Anders Johansson wrote:
What part of 10.1 *aside from the updater* do you feel is so horrible? The update system was a mistake that I sincerely hope will never happen again, but can you honestly say that the rest of the system is as bad as all that?
Aside from the entire package management system, nothing. I've said as much before. The problem is not just the fact that the system was shipped broken and is poorly designed, but what it REPRESENTS. When I asked earlier why it was done this way, the answer was straightforward: Because Novell demanded ZenWorks integration. When asked why it was in 10.1 when it clearly wasn't ready: Because 10.1 was a beta for SLES, and they weren't going to delay 10.1's release.
Really? And for how long of 10.1's testing phase was zen/rug tested with the new repo's?
It was introduced in beta 3
Is that really true? Note, I said "tested with the new repo's". From what I've been told, zen/rug was introduced in beta 3, but the new repo format was never tested outside of Novell. That's why when 10.1 was actually released, zen/rug did not update AT ALL.
How "open" was the decision to rip out a time-tested superior system and replace it with a Novell-branded system that was specifically designed to work better ONLY with the rather expensive Novell ZenWorks system, that few if any user of OpenSUSE is likely to have, just because it was planned for SLES/SLED?
Well, that's not exactly true. It works better with anything that is not a YaST repository, because YaST as it was couldn't handle those at all. One of the nice things about the new system is that it can handle just about any repository format, making it far easier for regular users to create their own repositories
It's doesn't work WELL with ANY repo. It doesn't work well, PERIOD. You can TRY pointing it at other repo's, but whether it will actually work at all whenever you add a repo is a coin toss. The prolonged waiting period every time you bring up the software management may or may not end. Even when it's working properly, on any non-local repo, you have to wait... and wait... and wait...
It also solves one of the single most requested features of YaST ever, namely that if you install a package that has received an online update since the release, you now get the updated package immediately (assuming a working connection to the update repository, of course). That is something YaST has never been able to do, you always had to install the original release, and then run an update
And the entire system had to be utterly broken in order to accommodate this one feature?
zmd is broken by implementation, not by design
I strongly disagree. See the previous posts about it repeatedly downloaded the repodata. See how it resides in memory, taking upwards of five minutes of throttling your machine every time it is "woken up". What part of it's design is good?
But you are of course right that it was a huge mistake, doing it the way it was done, there is no escaping that.
And have we been given a single indication that the abomination will be removed and replaced with something that, you know, works? Or how about that Novell won't pull the same crap again? As I've said before, 10.2 will be the make-or-break moment for SUSE. Will it be a good system that had one bad release, or is it the bastard stepchild of SLES?
What's the point? At any time, Novell could completely replace things at it's whim, just before release, even at the release candidate phase. It's already done so. OpenSUSE is not "open", it's simply visible. If I were to submit a patch to replace zen/rug with the old system, do you honestly believe that it would be in the release, even though by every technical definition it would be superior to the Novell-branded abomination currently in use?
First of all, it wouldn't be better "in every technical definition", as I mentioned above. The old system was always broken and needed replacement sooner or later. Go back in the archives of this list to before the takeover and count the complaints.
Read the list here and count the complaints about the new system.
Why do you think so many people started using fou4s or apt4rpm?
While fou4s has always been superior as an updater for servers, I never even considered bothering with apt until 10.1. Now, I recommend it heartily. More people have been using apt and smart on 10.1 than any previous release, because those previous releases had a package manager that, you know, worked.
Secondly, no, I don't think a "rip this out and replace it" would have been heeded. I do think bug reports showing the problems would have had an effect though.
Like what? I hear vague promises of "improvements" but I don't believe any amount of bug fixing is going to make zen/rug into a good system. The design is incredibly inefficient and subpar to current available solutions like apt and smart. Just earlier in this thread, it was pointed out that the zen/rug repodata, when gzip'd, was roughly the same size as the UNCOMPRESSED previous system. What about zen/rug is so superior to apt/synaptic or smart for package management and fou4s for keeping a server up to date?