

I have had several really bad days getting this machine up and running. Rough history is as follows. Any comments?

Yes. Rants won't get anybody anywhere. If you are interested in getting problems fixed, writing bug reports is a much better approach.

Stefan, you obviously don't understand the British mind. It is one of "keeping a stiff upper lip" all while making reference to some understated suffering. Yes, this comment was OT. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 May 2008 15:14:01 Per Jessen wrote:

John wrote:

...

Disks were fake raided which caused the installer to give grub something it couldn't cope with. All files were correctly installed. I unraided them and suse still insisted it was a raid disk.

How do you define "unraid" ? You probably didn't change the partition types.

I think the only problem I've had with 10.3 and RAID is that it create the RAID superblock with a version that is incompatible with LILO - there's a bug report on that. Maybe it applies to GRUB too?

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Right at the end it noticed a home directory with my user name and changed the ownership for me. Fine in this case but what if it had been 10.0.

AFAIR, it doesn't do that automatically. You have to say "yes, please" and click a button. Yes it did ask however if it had been 10.0 I would have wanted to retain the files for importing emails etc - most easily done by copying the lot into a

I split the discs and reset the bios to none raid etc. 2 problems in this area. The raid array causes a calculation error in grub. Plus intel must mark the disc in some way and do not clear it when the raid is split to separate discs in the bios so the installer just carries on setting up for raid and listing the discs separately. Only way I could fix that was by using bootfix in nt. My xp cd is early so newer ones might not even have the facility. I think the real problem here is that grub can't be getting correct disk information. directory. It didn't want to format my home partition as it was already ext3. It should be easy to spot linux formatted partitions with data on them.

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Out of interest a number of people on the web seem to think that ntldr is the way forwards.

The internet has room for all kinds :-)

Maybe so but some of them are actually sensible. I think that they actually may mean something that run in an ntfs or fat partition might be a sensible solution. Wubi for instance uses grub4dos. I would too but I have the impression that it may not run on a ntfs disk. Documentation is scant.

/Per Jessen, Zürich

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

John wrote:

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How do you define "unraid" ? You probably didn't change the partition types.

I split the discs and reset the bios to none raid etc.

I think we're having a terminology issue here - splitting the disks sounds like something one does with a chisel and a hammer? :-) Now that you mention the BIOS, I'm wondering what kind of RAID you really used - does your motherboard have its own RAID facility? Using that is very often asking for trouble. When you said "fake RAID" I took it to mean "Linux MD RAID", but if this is something you've set up in the BIOS, all bets are off IMHO. Think you have missed the point - I came to the conclusion that suse just wouldn't accept intel ich7 soft raid so I disabled it completely and suse still insisted on trying to raid it and Grub still threw errors. Actually I wouldn't be at all surprised if the the linux io available at boot is

On Friday 09 May 2008 18:13:50 Per Jessen wrote: perfectly capable of handling ich7 raid - the only problem being the data passed to grub by the install.

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Out of interest a number of people on the web seem to think that ntldr is the way forwards.

The internet has room for all kinds :-)

Maybe so but some of them are actually sensible.

In this case, only if you also use Windows. I gave that up with W2K. I don't know what ntldr is nor does, but I'm doing fine with lilo.

:) I haven't used XP for maybe 2 years and hardly used it for a lot longer than that but there is some software that wine can't cope with that I will need to run at times. Given the recent addition of ext3 drivers for xp it may also be useful for other things too. I have it, I payed for it, I may as well install it. I won't be buying vista. (I might when dated oem discs get cheap but having used it I don't like it.) Should also point out that I would like to see linux being used by more and more people. Hence my rant aspect. I can't help it. The problems I have outlined are enough and have put a lot of people off. That is a bit sad to say the least. Also the fact that it will cause suse to slip. Sad it was THE rock solid desktop software installation and may still be but how can people find out about that if they can't install it on truly common hardware. John

/Per Jessen, Zürich

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Per Jessen" To: Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 1:13 PM Subject: Re: [opensuse] Suse 10.3 install - oh dear John wrote:

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How do you define "unraid" ? You probably didn't change the partition types.

I split the discs and reset the bios to none raid etc.

When you said "fake RAID" I took it to mean "Linux MD RAID"

Why would you think that? Google fake raid. It means the type of raid that is neither purely software nor purely hardware. It's when the bios of a motherboard or firmware of a drive controller (same thing) povides just enough hooks for a boot loader or kernel that knows how to use that particular fake-raid controller to get started booting. It does not actually perform any raid work though, the real work is all done in software similarly to "linux md raid" except it usually has to take place right within in a drive controller driver, not as a seperate layer on top of any drive conroller driver the way md raid works. It's called fakeraid because the box simply says it's a raid controller, same as real raid cards, yet it performs almost no raid functions itself. FreeBSD has support for some controllers that do this, And linux did for a while in 2.4, but it was dropped in 2.6 The recommendation is to always disable the raid feature in any fake-raid controllers and use the controller as a plain controller, and do any raid using md raid. You lose a few hardware-raid capabilitis and features that way, such as having the raid present one virtual disk which can have partitions and mbr within the raid volume, and booting directly from a raid 0/10/5/50 etc.. But the benefits are * kernel developers don't waste time duplicating effort in multile places (md raid, plus in various fakeraid drivers) * you don't get stuck trying to use a buggy raid driver that wasn't implimented as well as some other driver or isn't being maintained as well. * md raid components can be assembled and used any where any time on any kind of drive, any kind of controller, any kind of driver, after any kind of backup or imaging backup & recovery. You don't need the original controller or driver or even the type of drive in order to access data saved from failed hardware. -- Brian K. White brian@aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR +++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++. filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2008-05-09 at 16:46 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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Traditionally a separate boot partition is a good thing, and more so in special cases like raid or lvm. I'm not surprised that the installer asks for one.

I think the requirements for having a separate /boot partition have mostly gone away. LILO used to have a limitation that meant /boot had to be within the first 1024 cylinders, but AFAIK that was lifted long ago. I also used to setup a separate /boot partition, but I've recently stopped doing that. My machines are all RAID1 only, though not necessarily software RAID.

Hardware raid is different: if it is real hardware raid, it is completely transparent to the software. For software raid, the kernel and modules needed to access the raid have to be accesable before the system is running and the raid itself mounted. If it is raid 1 it could be possible to read it directly, as each side is complete. But if it is raid 5, that is not the case: thus I believe you need a separate /boot for raid 5, and I think I read it was necessary for LVM, too. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIJGe+tTMYHG2NR9URAri7AJ9K+VhJzh+G5iDvTyPh0eWl+Qj3KQCaAvSE hsst7uJUdql1sAd03duQDhA= =I9cD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 May 2008 18:07:43 Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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For software raid, the kernel and modules needed to access the raid have to be accesable before the system is running and the raid itself mounted.

Yes, they're in the initrd.

/Per Jessen, Zürich

I have a problem with that comment. Windoze for instance has no problem at all booting - I assume it uses the intel bios maybe at a reduced performance level. Maybe even the board bios itself. Suse 10.0 also had no problems at all with the same drives again with an intel on board soft raid. Also I don't see how windoze can have loaded the drivers before it has booted. The suse 10 install did point out that the current kernel didn't support the discs and that it might not work but it did. Sounds like the kernel people decided to ignore these boards even though there are a huge number on the planet. My impression though is that my initial problems were entirely down to grub getting data that caused numerical errors. Subsequent problems being caused by intel not reseting the discs once the raid was removed, and suse getting it's knickers in a twist. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Friday 09 May 2008 19:22:17 Brian K. White wrote: snip>

2.4 kernels had the ability for a while to to make use of the fake-raid hooks in the bios to boot (the way FreeBSD still does, and Windows.) That is exactly the purpose and the definition of fake-raid, to provide just enough ability to get started without actually doing any raid work in the bios or firmware.

That support was dropped in 2.6

Doesn't make sense? Agrevates you? Welcome to Linux.

-- Brian K. White brian@aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR +++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++. filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk!

Good question. I've been with linux since suse 9.3 and have been welcomed to linux many times. I put my professional hat on. It leaves me feeling contempt. It's a very bad decision. Why - software production is aimed at an end users. The more the merrier also hopefully making them happy or even better happier people. There is clearly a lot of motherboards about with intel soft raid on. The software interface is likely to be fairly stable and is also very likely to migrate upwards in a sane way. It must provide a soft interface for booting other wise nothing would run on it. Even windows. And that must apply to any raid level it supports. The same facilities will be available on any soft raid board. If it differs from the intel soft interface it doesn't deserve support and is likely to fall by the wayside in any case. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they use the same bios calls that have been around from PC day 1 as that will give upwards compatability. Secondly still with the same hat on there is a kernal patch available for intel ich7 but as the kernel people decided to drop what ever they were using it can't be used as the system will not install. I would hope they weren't using a hook as there will be a perfectly usable interface in the bios. Finally. Why should ASUS carry on supplying it or intel bother writing it in the first place. Hat off. I think this is a common problem for oss in some areas. People do things because they want too. Some areas are more glamorous than others and there is this apparent challenge aspect and the need to change things etc. A more rational approach would be to avoid re inventing the wheel unless there is no alternative. That it's not oss is not a valid reason for re invention. That it's pay for is. In my field we are sometimes asked / reminded to think about customers expectations. It can have a dramatic effect on change. Just what would you expect to be able to do when upgrading a machine for instance. eg It took some time for kmail to add an import facility from it's previous incarnation. The developers offered several other imports and must have thought that no one would ever use it or upgrade it again. Out of interest my suse 9.3 was bought and came with a support phone number. I used it to register and found that they couldn't support a bog standard intel mother board. The person was very apologetic pointing out that they really should be able to support a board like that. We even had a conversation about using bios calls for boot and maybe the initial parts of installation. I was given a couple of tips and 9.3 installed cleanly without them. It's all a bit sad. There has allready been a comment about the various orgs talking to each other. I could go on. From the other posts there is a language problem and I think some lack of understanding. An interface to me might be a piece of software, hardware registers or even a keyboard. John -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2008-05-09 at 19:07 +0200, Per Jessen wrote:

Carlos E. R. wrote:

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For software raid, the kernel and modules needed to access the raid have to be accesable before the system is running and the raid itself mounted.

Yes, they're in the initrd.

Of course. But if that file resides on a raid 5 which perhaps grub can not read... - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.4-svn0 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIJJEotTMYHG2NR9URAvqnAJ4k/tOCmka1abtcu29d68Zm4ClY0wCdGYri Il1Q72Suhbae/6tdr21C7OA= =Vjnx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org