Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3605 mails)

[Clayton <smaug42@xxxxxxxxx>]

> THIS is to me the best thing about 'smart --gui':  To see what's
> been added since the last time you did 'Update channels':  View ->
> Hide Old, plus  View -> Expand All

OK.. hadn't tried that - see.. like I said, I was missing the obvious.
Maybe because the menu item is named completely opposite to what a
new user would expect.  Instead of "Hide Old"... wouldn't "Show New"
make more sense?  I know that in tests I've done with new users they
were totally baffled by the interface of Smart-gui (as compared to
Synaptic where they bopped aorund with no trouble at all).


>     If there is an installed version, a window will open allowing you
>     to see the version of the to-be-upgraded package is.  I 'Cancel'
>     if all I wanted was to compare, not upgrade.

Hmm.. Ok, but yet again... BAD useability in this application!  That's
totally backwards.  A user should never have to start an installation
process to find out what he/she already has, and then have to cancel
it :-(


>  -  Otherwise:  click on 'Find packages', type in the search name,

That works great when you know what you're looking for :-)  And if you
want to compare a bunch of packages.. oiy... does anyone have that
kind of time to sit there and futz arond with searches on each package
they want to compare?


>  -  If you've marked packages for installation, View -> Summary will
>     show you a change summary window, whose content can be expanded
>     to show the version of the installed packages being upgraded.

That's very helpful once you've selected everything.


> This is to me the WORST thing about the "new way of doing things".
> Back in SuSE 9.3 the location of most repositories was simple -

Yup.  Everyone has told me that Smart is teh way forward, that it's a
much better tool etc etc etc.  I've yet to see it.  Well... what I can
see is that Smart speaks to many different repositories - which is a
good thing, but in terms of useability, it falls down flat.  I'm not
interested in CLI either.  I have to support SUSE on a whole bunch of
desktops which users who are completely new to Linux.  I am NOT going
to turn them loose on the CLI.  The GUI tool must work, and they must
be useable... Smart works... but for usability it gets a 2 out of 10.


> Now I simply DO NOT KNOW where in the world 3rd party repositories
> are to be found (especially the "new format" ones) !!

Well... the first place I look for this is on teh opensuse.org site...
http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories
http://en.opensuse.org/Package_Repositories
Gives you _SOME_ repositories.  I've added everythign there is for
10.1, and I have about half (or maybe less) of what was available in
the Apt repositories for 10.0.  For example, where are the KDE updates
to 3.5.3????  I can't find them... and I don't have a clue yet where
to look.

I'm OK with taking steps backwards to improve things.  Hey, look at
some of the messes we had with early 9.x stuff... I'm really trying to
see the good in the move to ZEN and SMART, but... it's just not
jumping out at me.

Well... ZEN works (now)... as an updater tool, and I'm kind of
indifferent to it vs YOU.  As long as the critical updates are applied
and done easily - which in that respect ZEN is no different than YOU -
I'm good with that.  But... in terms of package management???  Man I
hope there's some planned improvements coming!


C.

.

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