dilogsys@inter.net.il wrote:
What follows is written after considerable though - and I hope that someone out there in Novell/openSUSE is paying attention.
Hi Daniel, FYI, general issues with the distro are probably better discussed on -factory or -project. It's certainly not frowned upon here, but you might get a better response on those other two lists.
The other "glitch" (or perhaps a feature?) was that yast2 had a lot of things missing, requiring additional manual installation. The prime example was the DHCP server which is essential for using the box as a LAN server. I installed the DHCP server, but I had to look for and separately install the SUSE module needed to configure it.
It's not _actually_ needed, but it would probably be reasonable to pull it in automagically.
And while on this - where in 11.1 do you enable IP forwarding?
Network Devices -> Routing.
4. Back to usability: What of the obvious question: What would a Newbie do in such situations? Being unexpectedly thrown into an unfamiliar package manager would be disconcerting, to put it mildly.
Daniel, first of all, any package manager would be unfamiliar to a newbie. Second, what is a newbie doing with IP forwarding and a DHCP server? Third, yesterday I did an 11.1 install (on a laptop via NFS over wlan) with one hand tied on my back. I chose KDE 3.5, deselected beagle, chose traditional network setup, chose LILO instead of GRUB (GRUB had a problem with my JFS filesystems), and that was it. I think a newbie with no need to change anything would do very well.
And what of LAN configuration?
If you've got a DHCP server, there's nothing to it. If you don't, well, you assign the address, netmask and default as instructed by your network admin. It's all in YaST under "Network Devices". If you don't have a network admin, you will need some rudimentary understanding of how a LAN works.
First, all the beta testing in the world by volunteers, who are for most part technical enthusiasts won't help. I find it hard enough myself, to enter into the mentality of a "monkey with two left thumbs" - but that's the level of 80% of the desktop market. If you don't agree, ask Microsoft! (What might help is another (major) issue beyond the scope of this note, and probably off-topic for this list.)
I think your suggestions would be very welcome on e.g. -project or -factory.
What all this tells me is that there is a certain ambivalence (a polite euphemism for "lack of direction") in the Novell/openSUSE group about where openSUSE should be going.
It's not a lack of direction, it's just that openSUSE is aiming in at least two different directions (SLES, SLED). /Per -- /Per Jessen, Zürich -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org