July 2009 - openSUSE Features - openSUSE Mailing Lists

[openFATE 306902] Scripts by the users
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 15 Nov '10

15 Nov '10

Feature added by: Jan Gerrit Marker (JanGerritJose) Feature #306902, revision 1 Title: Scripts by the users openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Neutral Requested by: Jan Gerrit Marker (jangerritjose) Description: There some problems which could be solved easily by shell scripts (like deleting plasma-appletsrc if something is wrong with plasma). But nobody knows it and suddenly there are 10 questions about problems with Plasma in 10 forums which all could be fix by deleting plasma-appletsrc. There could be a webinterface where users could upload their scripts. There would be a description of the actions of the script and the problem, they try to fix. Users could use a YaST module to search for a script which fixes the problem, download it and execute it. There could be a voting system about the scripts: solved the problem fast, not so fast, did something wrong and so on. To ensure that the scripts don't destroy the system there could be two categories: "Tested", "Untested". Trustable openSUSE-Members could move the scripts from "Untestes" to "Tested". Or, if there are a lot of good votes for the script, the script would be moved automatically. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306902

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[openFATE 306666] Complete remove-install-update with zypper
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 15 Nov '10

15 Nov '10

Feature added by: James Carter (jimc_uclamath) Feature #306666, revision 1 Title: Complete remove-install-update with zypper openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: James Carter (jimc_uclamath) Description: This is a feature request for zypper-1.0.9-0.1.1 in OpenSuSE 11.1. Obviously the improvements would go into a future SuSE release. In my use case, I have 0.5 FTE to spend on system administration of about 120 researchers' workstations and compute nodes running OpenSuSE. My goals involving zypp in order of frequency of occurrence are: apply security patches; install or remove software according to particular research groups' needs; deploy new machines that have no OS on the disc; and upgrade every 18 months to a new distro version. To accomplish these tasks I need to minimize hand labor in package management. What am I trying to accomplish in package management? Software which is not wanted on a machine should be removed if present, and software which is wanted should be installed if absent, plus dependencies, or upgraded to the latest patch version. I suspect that quite a lot of SuSE users, not just me, would like a package management program which could enforce a locally created pattern, automatically removing, adding and updating packages as needed. Back in SuSE 8.2, rug and zypper/libzypp being in the future, I wrote a perl script to make these goals happen. When zypper first came out I investigated it but found it lacking; the lack of a "dry run" (-D) switch precluded testing. But now with the 64bit x86_64 architecture, and with dependencies involving components and version relations, my script is not flexible enough. I again investigated zypper. With the features now present, specifically the -D (dry run) switch, zypper can now do part of my job if shepherded by a lot of supporting scripting. I would like to list features which would make it useful for the whole job. 1) In rare but important cases we need to blacklist or "hold back" updates. Debian has this feature, and even Microsoft Windows can do it. 2) Zypper should have a "negative removal" mode, that is, rather than listing all the packages you want to remove, you list all the packages you want to keep. Zypper will add all their dependencies, and the non-listed packages (including their exclusive dependencies) will be removed. (My new script uses kludge techniques with rpm, not zypper, to do this calculation, but it's hard and time-consuming, 0.125 second per installed package, to deal with dependencies.) 3) Zypper should have an option to be silent about packages already installed. In other words, you list all the packages you want on the machine, and it installs the missing ones, if any. My new script excludes installed packages from the list of wanted packages before feeding the remainder to zypper, but zypper internally could do this much more neatly. 4) I assume that if I take a back-version machine and trick zypper into orienting on a new distro version, it will recognize that a new version is available for every package and take action accordingly. The distro version (and architecture: changing i586 to x86_64) should be selectable on the command line. 5) The YaST installer downloads a package, then installs it, then repeats. (Or perhaps downloading and installation are smartly overlapped.) Zypper should do the same thing, not requiring disc space for every affected package at the same time. To check that all packages can be downloaded, it can do HEAD requests at the start. There should also be a command line option to not be anally retentive about missing packages: if a transient failure prevents downloading, always retry the package (and those requiring it) later, and if the failure is permanent, install as much as you can, don't die on the spot like zypper presently does. 6) Zypper should install packages in dependency order, so if a failure interrupts the process the machine has no missing dependencies, even if wanted packages are missing. I don't know if zypper already does this. The YaST installer, which I assume is based on libzypp, is seen to install aaa_base kind of in the middle of the set of packages, which leads me to bring up this point. 7) Zypper should have options to remove, install or replace packages itself like it does now, but it should also be able to emit a list or table of affected packages that can be postprocessed before installation or removal. For removal this would be package full names; for installation it would be URLs in the repositories (with an option for plain file names instead of file:/// URLs); for updates both items are needed. It would help in a lot of postprocessing situations if you could optionally ask for the package basenames to be prepended as another field; e.g. if the full name is "zypper-1.0.9-0.1.1" the basename is "zypper". Also helpful in setting up the list of wanted packages would be a separate table of dependency relations, e.g. when the output says "AA BB" it means that package AA is required by package BB. Machine readable format is important; you might make an option to pick tabular output or English texts. In my new script to get dependencies I do "rpm -e --test $pkg" and then parse the English output, which is a crock, takes a lot of time, and is unreliable if you ever "improve" the texts. 8) Wherever a list of thousands of packages or URLs can appear on the command line, zypper should also be able to read these from a file. If either kind of list turns up with zero packages, zypper should shut up and install each of them, same as if one or more packages are on the list. 9) Likely zypper already determines the product, version and architecture from /etc/SuSE-release, but there are so many variants of the first line that it's a crock to parse it. Presently you give "VERSION = 11.1" in the second line (with blanks); I would suggest also giving the PRODUCT and ARCH, and without blanks so in a shell script one can do eval `grep '=' /etc/SuSE-release` rather than dumbly using "tr" to make the blanks go away. 10) Likely it is possible to use the Python binding of libzypp to easily write a wrapper script that easily does all of the above requests. (I prefer Perl; can we have that language binding also?) However, I was not able to find documentation to even get started, i.e. to specify the repositories and a list of packages. So my new script reeks of kludges and fails to use zypper (libzypp) for the most important steps. My final request is for documentation on libzypp that I can use for projects of this kind. Related FATE tickets: * 300758 (../300758) : Show orphan packages (rejected in v11.1). Also 306627 (../306627) , a duplicate with a better use case description. * 302159 (../302159) : Only download packages (rejected in v11.1). Just give me the list of URLs; I'll download them on my home DSL connection, distribute on the home net, and then do rpm -F *.rpm. * 305634 (../305634) : Distro version upgrade from the command line using zypper. Hear, hear! My old script could do this. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306666

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[openFATE 306504] LiveCD: Migrate LiveCD desktop settings to installed system
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 08 Nov '10

08 Nov '10

Feature added by: Jakub Rusinek (liviopl) Feature #306504, revision 1 Title: LiveCD: Migrate LiveCD desktop settings to installed system openSUSE-11.2: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Jakub Rusinek (liviopl) Description: After successful installation, when finishing session, user should be asked to migrate his settings to the installed system. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306504

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[openFATE 306475] modify Firefox' plugin finder service to search and install from openSUSE repos
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 08 Nov '10

08 Nov '10

Feature added by: Wolfgang Rosenauer (wrosenauer) Feature #306475, revision 1, last change by Title: modify Firefox' plugin finder service to search and install from openSUSE repos openSUSE-11.2: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Wolfgang Rosenauer (wrosenauer) Description: Firefox' plugin finder service searches for missing plugins at mozilla.org and can't provide useful things usually for Linux. The plugin finder service should be improved to know about plugins available for openSUSE and should invoke an installer on request. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306475

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[openFATE 306443] change parted to use Hardware suggested sectors per track
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

Feature added by: Dean Giles (dgiles) Feature #306443, revision 1, last change by Title: change parted to use Hardware suggested sectors per track openSUSE-11.2: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Dean Giles (dgiles) Description: parted creates partitions which are automatically assigned 63 sectors per track. Hardware, such as HP raid devices, advertise that they want 32 sectors per track. It advertises that through ioctl HDIO_GETGEO. fdisk can utilize the hardware reported sectors per track. parted needs to be changed to do the same. See bug # 501152. Dean -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306443

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[openFATE 306641] Manage flickr from the openSUSE Desktop
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 04 Nov '10

04 Nov '10

Feature added by: Karl Eichwalder (keichwa) Feature #306641, revision 1 Title: Manage flickr from the openSUSE Desktop Hackweek IV: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Karl Eichwalder (keichwa) Description: For a short into, see http://en.opensuse.org/Flickr -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306641

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[openFATE 306975] Sort list of in windows domain membership
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 04 Nov '10

04 Nov '10

Feature added by: Todd R (TheBlackCat) Feature #306975, revision 1 Title: Sort list of in windows domain membership openSUSE-11.2: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Todd R (theblackcat) Description: Currently, in the windows domain membership module, when you try to join a domain you are given the option to enter a username and password and to select the Machine Account Organization Unit from a list. This list is provided in no apparent order. At the very least it is not sorted by the name of the organizational unit. This may be fine if there is only a small number of them, but for a large institution there might be hundreds, maybe even thousands. It takes a lot of time to search through ever single item on the list to find the one you belong to. I think it would be much easier if the list was sorted alphabetically by the name of the organizational unit, ideally the leaf organizational unit if there is a heirarchy since users may not know that higher nodes their organizational unit belonds to. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306975

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[openFATE 306925] Adjust Colors of the Default Desktop Wallpaper
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 04 Nov '10

04 Nov '10

Feature added by: Rafael Allende (jeaserve) Feature #306925, revision 1 Title: Adjust Colors of the Default Desktop Wallpaper openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Rafael Allende (jeaserve) Description: In GNOME, the color of the default desktop theme and the colors of the default wallpaper do not fit. Especially look at the title bar of the active window. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306925

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[openFATE 306759] Include video editing software - Kdenlive
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 04 Nov '10

04 Nov '10

Feature added by: Glenn Doig (doiggl) Feature #306759, revision 1 Title: Include video editing software - Kdenlive openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Desirable Requested by: Glenn Doig (doiggl) Description: Include video editing software. >From the website - http://kdenlive.org/ Kdenlive is an intuitive and powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies. Our software is completely free, in all sences of the expression, as defined by the GNU foundation (http://www.gnu.org/) . Using Kdenlive is investing in a community driven project, which aims to establish relationships between people in order to built the best video tools. Other - http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7413/ -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306759

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[openFATE 306473] Support KDE initiative to build a brand together
by fate_noreply＠suse.de 04 Nov '10

04 Nov '10

Feature added by: Klaas Freitag (kfreitag) Feature #306473, revision 1, last change by Title: Support KDE initiative to build a brand together openSUSE-11.2: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Mandatory openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Mandatory Requested by: Klaas Freitag (kfreitag) Description: Please carefully read http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/06/building-brand-together.html Aaron suggests to start combined efforts up- and downstream to create a strong brand for FOSS. Aaron outlines the overall goal: "The desired result is the ability to build a visually identifiable F/OSS desktop brand together , one that fits nicely with your brand as well. This way people can continue to say, "Oh hey, that's $COMPANY $NAME Linux" while giving the human population half a chance to build a relationship with F/OSS itself as a visually identifiable thing.In short: the goal is to increase our net effect in the market by working together." For that, the KDE project is starting to offer a service that helps creating a brand that is fine for both openSUSE and the KDE project. I think we should be an early adoptor here. -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/306473

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