It will be really nice if 11.2 implements an easier way of installing restricted multimedia codecs than that exists currently. The current way of doing it via one-click installation is somewhat more complicated than ubuntu's codec installer. In my opinion, the entire process could easily be done via a script that runs a terminal showing a warning about the usage of restricted codecs requiring user-interaction, then calls zypper to add the Packman repo and installs/updates the required multimedia packages from that repo. Of course there may exist several better ways than what I suggest, but it would be worthwhile to explore methods of installing codec support that make it much easier for a complete newcomer. In any case this is probably one of the first things a home user does, so the ease with which it can be done does influence his/her opinion about the distribution somewhat.
On 09/07/30 12:08 PM, Atri wrote:
It will be really nice if 11.2 implements an easier way of installing restricted multimedia codecs than that exists currently. The current way of doing it via one-click installation is somewhat more complicated than ubuntu's codec installer. In my opinion, the entire process could easily be done via a script that runs a terminal showing a warning about the usage of restricted codecs requiring user-interaction, then calls zypper to add the Packman repo and installs/updates the required multimedia packages from that repo. Of course there may exist several better ways than what I suggest, but it would be worthwhile to explore methods of installing codec support that make it much easier for a complete newcomer. In any case this is probably one of the first things a home user does, so the ease with which it can be done does influence his/her opinion about the distribution somewhat.
What is hard about one-click? Click, enter password and keep clicking next until done. With the exception of the password people have been doing this for decades on other OS's. Having someone drop to cli to run a script is completely backwards.
Dean Hilkewich
On Friday 31 July 2009 00:09:48 Dean Hilkewich wrote:
On 09/07/30 12:08 PM, Atri wrote:
It will be really nice if 11.2 implements an easier way of installing restricted multimedia codecs than that exists currently. The current way of doing it via one-click installation is somewhat more complicated than ubuntu's codec installer. In my opinion, the entire process could easily be done via a script that runs a terminal showing a warning about the usage of restricted codecs requiring user-interaction, then calls zypper to add the Packman repo and installs/updates the required multimedia packages from that repo. Of course there may exist several better ways than what I suggest, but it would be worthwhile to explore methods of installing codec support that make it much easier for a complete newcomer. In any case this is probably one of the first things a home user does, so the ease with which it can be done does influence his/her opinion about the distribution somewhat.
What is hard about one-click? Click, enter password and keep clicking next until done. With the exception of the password people have been doing this for decades on other OS's. Having someone drop to cli to run a script is completely backwards.
Dean Hilkewich
I totally agree with the one-click procedure, no problems with that. But we should at least make the one-click link easy to access. In the present implementation one is lead through a series of links and choices before one can actually 'one-click' the installer that does the job. Also the one-click installer leads to conflicts sometimes which require user-interaction, and not of an easy kind at all, for somebody new. So it is not just as easy as clicking next as long as done. I hope it were. With zypper as far as I understand, you can set a repo priority and use the non-interactive mode to achieve the above results without requiring user-interaction. The script can finally remove the repo, or leave it as it is.
I don't think this is the way ahead too, but if one is to stick to the one- click installer it would be important to make the one-click install link easier to access. Or perhaps there might be better ways of doing this than either of these. My point is: this feature of the distribution targets newcomers specifically and as such requires considerable improvement.
Thanks and bye
2009/7/30 Atri badshah400@aim.com:
On Friday 31 July 2009 00:09:48 Dean Hilkewich wrote:
On 09/07/30 12:08 PM, Atri wrote:
It will be really nice if 11.2 implements an easier way of installing restricted multimedia codecs than that exists currently. The current way of doing it via one-click installation is somewhat more complicated than ubuntu's codec installer. In my opinion, the entire process could easily be done via a script that runs a terminal showing a warning about the usage of restricted codecs requiring user-interaction, then calls zypper to add the Packman repo and installs/updates the required multimedia packages from that repo. Of course there may exist several better ways than what I suggest, but it would be worthwhile to explore methods of installing codec support that make it much easier for a complete newcomer. In any case this is probably one of the first things a home user does, so the ease with which it can be done does influence his/her opinion about the distribution somewhat.
What is hard about one-click? Click, enter password and keep clicking next until done. With the exception of the password people have been doing this for decades on other OS's. Having someone drop to cli to run a script is completely backwards.
Dean Hilkewich
I totally agree with the one-click procedure, no problems with that. But we should at least make the one-click link easy to access. In the present implementation one is lead through a series of links and choices before one can actually 'one-click' the installer that does the job. Also the one-click installer leads to conflicts sometimes which require user-interaction, and not of an easy kind at all, for somebody new.
There could be legal implications if openSUSE included a link/script to the codecs in the distro itself. Right now these 1-Click links are hosted in http://opensuse-community.org (not related to the openSUSE project).
And the codecs 1-Click link doesn't always work because the 1-Click tech itself has problems that need someone with time to volunteer to work on it... some of the problems need work also in ZYpp/repository metadata format. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-08/msg00012.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-12/msg00001.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2009-07/msg00000.html
Not sure if yast-pkgbindings, that 1-Click uses, still selects different packages than zypper (and IMHO zypper is the one doing the right thing, others do wrong).
Fredag den 31. juli 2009 00:06:44 skrev Cristian Morales Vega:
2009/7/30 Atri badshah400@aim.com:
I totally agree with the one-click procedure, no problems with that. But we should at least make the one-click link easy to access. In the present implementation one is lead through a series of links and choices before one can actually 'one-click' the installer that does the job. Also the one-click installer leads to conflicts sometimes which require user-interaction, and not of an easy kind at all, for somebody new.
There could be legal implications if openSUSE included a link/script to the codecs in the distro itself. Right now these 1-Click links are hosted in http://opensuse-community.org (not related to the openSUSE project).
And the codecs 1-Click link doesn't always work because the 1-Click tech itself has problems that need someone with time to volunteer to work on it... some of the problems need work also in ZYpp/repository metadata format. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-08/msg00012.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-12/msg00001.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2009-07/msg00000.html
Not sure if yast-pkgbindings, that 1-Click uses, still selects different packages than zypper (and IMHO zypper is the one doing the right thing, others do wrong).
Having (tried) to maintain multimedia YMPs myself, I gave it up and instead I suggest people to install the packages manually with yast or copy/paste a couple of zypper commands.
The biggest problem with 1-click is YaST being too anal about arch change (libxine1 from i586->i686) and vendor changes, and in case of conflicts it'll ask the user to manually select a solution - whereas zypper will suggest a solution by itself and simply ask if the user wants to accept or not.
I actually know people who are not big fans of the command line - but when seeing conflicts - resort to zypper instead of yast, because of the different conflict resolution approach (yes/no question vs. manually solve X number of conflicts).
This is not only a problem in case of multimedia btw., but in many cases, I think the YaST conflict dialog should adopt the behaviour of zypper - wonder if this would be a bugreport or a feature request.
On Friday 31 July 2009 13:51:56 Martin Schlander wrote:
Fredag den 31. juli 2009 00:06:44 skrev Cristian Morales Vega:
2009/7/30 Atri badshah400@aim.com:
I totally agree with the one-click procedure, no problems with that. But we should at least make the one-click link easy to access. In the present implementation one is lead through a series of links and choices before one can actually 'one-click' the installer that does the job. Also the one-click installer leads to conflicts sometimes which require user-interaction, and not of an easy kind at all, for somebody new.
There could be legal implications if openSUSE included a link/script to the codecs in the distro itself. Right now these 1-Click links are hosted in http://opensuse-community.org (not related to the openSUSE project).
And the codecs 1-Click link doesn't always work because the 1-Click tech itself has problems that need someone with time to volunteer to work on it... some of the problems need work also in ZYpp/repository metadata format. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-08/msg00012.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-12/msg00001.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2009-07/msg00000.html
Not sure if yast-pkgbindings, that 1-Click uses, still selects different packages than zypper (and IMHO zypper is the one doing the right thing, others do wrong).
Having (tried) to maintain multimedia YMPs myself, I gave it up and instead I suggest people to install the packages manually with yast or copy/paste a couple of zypper commands.
The biggest problem with 1-click is YaST being too anal about arch change (libxine1 from i586->i686) and vendor changes, and in case of conflicts it'll ask the user to manually select a solution - whereas zypper will suggest a solution by itself and simply ask if the user wants to accept or not.
I actually know people who are not big fans of the command line - but when seeing conflicts - resort to zypper instead of yast, because of the different conflict resolution approach (yes/no question vs. manually solve X number of conflicts).
This is not only a problem in case of multimedia btw., but in many cases, I think the YaST conflict dialog should adopt the behaviour of zypper - wonder if this would be a bugreport or a feature request.
I agree with you completely. One-click installation is alright if you are installing a new-package with limited dependencies but if you are trying to upgrade packages coming from a different repository or having complicated dependency behaviour it is quite a different story. That is why I think it will be way more easier if a script calling zypper does this for the user instead of him having to wade through a maze of links before he finds a link for one-click installation that might or in all probability might not work.
Bye
On Friday 31 July 2009 03:36:44 Cristian Morales Vega wrote:
2009/7/30 Atri badshah400@aim.com:
On Friday 31 July 2009 00:09:48 Dean Hilkewich wrote:
On 09/07/30 12:08 PM, Atri wrote:
It will be really nice if 11.2 implements an easier way of installing restricted multimedia codecs than that exists currently. The current way of doing it via one-click installation is somewhat more complicated than ubuntu's codec installer. In my opinion, the entire process could easily be done via a script that runs a terminal showing a warning about the usage of restricted codecs requiring user-interaction, then calls zypper to add the Packman repo and installs/updates the required multimedia packages from that repo. Of course there may exist several better ways than what I suggest, but it would be worthwhile to explore methods of installing codec support that make it much easier for a complete newcomer. In any case this is probably one of the first things a home user does, so the ease with which it can be done does influence his/her opinion about the distribution somewhat.
What is hard about one-click? Click, enter password and keep clicking next until done. With the exception of the password people have been doing this for decades on other OS's. Having someone drop to cli to run a script is completely backwards.
Dean Hilkewich
I totally agree with the one-click procedure, no problems with that. But we should at least make the one-click link easy to access. In the present implementation one is lead through a series of links and choices before one can actually 'one-click' the installer that does the job. Also the one-click installer leads to conflicts sometimes which require user-interaction, and not of an easy kind at all, for somebody new.
There could be legal implications if openSUSE included a link/script to the codecs in the distro itself. Right now these 1-Click links are hosted in http://opensuse-community.org (not related to the openSUSE project).
And the codecs 1-Click link doesn't always work because the 1-Click tech itself has problems that need someone with time to volunteer to work on it... some of the problems need work also in ZYpp/repository metadata format. http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-08/msg00012.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2008-12/msg00001.html http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-softwaremgmt/2009-07/msg00000.html
Not sure if yast-pkgbindings, that 1-Click uses, still selects different packages than zypper (and IMHO zypper is the one doing the right thing, others do wrong).
Hi! I do not know about the legal ramifications in precise detail. Since one can already subscribe to the Packman repository (this contains the restricted codecs) quite easily from within the distribution without so much as a warning being displayed, I would think it would be alright to add the repository by a script that calls zypper after it shows in red bold letters the disclaimer that you are about to install community codecs. I think something similar is done in Ubuntu, whereby the codec-installer enables community maintained multimedia repositories after showing a disclaimer. But then again, I do not know if that might create a problem licence-wise.
What I understand is that one-click is not as easy as it sounds if you are trying to install restricted codecs since it invariably leads to package conflicts and requires user-interaction at a level that might be scary for a new user. zypper on the other hand handles such conflicts better and is a really great tool. Most of us who are familiar with the software installation procedure in openSUSE use zypper anyway for installing restricted-drivers. With suitable use of the non-interactive mode the process could be made truly one-click easy.
Bye
On Fri, 31 Jul 2009, Atri wrote:
I think something similar is done in Ubuntu
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Gerald
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Atri -
Cristian Morales Vega -
Dean Hilkewich -
Gerald Pfeifer -
Martin Schlander