On 2018-04-03 05:13, David C. Rankin wrote:
All,
I finally moved my laptop to 42.3 (even though I booted 42.2 here, because I haven't finished the hours of config still to come...), but nonetheless I have a blazing Leap_42.3 install with a fresh KDE3 desktop, all on 500G of Samsung SSD -- and yes -- the speed difference (especially compiling) is very noticeable.
Good! :-)
All in all the Leap 42.3 install was.. cumbersome, frustrating, took a bit of coaxing to install what I wanted installed and not what I didn't want, but it worked just fine.
The cumbersome part was the inability to add repos prior to the install (or at any point during).
Huh? I would have to try again to verify, but I'm 95% certain that you can add repos during the install, in a cumbersome way. It appears after you configure the network. Confirmed: right after the time zone configuration screen, I get to "User interface setup" with this entries: (*) Desktop with KDE Plasma ( ) Desktop with Gnome ( ) Server (text mode) ( ) Custom [Configure online repositories] <==== I could attach a photo, but I don't think that is necessary. Wait, here, I found one - courtesy of our doc site: <https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/images/install_ui_osuse.png>
This was compounded by the truly insane default partition scheme suggested using btrfs for a user-laptop?? We have dumbed-down the desktop to the point of file managers that have a shadow of the capabilities they provided a decade ago so they are "easier for the new user", but now we somehow expect the newbie to master an enterprise level filesystem notorious for snapshotting all usable space into oblivion?
I guess the really smart people see the logic in that, but that logic just escapes us lesser mortals...
Well, this is arguable (I also will not use btrfs), but changing what filesystem your machine will use is trivial enough. I don't see the point in even complaining ;-P What is not trivial at all is manually choosing btrfs and then creating the subvolumes manually, so having it automatic and default btrfs turns out good for them. :-) In fact, on 42.3 install, click on "edit proposal settings" and change the default filesystem. Automatically YaST will do a new proposal using whatever you selected. This feature is missing on 15.0, the partitioner is being redone from scratch.
The good parts of the install, after nuking the btrfs suggestion and the secondary non-native XFS suggestion and dropping back to the wasteful old ext4 that has never lost a file for me in a decade, the remainder went great. Both wired and wireless Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (wired) and Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (wireless) -- so kudos to that.
A bit more of the cumbersome was completing the entire install in text mode with minimal yast modules present as the frustrating part of the install provided no KDE3 pattern, despite providing every other minor semi-maintained option of enlightenment, lxde, mode, cinnamon, icewm, windowmaker, etc.. You guys have a fantastic option in KDE3 that installs flawlessly, there is no reason not to have a patter for it for install. (enlightenment but KDE?)
I still do not understand why you had to continue the installation in text mode. Did the graphic install system crash? Your choice of desktop for the installed system has nothing to do with what is used by the install system.
If you go this route, at least install the X-server and icewm so you will get the full yast. Even installing xterm, firefox, LibreOffice, etc.. still did not pick up the X-server dependency leading to needing to complete the install via out old buddy the yast2 interface (which is quite fine). The other slightly frustrating part (which has been there since at least 7.0) is clicking of a repo and.... waiting while the package info is loaded (and reloaded each time you move up/down the repo list)
The choice of install patterns lacks "minimal X system" since some versions, and it is missed. We have been unable to convince developers to put it back. However, once you have selected the "custom" selection you can choose in the next view (Software Selection and System Tasks) "X Window system" which I understand yields the equivalent to the "minimal X system": <https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/images/install_custom_ui_osuse.png> If you pressed the button "online repos" to tick at least the "OSS" repo: <https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/images/install_onlinerepos_osuse.png> then you get more software and patterns. True, KDE3 is not visually present there, perhaps because you have to manually add the KDE3 repo at the previous step. I'm testing in a virtual machine a 42.3 install as I type this, but that step is not one I'm going to do :-)
That and the 'tab-order' of all the text mode controls obviously haven't been revisited since the 10.0 days despite the letters changing. (tabbing reminds me of a pinball machine -- with no hope of shift-tab actually backing up to the previous pane)
True. But you still have not explained why you installed in text mode.
All-in-all other than the btrfs, awkward desktop pattern selection, and no X-server dependency -- there is not much to complain about. There was no fuss on the network-install connection or package retrieval, it just worked, there are some dependency issue when selecting packages without packman and/or videolan configured.
The last surprise was the missing convenience directives in /etc/pam.d/su that no longer provided an easy uncomment to allow users of 'wheel' to su without a password, e.g.
Ah, so that's what the wheel group was used for. I have been wondering about that for close to two decades. :-)
# Uncomment the following line to implicitly trust users in the "wheel" group. auth sufficient pam_wheel.so trust use_uid # Uncomment the following line to require a user to be in the "wheel" group. auth required pam_wheel.so use_uid
... the removal may be a security enhancement, but thankfully I have a ssh client on my phone that I could jump on an older install and get the details (heaven know I didn't recall the specifics)
Surely you keep the backup of the previous install to check such details ;-p
Maybe next time I'll take the less painful route of upgrade, but I've done a clean install of every release (other than those I skipped when we were on the 6-month rapid-fire rabbit-pellet release cycles) back in the good ole days (when that steel-trap type logic reared it head in the name of progress)
So now I sit with the shiny new ssd as sda and this old platter as sdb in my laptop, just wait to finish the bulk of the install by mounting the other under /mnt and rolling all the needed files and configs back over. (and tweaking the users/groups, etc.) That will be as a time-allows project over the next few days.
So good job again. Leap 42.3 installs just fine. Other than the somewhat ironic logic of making things easier for new users while feeding them btrfs there were really no hiccups in the network install. (that speaks well, I don't think I've had a serious install problem in 15 years, sure there are things that could be made better, but the installer still mows the grass)
I see no point on arguing over btrfs again. Just a waste of e-ink. Nothing anybody says is going to change anything there, so shut up and enjoy life little pleasures :-P :-D -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.3 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)