[opensuse-project] More bad PR from Novell
So I have to rush out, but once again, some Novell PR guys have done it again. This time it's from Bruce Lowry, who druid was in correspondence with precisely about this issue! He appeared to understand the problem and said that they're working on changing that. Nevertheless, directly from his blog http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=326 we have: * "openSUSE is targeted at the technical enthusiasts who want a cutting-edge distribution to sample the latest and greatest Linux technology." I'm quite angry again so I won't email him straight away; perhaps later. :) Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, May 03, 2007 at 08:28:26AM +0100, Francis Giannaros wrote:
Yes, please do. There were btw internal mail exchanges with Justin Steinman regarding the last article too, so I hope we are clarifying it the role of openSUSE to our marketing people. ciao, Marcus --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Hi Francis, On Thursday 03 May 2007 09:28, Francis Giannaros wrote: proper communication. Michael
I'm quite angry again so I won't email him straight away; perhaps later. :)
Kind thoughts,
-- Michael Löffler, Product Management Email: michael.loeffler@suse.de Phone: +49 911 74053-376 SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nürnberg SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10 Your Linux is ready http://www.novell.com/linux SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On May 03, 07 08:28:26 +0100, Francis Giannaros wrote:
So I have to rush out, but once again, some Novell PR guys have done it again. This time it's from Bruce Lowry, [...]
Bruce cannot be an expert on every topic although his job is to write about all topics. I wonder if we could establish some internal proofreading for his articles. cheers, Jw. -- o \ Juergen Weigert paint it green! __/ _=======.=======_ <V> | jw@suse.de wide open suse_/ _---|____________\/ \ | 0911 74053-508 (tm)__/ (____/ /\ (/) | __________________________/ _/ \_ vim:set sw=2 wm=8 SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) "Oral agreements are worth about as much as the paper they are written on." --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On 5/3/07, Juergen Weigert <jw@suse.de> wrote:
Naturally I (and many others) wouldn't care if it was some trivial topic, but let's face it: even from an abstract point of view, the purpose of this thing called openSUSE, which Novell has a huge amount of engineers working on, is a pretty important fact to know if you're gonna be in Novell PR. I'm almost finding it a little too curious to really think that this is "just a mistake". What makes the situation even more curious though is that Druid contacted Bruce about this very issue! (Since Justin had mentioned something very similar). Bruce replied to that email on the 25th, the blog post was made on the 26th. Now, he seemed to be very understanding when we last contacted him, and in general understood the problem. So he either didn't understand at all, or is just ignoring us altogether :). Anyhow, no point waiting here to find out -- I'll email him now. His other blog post <http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=331> is making me wonder if there's bad PR again, or if openSUSE really is a serious project to Novell. :( Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Il giorno gio, 03/05/2007 alle 12.46 +0100, Francis Giannaros ha scritto:
It's quite clear. They're interested in putting OEM SLED on enterprise desktops. I don't know why we should force Novell to say what it doesn't want to say. OpenSUSE was marketed with these slogans: - "All what you need to _start_ with Linux", which means you've something to try to experience Linux. - "Linux for techies and enthusiasts" I (almost) never heard Novell stating openSUSE is a production distribution or it's stable, reliable and such. Their position seems quite clear to me. They want to do their business with Linux, and openSUSE is a development lab. Regards, Alberto --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On May 03, 07 14:06:48 +0200, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
But I know one simple reason: I don't want my employer to annoy the very people we depend on. Anything that is ``a little too curious to really think that this is "just a mistake".'' is no good. cheers, Jw. -- o \ Juergen Weigert paint it green! __/ _=======.=======_ <V> | jw@suse.de wide open suse_/ _---|____________\/ \ | 0911 74053-508 (tm)__/ (____/ /\ (/) | __________________________/ _/ \_ vim:set sw=2 wm=8 SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nuernberg) "Oral agreements are worth about as much as the paper they are written on." --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Il giorno gio, 03/05/2007 alle 14.21 +0200, Juergen Weigert ha scritto:
What's annoying is not Novell saying "OpenSUSE is for geeks and enthusiasts", but the ambiguity. I can be happy with both decisions of openSUSE as a development lab (fedora style) or as a more versatile but still stable distribution than the enterprise line. What is important is to be _honest_ with the users. Regards, Alberto --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
I personally believe openSUSE is the community distribution for Novell, and its for everyone that's not an enterprise (as in, home, home offices, enthusiasts, geeks, everyone that SLED isn't targetted to....) Last time I checked, its pretty darn stable as a distribution (specially 10.2!) On 5/3/07, Alberto Passalacqua <alberto.passalacqua@tin.it> wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Den Thursday 03 May 2007 17:07:57 skrev Justin Haygood:
Last time I checked, its pretty darn stable as a distribution (specially 10.2!)
This would be a nice time to have the results of the survey that was supposed to end a few days ago :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 03 May 2007 18:14, Martin Schlander wrote:
Michael
-- Michael Löffler, Product Management SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstraße 5, 90409 Nuremberg SUSE LINUX Products GmbH - Nürnberg - AG Nürnberg - HRB 16746 - GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 03 May 2007 11:07, Justin Haygood wrote: problems that arose from that new technology i.e. the new gnome and kde interfaces, and the updater issues. If opensuse wants to target the soho\ homeuser then lets have an LTS version, lets gold master 10.2 without the zenupdater , with gnomebaker, with wireless drivers and their instructions and support it for 3 years like Ubuntu. Other wise it really isn't for the first timer to have to struggle with drivers and codecs and updators and looking for everyday applications and then in 18 months have to update it by reinstalling everything to continue to get security updates. Wireless configuration support and the network manager are still unstable especially when registering to the customer center during installation and lots of people don't rewire their homes, they buy a wireless router and wireless cards and pay someone to set it up or call Dell to walk them through it. Are we ready to compete with that ? No , i don't think so , we would need that 900 system in place, we would need the update.opensuse.org to be set up as the default update channel in yast( even if registering fails) and have it redirect to other mirrors, we would need software.opensuse.org to be the default application source for add-ons (like the multiverse) and a support.opensuse.org forum\KB to even exist. These things are all being discussed and worked on but we can't put the cart before the horse and start extolling the virtues of our distro to the homeuser, when in reality we the enthusiast are the only ones that can make it all work with a little guidance from friends in obscure places like the irc forums. Some one needs to start consolidating the places we get help from on an intuitive location like "support.opensuse.org" because the masses are used to the host domain having these kinds of pages. our front page is difficult to navigate because the things homeusers are looking to find aren't what we look for when we go there, even software.opensuse.org has changed recently and it is obscure even to me how to search for packages in the different repos. I was looking to see if we had a 10.2 package for NBD and had to go to google to find it on opensuse.org, this is unacceptable to the novice. So that novice goes looking for a click and run distro like Ubuntu. No our structure is still to immature to sell it to the homeuser masses, therefore I agree with Justin and Bruce and Ted, opensuse is the techies version. -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Novell CNE 3\4\5 CLE \ NCE in training. http://en.opensuse.org/education --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 James Tremblay wrote:
What "new GNOME and KDE interfaces" ? KDE 3.5.6 ? The new start menus ?
It's not because Ubuntu does an "LTS" that it is the best nor the most viable model. Canonical has still everything to prove wrt their support. Furthermore, LTS is not free, nor is SLED. Actually, if it's a desktop you're after, SLED is less expensive than Ubuntu LTS. And, at the very least, the SUSE engineers have proven their capabilities in the past wrt support, which is not yet the case for the few full-time employees of Canonical.
If feature-stability and long lifetime is what you're looking for, buy SLED for a few bucks. If you want evolution, new features, improvements, go for openSUSE. But that doesn't mean it has to be "beta-quality", unstable nor anything else.
Sure but that's not any different from other Linux distributions. openSUSE is pretty good wrt hardware detection and easy of installation IMO. Blame the wireless card vendors, they're making an awful mess out of chipsets, incompatible devices with the same model number, closed specs, etc...
The build service repositories (software.opensuse.org) just contain too much software -- having it split up into many repositories as now is the right model. You wouldn't want experimental xorg73 packages to show up in the same repository as the latest Firefox package. update.opensuse.org makes sense though.
support.opensuse.org forum\KB to even exist. These things are all being
http://suseforums.net/ http://suselinuxsupport.de/ http://opensuse.us/
IRC "forums", "obscure" ?
File bugs for those suggestions, give feedback to the web designers of the site when they make a proposal on the list (but not hidden in a large post on this list ;))
there, even software.opensuse.org has changed recently and it is obscure even to me how to search for packages in the different repos. I was looking to see
True, it's still lacking a lot on the end-user interface, but efforts have been concentrated on the packager side of things up to now (which is even more important in the first place). Hopefully there will be some sort of interface for users soon. As for finding packages, Benjamin Weber's webpin is currently the best option.
Ubuntu is no "click and run distro", it's by no means easier to set up and use than openSUSE. The only thing that's better with Ubuntu is the package manager. Idealizing Ubuntu as being perfect and not having any issues is ridiculous.
Not to say there aren't a lot of things to improve, but it isn't a "techies version" more than SLED nor Ubuntu nor Fedora nor ... cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGOsTOr3NMWliFcXcRAni9AJ9oTozkG7Vddd7kuwCyK632LwwHrgCgq7Ry oBUb/GKfHSHbYOwg6Aq6fe0= =8cYl -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Il giorno ven, 04/05/2007 alle 07.29 +0200, Pascal Bleser ha scritto:
The buildservice might be good from a developer point of view, but for a user it's just a mess and it's not easily accessible. As I was discussion on IRC with Benjamin, at least a yast integrated interface to add-remove the various repositories would be necessary to make the buildservice accessible to the users.
File bugs, make reports...if only they were read and not skypped just because things are supposed to work...
Ubuntu is a lot closer to being click and run than openSUSE in the current state. In synaptic you enable the repositories you need, search for the packages and install them. In openSUSE you've to look for the repository, add it and then install. If you're lucky and you know webpin it's fairly easy, but still not at the ubuntu level.
Not to say there aren't a lot of things to improve, but it isn't a "techies version" more than SLED nor Ubuntu nor Fedora nor ...
As said, ubuntu doesn't require to: - remove zmd and to clean and rebuild the package manager database. - add at least 3 additional repositories (graphics cards, packman, guru) to have a fully working system. - remove the main menu (in GNOME) because it leaks 300MB in hours. - hope in a never coming patch for the default audio player (I know there's amarok, that there are patches on buildservice and such...still not the point for a user friendly distribution). Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
Right, that's pretty much what I said ;) It's becoming really cool for "developers" (packagers, actually), but there hasn't been much effort put into the end-user interface yet.
That would be very nice, indeed. But there again, it's two different approaches/cultures: - - some want to have lots of packages and lots of latest versions - - others prefer a more conservative approach and try to stick with what the distribution ships (tried&tested)+online updates It has to be clear that packages provided as part of the openSUSE Build Service are "bleeding-edge", at least compared to the ones shipping with the distro. Of course, it also depends a lot on the package and its nature: I've been very happily using the latest Apache, PHP and similar packages from the oBS, but the latest X.org is a totally different story. It's definitely not _that_ easy as it might sound.
When things like that happen to bugs you've filed, poke AJ about it, he's the project manager ;) (Andreas, sorry for the spam ;))
The differences are 1) the ease with which you can add a repository 2) Ubuntu comes preconfigured with a list of disabled additional repositories you just need to enable... ? whereas on openSUSE you have to find them in the first place 3) Ubuntu cannot come with a list of preconfigured repositories that contain package that might infringe patents in some countries -- same situation as for Novell -- either they don't, same as openSUSE for Packman or Guru, or they do, then they would most probably lose in trial if they're shoved into court by, say, the MPEG Group 4) same as above for nVidia or ATI drivers, except it would be the FSF or kernel developers instead of the MPEG Group
100% ACK. ZMD will be removed in 10.3, so hopefully that issue will be history soon.
- add at least 3 additional repositories (graphics cards, packman, guru) to have a fully working system.
There's no way around it. See legal/copyright/patent issues above.
- remove the main menu (in GNOME) because it leaks 300MB in hours.
Well, GNOME right...
? cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGO6kSr3NMWliFcXcRAoshAKC2KYhq/xP0KMW7EE8j6qdrw2RELgCgndHB jGeoOu600NEmhL9jPgRDDwA= =i/+O -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Fri 04 May 2007 19:41:38 NZST +1200, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
That would be nice. With an appropriate warning like "these packages may come from the underworld and steal your computer".
Ubuntu is a lot closer to being click and run than openSUSE in the current state.
I'm afraid you're probably right.
As said, ubuntu doesn't require to:
- remove zmd and to clean and rebuild the package manager database.
Ack^3. Pitching opensuse against ubuntu is currently difficult. 10.1 is a dead loss, 10.2 is only good after installing a bunch of updates and obliterating zmd (risky business, might uninstall 2/3 of KDE and basic system libraries, so why not format in the first place?). Repositories are too difficult to add to suse. Mostly because finding them in the first place takes too long for a non-techie, partly because it's too slow. And too damn buggy - repos which were configured before just pop off the list (but are still being refreshed, creating a "what the hell is this *&@#$&@( box downloading for the next 15 minutes?). A non-techie wouldn't know any of this. What would be nice is a tabular list of repos, their short info, and their state with tick boxes, not this drop-down box in the corner. Repo management still sucks when compared with something debian-based. Sorry, but currently it's alpha 3 so a good time to say it ;) Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Sat 05 May 2007 11:30:13 NZST +1200, Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
What would be nice is a tabular list of repos, their short info, and their state with tick boxes, not this drop-down box in the corner.
Nice would also be to have software management, YOU, and the repo config in just one yast module. Less confusing, and perhaps the switch between repo config and software installation would be faster. Ok so lots of things would be nice... Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Den Saturday 05 May 2007 01:30:13 skrev Volker Kuhlmann:
I disagree. Nowadays you can add the official repos during installation. If you choose to do it manually you no longer need to split the url, you can simply copy/paste the url to yast installation source module. .. or you can run zypper sa <url> <alias> What's difficult about that? Finding the repositories might be a bit difficult for a clueless n00b, but doesn't that go for Ubuntu too, if you want unofficial repos? We have these nice wiki pages: http://en.opensuse.org/Package_Repositories http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories A google search for: "opensuse repository" will take you right there - #1 find. Maybe the n00b doesn't understand why it doesn't just take an instant, but at least now we have progress bars. I really can't see how it could be any easier. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Il giorno sab, 05/05/2007 alle 15.19 +0200, Martin Schlander ha scritto:
Finding the repositories might be a bit difficult for a clueless n00b, but doesn't that go for Ubuntu too, if you want unofficial repos?
The main difference is that you usually don't need to manually add URL's to apt in ubuntu because the main repositories (universe, multiverse, ...) contain what you need and to enable them you just have to click on some checkbox. The main issue to solve is that Novell can't take the risk to put links to repositories containing potentially copyright/licence infringing applications, which is exactly what Ubuntu does. Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Sun 06 May 2007 01:19:07 NZST +1200, Martin Schlander wrote:
No problem, but I'm keeping my opinion for now. :)
Nowadays you can add the official repos during installation.
Sure, but you haven't got a running system yet. Do you know which ones to add? No. Adding the official ones during installation makes the system unusable for a serious length of time, so I usually advise against it. People want to be running first. Afterwards, there's no more repo suggestion, not even for the official one. This is bad.
If you choose to do it manually you no longer need to split the url, you can simply copy/paste the url to yast installation source module.
Yes, pasting the complete URL in one hit is an assential function! Yet, a friend updated 9.x to 10.2 GM, there was no such function...
.. or you can run zypper sa <url> <alias>
What's difficult about that?
Are you serious? This command line interface is absolutely essential for sys admins and people who know they want to use it, but won't win you any converts from XP. Those people are Linux's growth potential!
Finding the repositories might be a bit difficult for a clueless n00b, but doesn't that go for Ubuntu too, if you want unofficial repos?
SUSE doesn't even offer the official repos after install. Ubuntu includes all the stuff everyone wants/needs in their official repo, SUSE can't compete with that for reasons we know, but SUSE falls shorter than that: no 3rdparty repos are offered at all to be ticked.
Good. But I'm missing the link to these to click on in yast package management... All the info is online somewhere. That's not user-friendly, or polished. User-friendly would be to have the essentials at most one click away. And the click has to be obvious.
A google search for: "opensuse repository" will take you right there - #1 find.
Someone who is used to doze and is just trying openSUSE for the first time wouldn't know these search terms. Frustration level goes up a notch. Too many more notches, and it's Ubuntu (which doesn't seem to frustrate people, or at least one doesn't hear about it), or back to XP "this Linux thingy is unusable bla bla".
Maybe the n00b doesn't understand why it doesn't just take an instant, but at least now we have progress bars.
I'm not a n00b, and it took me a little while to realise that yast was failing to list the repo it was just spending aaaages on refreshing. Hey I couldn't even disable it - no repo in yast, no yast can't no do. The bug is still open. (I texteditored /var/lib/zypp/db/sources, not a n00bable solution. Serious question: How does an average user recover from this problem?)
I really can't see how it could be any easier.
Ugh. Many suggestions have been made in this thread. Let's keep at it. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
SUSE doesn't even offer the official repos after install.
Official OSS, non-OSS and -debug repositories can be added at installation time without knowing their URL. Just check for updates at the end of the installation. This happens for sure if you don't install ZMD. Not sure if it's the same with ZMD. Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Well, it's not that terrible. You can choose not to install ZENWorks tools at installation time by putting a "Taboo" sign on the proper checkbox. The problem is that you've to know that. However we should not worry anymore about ZENWorks for 10.3.
The biggest problem is to find them and to understand what repository contains what you need. Webbin is of great help in this however. The speed of zypp and friends should improve in 10.3, so we'll see.
What would be nice is a tabular list of repos, their short info, and their state with tick boxes, not this drop-down box in the corner.
Yes this would be a lot better, but it seems it's not so easy to do according to Pascal. Another possible solution would be to make it possible to click on the webpin link and install the package you need. But it doesn't sound that easy to me too, because of the dependencies issues. Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Alberto Passalacqua wrote: [...]
Definitely. Webpin is a great tool, but there is an issue with it: hosting. We definitely need a more reliable hosting solution for it (and Benjamin would be the first one to agree, he already wrote an email about that): http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2007-04/msg00128.html The legal aspects are biting us again. Because it also indexes and references packages that are on Packman and Guru, it may not be hosted by Novell. OTOH, not indexing Packman and Guru would make the tool only half as useful. I really think that at some point, we should find a reliable hosting solution (not in the USA because of its legislation) for community projects like that, funded by donations (PayPal).
The speed of zypp and friends should improve in 10.3, so we'll see.
Yes, that would be good. And then, IMO the focus should be put on usability of the package manager (adding/removing/refreshing repositories, finding/installing packages, installing patches/online updates, upgrading packages (including from 3rd party repos), etc...). But frankly, instead of always blaming Novell/SUSE and the developers, we should come up with some discussion and brainstorming on what we would like to see and what we think would be a good solution both for beginners and for advanced users. And then send a proposal to the developers (or possibly do some implementation work ourselves).
It seems easy to implement, but getting a list of those repositories is problematic for legal reasons. Yet, maybe having a "meta-repository" (sort of a "repository of repositories") hosted elsewhere (e.g. opensuse-community.org) could be a solution. Have the right tool support out-of-the-box in YaST2, but just add a single meta-repository URL and also have the 3rd party repositories in the list. Again, hosting, see above.
Precisely. But Benjamin is also working on that: having files that not only have a list of packages to install with a single click (more or less), but also dependent repositories that are added if not already present. You definitely need the repositories as well, to be able to resolve the dependencies. Also, there are cross-repository dependencies in some. Packman has a policy of only depending on packages available either in Packman itself, or in the stock openSUSE distribution. But in my repository, some packages (e.g. amarok) have dependencies towards packages that come not only from the distribution, but also from Packman. Which means that a single-click Amarok installation from a web page could mean: 1) add the Packman repository (and choose a mirror near you) if you don't already have it in your list of "installation sources" + download the repository metadata 2) add the Guru repository (and choose a mirror near you) if you don't already have it in your list of "installation sources" + download the repository metadata 3) install the "amarok" and "amarok-xine" RPMs, using a package manager (YaST2/zypp, zypper, smart, ...) to be able to resolve the dependencies But the most difficult part with such an approach is certainly the browser, much more than the package manager side of things: 1) associating a MIME type in Konqueror+Firefox+Seamonkey with an application that handles parses the file, adds missing repositories, passes the package installation to sw_single or zypper (or smart) 2) security... with a tool like that, you definitely have to think about security: * setup+use sudo or replicate user delegation (as in ZMD) or prompt for the root password to add repositories and packages * always prompt the user for confirmation before doing anything * package signatures, RPM keyring (is mostly already handled by YaST2 though, when adding a signed repository) * put some thoughts into malicious misuse of that technology to sneak in rootkit packages and how to circumvent it To summarize, it may sound easy at first, but there is a lot of work behind it. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGPLPAr3NMWliFcXcRAj3/AJ4pASb/lraIHVdDz7JmvYKLS1agtgCgo/dn pxEokhj7w4qPCj+98uKTD+o= =g+GY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On 5/5/07, Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> wrote:
Actually the legal aspects are not an issue of hosting, the frontend (which we can host on opensuse-community.org can utilise multiple search services, one of which could be hosted by Novell, and the other indexing packman & guru etc would be hosted by the community still. AdrianS indicated they could help with hosting, but not until more resources are available.
I agree, but I think there is significant growth required before we will need, or be able to afford this.
Hear, Hear. Although there has been some progress (pun intended) in 10.2, it is still essentially the same GUI designed for 8.1. Back then installing software from CDs was the only significant use case.
Indeed, and this is beginning to happen, but the bottleneck always remains the SUSE people who are not being proactive in engaging with these efforts. We need public planning of development "sprints" with the community actively involved and aware of what is going on, and being encouraged to participate. Right now we have the situation where SUSE people do things behind closed doors for a while, and announce their status at status meetings. No-one outside knows what is underway or how to get involved. The recent opening of the development process of yast+zypp is a shining example of how things should have been done from the start. Congratulations to those responsible, and hopefully the effort will pay off.
It seems easy to implement, but getting a list of those repositories is problematic for legal reasons.
It would be easy to do either from api.opensuse.org (this doesn't have any public features at present so can't be used). Or from my search service, expanding something like: http://benjiweber.co.uk:8080/searchservice/SearchService/Repos/openSUSE_102 to also include descriptions and other metadata from the .repo files on the build service. I have an example YaST based frontend to the search service in the MetaPackage-Package you kindly made for me. Install http://benjiweber.co.uk/mp/yast2-mpp-0.0-0.suse102.noarch.rpm and run "/sbin/YaST2 PackageSearch" to play. Screenshot: http://bw.uwcs.co.uk/packagesearch-yast.png . The "Install Now" hooks into the automatically generated meta-packages from the SearchService to add the repository and install the package automatically. The same principle could be used to make a list of repositories with checkboxes as per Alberto's suggestion.
Something like http://benjiweber.co.uk:8080/searchservice/SearchService/Repos/openSUSE_102 with more information I think.
Indeed.
Indeed, see the above meta-package-package and http://benjiweber.co.uk:8080/webpin/index-test.jsp to play.
My demo yast module for this: - Prompts user for root password /after/ displaying all the information about what will be done to the system to make malicious use as easy for the user to detect as possible. - All the Package Signature checking etc is provided by the yast package installation/ repository handling api already, so done for us. _ Benjamin Weber --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Benji Weber wrote:
Not necessarily. The costs won't be that high. [...]
Right. Not much has changed since then. Or rather: a lot of energy, time and money was wasted into the development of ZMD on openSUSE. The helper applets aren't _that_ bad (but the backend is awful). But still, package management is definitely the Achille's Heel of the distribution, at the very least in terms of usability.
True, unfortunately. Most probably due to a lack of resources (as in people, time) or a questionable (from the community's point of view) order of priorities. But the community side of things has its own share of issues we shall (try to) work on. And even if the SUSE people don't have enough time to be proactive about certain things, we can still try to push forward as much as possible, and present ideas, concepts, software that is as accomplished as possible, to reduce the workload on their side. Clearly identifying the main blockers wrt us working more directly on the distribution and its tools should probably be the top priority, and something to address as soon as possible. Ideally coming up with a prioritized list of things we would want them to do.
That, sadly, is very true and has happened for a lot of things. It got better, as compared to where we were at the openSUSE.org launch, but it's still progressing too slowly and too partially. Maybe it's about time to use this mailing-list to announce, give status information, call for ideas and help about projects. The opensuse@opensuse.org list is useless with respect to anything but ridiculously long off-topic threads (about 60-70% of the posts) and getting entry-level support, and this (opensuse-project) list isn't used enough. Having information, discussions and initiatives spread across around 40 mailing-lists (not counting language-specific support lists) as we do currently isn't very effective either. Frankly, I doubt any of the SUSE people will see this thread and jump on to make some comments.. one cannot monitor that many lists (or interesting posts in a load of off-topic crap). [...]
Well, even if it's just some plain stupid XML/text file that's maintained somewhere (not hosted by Novell), it would already do the trick. - From the technical point of view: - - it shouldn't be hosted by Novell (i.e. not on opensuse.org) because of potential legal issues wrt linking - - the URL from where to fetch that meta-repository list must be configurable (to pre-configure it with a list of "legally OK" repositories + allow people to use another, non-Novell-hosted URL to get a list of all repositories (including e.g. Packman)) - - it must be easy to find (opensuse-community.org, google hits)
Awesome stuff :) Just as a side note: when the containing repository is already in the list of "installation sources", it would be nice to display it accordingly. Currently, it shows the required repository in the "Select the software repositories you wish to subscribe to" list, although it's there already.
Indeed. Mirror selection would be another thing to implement, but that's lower priority.
Yes, absolutely. Possibly with a list of mirrors to choose from. [...]
Nice, didn't notice those "Install now" links :) (maybe add an icon next to those links ? ;)) [...]
Yeah. Found a way to make the links work with Firefox ? cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGPR3gr3NMWliFcXcRAgAcAJwI4HpOePMcEo3b1JEyzbuDlN0bLQCfetV7 uZwyJGdwvy0zrDGPoeDoUvU= =6mSe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Sat, 5 May 2007, Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
Just to make sure: You can (a) install openSUSE 10.2 without the ZENworks stack or (b) uninstall the ZENworks stack at any point after installation. We have successfully tested both scenarios, and I can certify that taking either of these steps won't lead to loss of hair, vision, nor any parts of the KDE stack ;-)
Repo management still sucks when compared with something debian-based. Sorry, but currently it's alpha 3 so a good time to say it ;)
Indeed, repo management is one of those areas where we certainly want to see what we can do to improve usability. I'll ask our teams to make some public proposals based on ideas that have been floating around internally and on this list (among others). On Sun, 6 May 2007, Pascal Bleser wrote:
But the community side of things has its own share of issues we shall (try to) work on.
For example: send more bug reports. Really. Looking at some of those issues that I personally reported in the last couple of months, I would have hoped for more of them to have been reported by others already. I want openSUSE/SLE to be the most polished distro on the planet. Everyone's help on that front, be it design, be it reports, be it concrete fixes, is most welcome!
Now, while I noticed a tendency of mine to agree with what you write, on this one I clearly have to disagree, Pascal. :-P Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Inbound Product Mgmt T +49(911)74053-0 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) openSUSE/SUSE Linux Enterprise F +49(911)74053-483 GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Hey guys, I know we are all busy but I am reinstalling 10.2 for a project I'm working on with the kiwi group and I started the reinstall at 4 o'clock it's now 10 o'clock and it's only 40% through the updates, on a cable modem. I think it's time to re-master the ISO's (sorry Lars). going back to "ready for the masses , this kind of major update only six months in to a release is a little much and some of this might have been avoided with a longer beta\rc status. I have also read the talk about about adding the repositories being easy unless your a complete "n00b", I've been around for as long as opensuse has existed and I have trouble with the location of things on our pages ,especially finding packages, update sources (cause I always seem to get the utah one and it always crashes) and dependencies. Maybe, we should slow down on all the work on a new release and clean house a little, get the process of releasing, updating and supporting our distro more streamlined and "n00b" friendly, so that we can become the distro for the masses. So those people obviously "put out" by having to deal with us "n00bs" can get a little distance from us. -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Novell CNE 3\4\5 CLE \ NCE in training. http://en.opensuse.org/education --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
I seriously agree on the remaster. On 5/5/07, James Tremblay <jamesat@comcast.net> wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Il giorno sab, 05/05/2007 alle 22.23 -0400, James Tremblay ha scritto:
A remastered set of ISO images was the last solution to the problems of ZMD in openSUSE 10.1, which were a lot more serious than the current issues in openSUSE 10.2. At the moment we have fixable issues. I agree the solution is not straightforward, but it's not impossible. Preparing remastered ISO's would distract the team from working on 10.3, and they're already busy on SLE SP1. As a consequence I think it's neither a good idea nor a priority. Regards, Alberto --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2007-05-06 at 15:24 +0200, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
...
How about a patch dvd iso? Kind of mirror on dvd, or SP? It would save time for those installs. And those without broadband could burn the extra dvd on an internet caffe. It shouldn't be that dificult. Maybe even a script of some kind could make the iso on the fly. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGPd/etTMYHG2NR9URAnYdAJ9+hr5UeY0R1sJOFH9SYqOZs5iBWACdEypb leqSfRt7i8yOXTKzm+5D4KE= =e6F1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Carlos E. R. wrote:
100% ACK. People have to realise that releasing ISOs is not simply a one-man/day task. It freezes a lot of resources in the openSUSE team for several days. It's quite "expensive" actually (in terms of resources).
Maybe. Just an add-on CD for YaST2 with the all the patches (and the metadata). That's even something that can be done without relying on the SUSE team. OK, who does it ? But note that just rsyncing the patches would be pretty much the same thing (and that can be done in an Internet Café too, just bring along rsync.exe ;))
It shouldn't be that difficult. Maybe even a script of some kind could make the iso on the fly.
Yes, it can be scripted and automated. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGPedur3NMWliFcXcRAnqlAJ9gMOU5term/g892nxot4L+alN5UwCgkF28 CaBOml5lLDDhgNCFY2FW2/E= =5QB5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2007-05-06 at 16:34 +0200, Pascal Bleser wrote:
Right now, I don't know what is needed to create a patch CD. I knew, some versions back, but now I don't. Worse, YOU does not keep the patches on the HD: they are deleted, even if you tell YOU to keep them. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGPlXAtTMYHG2NR9URAtRXAJoC2UD9uPp+hiJjmSK2sno96+XWkgCfRnTC ka6QCEjHCrw9DTop2VuiQ1o= =x5d+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Mon, 7 May 2007, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Worse, YOU does not keep the patches on the HD: they are deleted, even if you tell YOU to keep them.
Do you have a Bugzilla-ID for that? If you aren't aware of one, and cannot find one, would you mind filing this as a bug? Gerald -- Dr. Gerald Pfeifer E gp@novell.com SUSE Linux Products GmbH Director Inbound Product Mgmt T +49(911)74053-0 HRB 16746 (AG Nuremberg) openSUSE/SUSE Linux Enterprise F +49(911)74053-483 GF: Markus Rex --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Mon 07 May 2007 10:37:57 NZST +1200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
I thought I filed this ages ago for 10.0/10.1, but can't find it now either. For 10.2 the solution is not what one would call ingenious: the "keep downloaded patches" tickbox has been removed, so nobody can complain that it doesn't work ;))) And all downloaded patches are deleted immediately after install, i.e. it's download, applydelta, install, delete, next package. I myself keep on mirroring my own delta rpms. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2007-05-07 at 00:37 +0200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
This has been reported and ignored dozens of times, mainly in the lists. I have tried to find it in bugzilla for 10.1. but bugzilla search does not find /ANY/ bug related to YOU in 10.1 in any state. I had to do a long search instead; for instance: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=191021 This one is marked as a duplicate of "bug 188543", but I'm given "You are not authorized to access bug #188543" It has been reported for ages. :-/ ¡The solution has been to remove the feature in 10.2! Good grief! :-/ What another feature broken in YOU? In 10.2 it doesn't report how big will be the download, it always says "zero". This was broken in 10.1 too, then solved, then 10.2 came with that broken again. But this is a trifle compared with the deleted patches after download. In 9.3 we simply had to backup a directory under /var (/var/lib/YaST2/mnt/i386/update or /var/lib/YaST2/you/i386/update, I don't remember) that kept all the patches we had downloaded with YOU to a DVD. On a new install, one only needed to copy those files over to the appropriate dir (always the same dir), fire up YOU, and it would happily reuse those files instead of downloading the hundreds of megabytes again. In 10.1 this disappeared. There was a tick box to "keep downloaded patches" or something, but it did not work. Instead of repairing it, in 10.2 it has been removed. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGQGH1tTMYHG2NR9URAsDYAJ0a+VbSo/8k45aG0/30tdVaM58MRwCeKfgI AHYX6ipW3ThonQssbKhd0J0= =0cd6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sun 06 May 2007 12:55:26 NZST +1200, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
(a) is a possibility, but unfortuantely it's not default and therefore typically not used. As for uninstalling zenworks, I tried to talk a friend through this over the phone. Yast was duly installed on first attempt of selecting the pattern. Zenworks refused to bugger off to /dev/null though, even when deselected. Various reboots and refresh attempts had no effect, so forcefully uninstalling the packages belonging to the pattern was in order. This created a dependency warning, to be ignored if one wanted a chance of sending zenworks West. Next thing that went over the screen was "uninstalling kde-extras, uninstalling kde-libs, uninstalling kde...". So I told my friend to pull the plug, and it cost me some hours of driving over and fixing up the system again manually. You may have tested it, but I know for certain that there's a risk that it'll kill the system.
Where do I send my invoice for damages arising from this dud certification...? ;-)
There are practical problems with testing alphas. Few people have unused uptoscratch hardware sitting around where it doesn't matter if the filesystems go down the gurgler by alpha testing. Using vmware is useless without installing the kernel sources and modules and so on, and doesn't allow testing of hardware interaction. It's a resource issue which I haven't satisfactorily solved, and I'm probably not alone. A wiki section on how to test would be helpful. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2007-05-06 at 15:14 +1200, Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
Oh, my... :-( Well, I removed zen and friends, but I used the command line (rpm --erase ...). This way there is no risk of extra things being removed.
Exactly! Which is why I say that the Beta phase should be longer and slower paced, so that more people can test on a secondary partition on their main systems without so much danger. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGPcvZtTMYHG2NR9URAvylAKCUlj/7UCrNiR69/zGcJnU6JFHZ/gCfSqmZ LvAH80xsfQ+mztRyMvnUsf8= =7QCQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On 5/6/07, Gerald Pfeifer <gp@suse.de> wrote:
If it's not default it won't apply to the vast majority of the users. Only those specifically told to remove it will do so. You expect $averageuser to a) know what ZMD is, b) understand the openSUSE package management architecture and c) comprehend the problems therein and make the decision to remove it?
Good.
I expect the reason he said this was to try and have someone like you prove it wrong :p There has a been a lack of SUSE presence on the lists in the past weeks with holidays and SLE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Pascal Bleser escribió:
Yes, If there is something we need to focus for 10.3 is ending with the "package manager" problem once for all, nowdays it lacks of speed and certainly requires usability improvements but is functional at least..it should be the number 1 priority...IMHO.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 El 2007-05-06 a las 03:09 -0400, Cristian Rodriguez R. escribió:
There is another issue. According to the survey (<http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/6/6c/Opensuse_survey_102_data_final.pdf>), 27% of users do not have flat rate internet tariff, and 5% use a modem or isdn connection. All those people would benefit from a method to download patches that used less network bandwidth... just downloading the repodata can be a pain over a modem, but even if it is fast, 27% of users have got to pay for that download, and many times. I know it is not simple, but could this be improved, somehow? - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGPc5ptTMYHG2NR9URAtxuAJ9bXuS/iHRgVnULiiBGZHZ6lQnlPQCfWOuM vZniseDMxsCv7hFPfkvaqjs= =cD6B -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2007-05-06 at 19:41 -0400, Cristian Rodriguez R. wrote:
So, you belong to those people that disregard the needs of the minority just because you belong to the majority? Perhaps then opensuse should then be a male only distro, as only 1% are female? Common! :-( - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGQFdgtTMYHG2NR9URAvROAJ9RibnzrXweZo+cAUYzJSZKDpeVlQCfccUw /39U4MrTX/b1tUTgu4bRQ5A= =qD4O -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Carlos E. R. escribió:
So, you belong to those people that disregard the needs of the minority just because you belong to the majority?
Nope. not at all, I mean that things that will serve the mayotrity of users should have priority, time is a limited resource unfortunately :-(
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2007-05-10 at 00:51 -0400, Cristian Rodriguez R. wrote:
Then, I should remind you that by making the package management usable again for people with limited network resources it will work blazingly fast for those with cheap fat broadband. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGQ0uDtTMYHG2NR9URAuSsAJ9RrSOqGYd6wOBQjJG/56BvBq9s3wCgkOD6 WvGVzoZUMwW3bqgp4yxQRv4= =ErE4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sun 06 May 2007 03:04:02 NZST +1200, Alberto Passalacqua wrote:
Yes I know that. Everyone else who I hear complaining about (lack of) SUSE speed and package-related problems doesn't. Obviously, everyone just installs default - good choice. The bad choice was to make zmd default, and that's not fixable now. So the by far more typical scenario is to switch zmd->yast on an installed system. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 04 May 2007 01:29, Pascal Bleser wrote:
yes, early on, I had mine crash and want to restart more than once.
you make my point the moment you bring SLED into the conversation. SLE is rock solid , I use it for many things at my school and I love it. Finding answers to problems is easy with support.novell.com and as long as you don't want some package thats not included, all the applications that a person needs to work in the enterprise are all at your finger tips and since an enterprise techie is involved,wrt modifications, adding outside packages isn't really a question, is it?
I'm not saying Ubuntu is any better in this regard.
not located as a click from opensuse.org , remember these people that we are trying to gather have never heard of SuSE. They only know , if at all , opensuse. They want a onestop shop.
yes, obscure to the masses , take a group of windows power users with no linux knowledge hand them a laptop and a copy of opensuse , tell them they get to keep the laptop if they can recreate their home computers applications and functionality , without any help from us. Bet they don't even think about an irc forum, and if they do, get frustrated trying to get the system to get them there. We are trying to sell computers to the single mom who's kids need a computer but the one with the Microsoft tax is 200.00 dollars more, as well as the power user.
start a mailing list "opensuse-website" I'll join
is that mature enough to sell to the single mom?
you confuse installation with adding software , which is probably why Mr. Dell is looking at Ubuntu for his end user PC's he knows that not only techies will be asking for them and he has looked at what offerings are made to that curios windows power user after the install.
as far as I'm concerned they are all techies versions and Linux suppliers, not Linux itself, are the ones that need improvement. We need to hire people in marketing to layout our sites we need to do more user testing like Novell did to find out what SLED needed and how people used it. Only now we are working on delivery not functionality so we need to do usability testing on our websites. I stand by my assertion that our structure is still to immature to offer to the masses. -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Novell CNE 3\4\5 CLE \ NCE in training. http://en.opensuse.org/education --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Hello, on Freitag, 4. Mai 2007, James Tremblay wrote:
Just subscribe to the (already existing) opensuse-wiki list ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz -- :O h:, ich schmeiß mich weg. Wenn es das mit dem Quiz nicht ist, ist es dann so ein Pyramidenschema? Bekommt man eine Prämie, wenn man einen weiteren Newbie in sein Unglück lockt? [Thorsten Haude in suse-linux] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 James Tremblay wrote:
Ok, well, GNOME... and both menus are WIP. So what, use KDE, switch to the KDE kicker menu.
I don't see what you mean with your last line. You can add packages built for openSUSE 10.1 from 3rd party repositories. But that pretty much defeats the idea behind SLED. [...]
OK, and I understand your point of view from an end-user perspective. But there's no magic wand in this case. We really have to blame it on the wireless chipset/card vendors.
Again, it's just not as simple as it might look at a first glance. Those "usage categories" you're talking about are actually "stability levels" (uh, bad name but well..). That's really tough to do, and Debian/Ubuntu pretty much fail at it. What you end up with on Debian is having a stone age old "stable" distribution, an outdated "unstable" and a broken "testing". Point is, what is the process for deciding whether a package is "tagged" as "stable", "unstable" or "experimental" (aka Debian's "testing") ? Bug reports ? Success reports ? That's pretty much the only way to measure the stableness of a package. The recent Novell survey shows that 85% of the people who took the survey (count bleeding noobs out, they didn't even know about the survey) don't contribute to openSUSE in any way. What would make those people contribute at least their experience wrt stability of individual packages (or groups of related packages) ? A good, integrated web UI would definitely help (one has to say that Canonical's proprietary Launchpad is a really nice tool for that purpose), but still... Whining won't cut, people have to contribute, even if it's "just" bug reports, success reports, etc... I would agree that a less challenging user interface would be needed for that though, Bugzilla isn't for noobs.
Actually two clicks away (if you don't count the welcome page): http://en.opensuse.org/Communicate#Web_Forums But indeed, it's ridiculously well hidden. Note that a useful web forum will never, ever be hosted on opensuse.org as long as the legal situation in the US (and some other countries, most notably Germany (see the Heise linking case)) remains as it is now. If hosted on opensuse.org, Novell is liable for the content, and linking to package repositories like Packman or Guru (or others), that contain packages that might infringe patents in some countries (e.g. USA) is a no-no for Novell, which is quite understandable. And you will certainly agree that not being allowed to link to such packages or repositories would seriously limit the usefulness of a web forum ;)
Personally, I think that "windows" and "power users" is an oxymoron. But yeah, that's not the point ;) I would also like to see a desktop shortcut that is installed by default on KDE and GNOME which would start an IRC client on irc://freenode.net/#suse (and a shell script that wraps irssi for the console, just in case you can't start the X server any more) Name it "online help" and obscurity is gone ;)
It's opensuse-wiki@opensuse.org
Probably not, you'd have to understand what "package" and "package repositories" are. But tell me, what would be "mature enough to sell to the single mom" ? Googling for a crack for commercial software, get a copy full of trojans and virii, scan it with 1 or 2 cracked antivirus suites, run the .exe installer, etc... ? Ultimately, the only viable solution is probably a web interface where you can browse software packages by category, by tags, have a search function, where each item shows the website, screenshots, a more or less noob-safe description and a single-click option to add the containing repository (if needed) + install the package with its dependencies. But that would be a *lot* of work. And with more than 85% of openSUSE users not getting involved into the effort...
That's an extreme simplification of a situation that involves lobbying, pressuring, lots of money, etc... (yes, I mean between Microsoft and Dell, in both directions).
Marketing people have nothing to do with anything productive or efficient, and definitely not with usable websites (except the very, very few good marketing people out there). We would rather need web designers, usability experts, ... umm.. no, wait. What we would need in the first place is 50% of the >85% joining the effort, even with modest contributions. Maybe the real question is: how to bring those people into the active community ? Better site ? Better tools ? Probably. A kick in the ass ? Possibly ^^
Define "our structure". Ok, that probably answers the question. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGO7Pxr3NMWliFcXcRAoNQAKCukqZeNVN++HHWWoCl9ZeG6BoxNwCghOm4 nw6o3GjCMUwVmR9ppmXqZdA= =geMV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 04 May 2007 18:30, Pascal Bleser wrote: the middle column of the front page, should be all the novice needs.
OK , can opensuse.us be referred to on the opensuse.org site? if so then it should be one of the boldest answers to support we show on our front page.
LOVE THIS IDEA!!!!!!!
Joined today, i'll see how active it is.
hopefully answered by BenJI 's ( the webpin guy) new simple installer! great tool , great work
it is if i have to fix ANYTHING immediately after install. I spent months after Novell's purchase of SuSE deciding whether I finally had to go get my MCNE or learn linux , I have learned the difference in distro's and which ones come with "fix it as soon as you finish installing" gotcha's and decided SuSE 8 was better than all the others. when I decided to learn LTSP and played with K12LTSP it came with very few. it had been worked on long enough , used older but relevant packages and achieved a state of install it and use it. it was still a RedHat P.O.S. but it was usable immediately. which is why I wrote the instruction to install LTSP on SLED, it was usable immediately.
OK, now we are on the same page, I work my butt off to help here so I'm certainly not in the majority. I wish I could program or already knew all the tricks to the wiki engine, but I don't, so I help by presenting my needs when I can in a way that represents my peers and our lack of knowledge but shows our interest and respect for those like you, who do work hard on it. With all that has been said in this thread is Novell wrong for calling this the techies version? I proudly say this is one of those rare times when Novell has said and done the right thing with its public persona "we have two versions, SLE for the enterprise and openSUSE for the enthusiast\hobbyist." maybe in a few months, maybe with 10.3, maybe with a 10.2 LTS, we will have it mature enough for the masses. Not to bad for 4 public releases of a community version. ;) -- James Tremblay Director of Technology Newmarket School District Novell CNE 3\4\5 CLE \ NCE in training. http://en.opensuse.org/education --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 04 May 2007 19:12, James Tremblay wrote:
It's opensuse-wiki@opensuse.org
Joined today, i'll see how active it is.
Not much. I have feeling that guys are preparing new layout and have not much time to look on a mail list. Thanks for having a Portal as navigation help. -- Regards, Rajko. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Pascal Bleser wrote: [...]
And this is the sort of thing I'm thinking about wrt that web interface - -- spent some time hacking a mockup, just to give a (very) basic idea: http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/files/swportal/mockup/mockup.jpg cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGPaOVr3NMWliFcXcRAmetAJ936S98Itsqf/trAJlEtqVEsA5rygCeIiqf nqT1IJzenRpk1DoqtJG+Tr4= =1gaT -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On 5/6/07, Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> wrote:
That looks really awesome and very friendly; as Benji has said before, we can also work on integrating i.e. OBS ratings with it and the like. My skills are limited, but I'll gladly help with that in any way I can; I really do think it's the way forward for online-browsing, though it sure would be a lot of work. =) Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Francis Giannaros escribió:
That looks really awesome and very friendly;
yes it looks nice, however, unless Im missing something.. I see no way to implement this "click and install" feature.. how is supposed to be implemented ? what about package dependencies ?
Il giorno dom, 06/05/2007 alle 19.37 -0400, Cristian Rodriguez R. ha scritto:
Thanks to benjiman's (Benjamin Weber) work, the YaST module for this already exists and is functional. ;-) For what I understood, you click on the link in konqueror or firefox, the repository is temporary added, the application is installed. The installation is managed by YaST, which should manage the solution of dependencies too. Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Alberto Passalacqua <alberto.passalacqua@tin.it> writes:
And if that module would work with firefox as well, it would be perfect ;-)
For what I understood, you click on the link in konqueror or firefox, the repository is temporary added, the application is installed.
Only in konqueror - but otherwise you're correct.
The installation is managed by YaST, which should manage the solution of dependencies too.
Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, aj@suse.de, http://www.suse.de/~aj/ 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
Andreas Jaeger wrote:
I missed some discussion about this but may I ask what in detail would be needed to support it from Firefox? I heard some statements about simple mime helpers or protocol handlers? Wolfgang --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Den Monday 07 May 2007 08:48:52 skrev Andreas Jaeger:
The current "demo" RPM only supports Konq, but benJIman has a way to make Firefox support the *.ymp. Only from what I gather it needs to be included in the official Firefox package.
The installation is managed by YaST, which should manage the solution of dependencies too.
Yes, also the person making the "metapackage" (*.ymp) should think a bout dependencies a little bit. But the user won't have to worry about a thing. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
on 5/7/07, Andreas Jaeger <aj@suse.de> wrote:
And if that module would work with firefox as well, it would be perfect ;-)
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2007-04/msg00181.html _ Benjamin Weber --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Il giorno dom, 06/05/2007 alle 11.44 +0200, Pascal Bleser ha scritto:
I like it a lot! The idea of "click and install" is the way to go IMHO to solve many of the issues of additional packages. I don't know much about these things, but if I can help in some way, I'd be pleased. Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Alberto Passalacqua wrote: > Il giorno dom, 06/05/2007 alle 11.44 +0200, Pascal Bleser ha scritto: >> Pascal Bleser wrote: >> [...] >>> Ultimately, the only viable solution is probably a web interface where >>> you can browse software packages by category, by tags, have a search >>> function, where each item shows the website, screenshots, a more or less >>> noob-safe description and a single-click option to add the containing >>> repository (if needed) + install the package with its dependencies. >> And this is the sort of thing I'm thinking about wrt that web interface >> - -- spent some time hacking a mockup, just to give a (very) basic idea: >> >> http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/files/swportal/mockup/mockup.jpg > > I like it a lot! The idea of "click and install" is the way to go IMHO > to solve many of the issues of additional packages. > > I don't know much about these things, but if I can help in some way, I'd > be pleased. Sure - - poke people to create a team to develop the site - - find a SVN repository to host the code - - domain/database design - - artwork, website colour palette - - feature requirements, ideas for functionalities, usability thoughts (what would end-users typically want to do) - - comments ? - - how could a rating system work ? separately for each version/release, globally only on the level of the application entry, or both ? etc... Some ideas, in the wild: - - link to forum threads and mailing-list threads about issues/solutions with those applications (sort of a "knowledge base") - - some sort of integration with Novell's bugzilla (although possibly quite challenging from a technical point of view... iChain could be a major blocker) Of course, if such a website sees the day (which I doubt, given the low involvement of developers from the community), it can only work if there are enough people maintaining it (posting information about applications, screenshots, links to forums/mailing-list, ...). The only thing that would prevent this from becoming yet-another-great-idea-that-dies is people joining the brainstorming and the development of it. So, if anyone has ideas, skills, time, shoot now or never whine again. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> <guru@unixtech.be> _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGPemmr3NMWliFcXcRAv2oAJwNc14ebRs3psIj2DhjPuiBavcQngCgoCJr OISfh9wCAvkaPe8yoe+O8C0= =bwgp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
On 5/6/07, Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@skynet.be> wrote:
- - poke people to create a team to develop the site
Unfortunately at the moment all the devs seem incredibly busy with SP1, so their full input on this might have to be a waiting game for a bit. :/
- - find a SVN repository to host the code
Since the site itself would probably be best in o-c.o, we could definitely set up the svn there. Let me know if you want me to, and I'll poke spin to have svn.o-c.o
Perhaps we should look into how the OBS handles these things too?
This would be a really awesome way to link people together. We should work on integrating a "Support Database" area with relevant wiki links and where to ask more questions (IRC, Mailing list, Forums). Perhaps this should come after the initial design though.
Probably won't be possible if it's not on o.o, which I doubt it will be. Depending on where it is, we'll have to work something out for it; if it's on o-c.o we should definitely have a shared user database. Kind thoughts, -- Francis Giannaros http://francis.giannaros.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
Il giorno gio, 03/05/2007 alle 11.07 -0400, Justin Haygood ha scritto:
That's the goal, and the potential of openSUSE. At the moment however James is right when he talks about the required workarounds to make it work for an average home user. Regards, A. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org
participants (18)
-
Alberto Passalacqua
-
Andreas Jaeger
-
Benji Weber
-
Carlos E. R.
-
Christian Boltz
-
Cristian Rodriguez R.
-
Francis Giannaros
-
Gerald Pfeifer
-
James Tremblay
-
Juergen Weigert
-
Justin Haygood
-
Marcus Meissner
-
Martin Schlander
-
Michael Loeffler
-
Pascal Bleser
-
Rajko M.
-
Volker Kuhlmann
-
Wolfgang Rosenauer