On Jul 06, 2004 07:12 AM, Craig Bell
I'm running SuSE 8.1, and although it's old I'm stuck for now. I have several questions on using YaST. I'ld be happy if someone could just point me to some decent documentation, user's guide or otherwise.
If you buy the package you'll have the printed manuals Administration Guide and User Guide. They have around 4-500 pages each. If you install from FTP, there's documentation in these rpms (in 9.1) suselinux-userguide_en-9.1.0.2-7 suselinux-adminguide_en-9.1.0.3-3. Just search YaST "Install/Remove Software" for "guide".
2. I understand YaST was greatly improved in SuSE 9.0. Is it possible to download the newer YaST and install it on my 8.1 system?
No.
3. Is it possible to use YaST or YOU to update to a new major release of packages? For instance, I'm still at KDE 3.0.1 which came with 8.1. Can YOU help me update to 3.2.2? I see that 3.2.2 is on the SuSE site, but as in question 3, I can't see it there in YOU.
If you want a trouble free, smoothly running system, stick with the official updates YOU does. Or you'll spend a lot of time and make a mess. Of course, anything _can_ be done (it's Linux), but you need to have *knowledge*, *time*, persistance, patience, love and dedication :-) It's a relationship. LOL! You can get a system with the latest and greatest just by compiling and building on top of SUSE 8.1, but the result won't be a SUSE distribution, just Linux. And you'll loose all the manageability that SUSE tools allow for. You'll be on your own, compiling and editing configurations. This could be good or bad depending on what you want. In the end, my advice is to get a newer distribution if you want newer software.
4. Similarly, can I use YOU to get packages that aren't on my machine at all. I want to install GTK2 (I'm currently running GTK 1.2). When I search for it in YaST, it appears with a grey, solid-box icon and it won't let me select it or install it.
I don't remember if GTK2 was included in SUSE 8.1. If it wasn't, see above.