Hi,

Le jeudi 14 juin 2018 à 03:50:26, Knurpht@openSUSE a écrit :
> Op donderdag 14 juni 2018 15:29:30 CEST schreef Stevens:
> > I have been sub'ed to this forum for many years. I'm not sure which was
> > my first opensuse version (I remember 10-something) but suffice it to
> > say that I have followed the trials and tribulations of the user
> > community here and I wonder what it is about opensuse that really sets
> > it apart from all the other distros out there.
> >
> > I mean, what is its main claim to fame? The answer to that has changed
> > over the years but I wonder what it is now. Maybe someone here can make
> > a compelling case for the use of opensuse instead of any other linux
> > distro. If so, I would like to see it. What use case would causeus
> > opensuse to be selected? I suppose in order to answer that, one must be
> > fluent in the various linux dialects. I am not; I barely have enough
> > time to use this opensuse 13.1 and admin the adjacent webserver running
> > ubuntu 16.04lts.
> >
> > As my version is somewhat dated ;-) I will be moving to something better
> > by year's end. Maybe 15.1, maybe something else. I really haven't had
> > time to research, which is why the original question.
> >
> > Thanks, Fred
> 1. YaST and it's many modules. F.e. setting up a webserver through YaST's
> http-server module is by far the easiest I've ever seen
> 2. openQA, which ( amongst other things ) does  automated testing of human
> actions, f.e. install, reboot, try whether Firefox starts.
> 3. The fact that openSUSE is not just a linux distro. We created a lot of
> tools, like OBS, openQA, OSEM, Kiwi and so on, which are 100% FOSS and not
> just openSUSE only
> 4. For Leap: a shared code base with SUSE's SLE, which brings enterprise
> quality to the distro
> 5. For Tumbleweed; a rolling release with a completely new model: build
> updates, generate a snapshot, test that in openQA, and only release the
> snapshot after openQA reports it's OK to release it.

I do agree with all those points. That is I exactly the points I present at
FOSS events and when I meet old time openSUSE users, they totally agree with
it.
I would add the fact that openSUSE is a project that makes contibution easy,
even and particulary for non technical users which is something that may
count.

Cheers,

-- 
Sébastien 'sogal' POHER

-- 
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Le jeudi 14 juin 2018 à 09:52:26, Stevens a écrit :

On 06/14/2018 09:07 AM, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

...

Le 14/06/2018 à 15:29, Stevens a écrit :

...

I mean, what is its main claim to fame?

for me it's the config tools (YaST, but others also) being available in any variations, that is bare bone server, desktop...

and of course the fact that it's easy to install, easy to manage...

That is what I have noticed about many other flavors: their lack of a quality admin tool.

I forgot to mention the installer, which is by far the most powerfull and complete yet remaining easy to use for average users and common needs. -- Sébastien 'sogal' POHER -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

I don't remember the version number I began with, it was some time in the later nineties. I had tried Red Hat and Mandrake and couldn't quite manage to figure out how to use them. SuSE kinda "just worked" and I could use it. And Oh my, all the packages included on those five CDs. I felt very rich. -- Bob Rea www.petard.us www.petard.us/blog America, it was a wonderful country Til they took it private and made it a theme park of itself -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Op donderdag 14 juni 2018 18:24:05 CEST schreef Per Jessen:

Darryl Gregorash wrote:

...

On 2018-06-14 08:07 AM, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

...

Le 14/06/2018 à 15:29, Stevens a écrit :

...

I mean, what is its main claim to fame?

for me it's the config tools (YaST, but others also) being available in any variations, that is bare bone server, desktop...

and of course the fact that it's easy to install, easy to manage...

use SuSE since 6.x (20 years?) and tested most other main ones

jdd

I hate to sound "me too", but these are also the reasons why I have stayed with SuSE over the years. I went looking for a Linux distro almost the same day IBM announced it was discontinuing OS/2 (around 2001/2002, iirc, but maybe earlier), which I had been running since version 2.0. After a quick comparison of features, I rather quickly settled on SuSE 6.3, and I have been running SuSELinux/openSUSE ever since.

I took a little longer to give up on OS/2, 2004/2005, otherwise very much the same story. I also complete agree with what jdd wrote, as well as what Mikhail wrote about KDE.

claim to fame? dunno, for me SuSE Linux was my first Linux distro. I never had much reason to look elsewhere. Same here. Started with 5.4 in 1998, left Windows in 2001, tried other distros, but always next to S.u.S.E./SuSE/openSUSE. It's simply home. And not only the best KDE implementation, GNOME as well. And I guess I ran all the versions.

-- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Op donderdag 14 juni 2018 20:11:45 CEST schreef Per Jessen:

Knurpht@openSUSE wrote:

...

Same here. Started with 5.4 in 1998, left Windows in 2001, tried other distros, but always next to S.u.S.E./SuSE/openSUSE. It's simply home.

Yup. Of course, nostalgia is all very well :-) but, what is that makes openSUSE a truly great product? (apart from the people)

I already gave five points apart from 'home' :),

YaST KDE ease of installation

For me, it's also that openSUSE is complete, including more exotic stuff - root on NFS, iSCSI, FCoE, high-availability, firewall. I did once try to get Ubuntu to boot from iSCSI or even just mount an iSCSI drive, it was fun but exhausting. With openSUSE, overall, things just work.

It does, Per. My #6 . IMHO absolutely reliable for production. -- Gertjan Lettink a.k.a. Knurpht openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Forums Team -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Knurpht@openSUSE composed on 2018-06-14 18:56 (UTC+0200):

Per Jessen composed:

...

Darryl Gregorash wrote:

...

...

I hate to sound "me too", but these are also the reasons why I have stayed with SuSE over the years. I went looking for a Linux distro almost the same day IBM announced it was discontinuing OS/2 (around 2001/2002, iirc, but maybe earlier), which I had been running since version 2.0. After a quick comparison of features, I rather quickly settled on SuSE 6.3, and I have been running SuSELinux/openSUSE ever since.

...

I took a little longer to give up on OS/2, 2004/2005, otherwise very much the same story. I also complete agree with what jdd wrote, as well as what Mikhail wrote about KDE.

...

claim to fame? dunno, for me SuSE Linux was my first Linux distro. I never had much reason to look elsewhere.

Same here. Started with 5.4 in 1998, left Windows in 2001, tried other distros, but always next to S.u.S.E./SuSE/openSUSE. It's simply home. And not only the best KDE implementation, GNOME as well. And I guess I ran all the versions.

While still using DesqView/QEMM on first DOS 5, then PC DOS 7/2000, I started poking at Linux by buying an InfoMagic 6 CD box set at the same time I was seriously considering upgrading OS/2 2.1x to Warp 4, and using it more than dabbling with it, seeing a need to upgrade from BBS tinkering to real Internet access. Warp got the nod; the InfoMagic CDs never made it out of their box long enough to be installed anywhere. On the threshhold of Y2K I bought a ©2000 Linux book that included a RedHat 5.1 CD, which I installed on a second PC. Gnome put me off and got little more than dabbled with until both Corel/KDE/WordPerfect and Mandrake 7's KDE got my attention, and more serious use. Windows 3 never got used here for anything but its built-in games, a quickly abandoned novelty, and the ability to speak with any familiarity about it. Windows 95 didn't get installed on anything here until long after Windows ME proved its lack of worth, and only as a learning exercise. I did (and still do) have Win98SE, W2K(?) and WinXP on extra/older PCs, but mainly only for purposes of Mozilla testing, web site QA, and eventually Logitech Harmony Remote management, now handled by the painful slug that is Win10, which is otherwise used only for web site evaluation in IE and Edge, and occasionally dealing with warranty & RMA people. What got my secondary PC headed into full time use was SuSE 8.0's HTTP installation and YaST2, obviously high quality Deutsch products. I quickly went to 8.1, and then with 8.2 and Apache, 24/7, though still secondary to OS/2 as migrated to eComStation. It wasn't until it became obvious in Q3 2009 that post-1.1.19 SeaMonkey wasn't going to have adequate support in eCS that I made the migration of primary OS from eCS to openSUSE. I still run eCS 24/7, because Linux can't do DOS like OS/2 can do DOS, which is where I keep most things DB and/or financial, in heavily macro'd QPro, which never that I could find acquired a migration path to anything else, GUI or otherwise. I do also use other Linux distros on (a bunch of) other PCs, but that's all about various forms of QA, learning, technical support, and a bit of FOSS cross-pollination now & then. None of them get more than a few hours' uptime at a time, and all share HD space with at least three installations of the best overall Linux distro, openSUSE. -- "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 06/14/2018 11:24 AM, Per Jessen wrote:

Darryl Gregorash wrote:

...

On 2018-06-14 08:07 AM, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

...

Le 14/06/2018 à 15:29, Stevens a écrit :

...

I mean, what is its main claim to fame?

for me it's the config tools (YaST, but others also) being available in any variations, that is bare bone server, desktop...

and of course the fact that it's easy to install, easy to manage...

use SuSE since 6.x (20 years?) and tested most other main ones

jdd

I hate to sound "me too", but these are also the reasons why I have stayed with SuSE over the years. I went looking for a Linux distro almost the same day IBM announced it was discontinuing OS/2 (around 2001/2002, iirc, but maybe earlier), which I had been running since version 2.0. After a quick comparison of features, I rather quickly settled on SuSE 6.3, and I have been running SuSELinux/openSUSE ever since.

I took a little longer to give up on OS/2, 2004/2005, otherwise very much the same story. I also complete agree with what jdd wrote, as well as what Mikhail wrote about KDE.

claim to fame? dunno, for me SuSE Linux was my first Linux distro. I never had much reason to look elsewhere.

To add to the historical chain, it was the implosion of Madrake that pushed me (and a fair number of others to SuSE) Mandrake had just chosen to add a corporate owner and things went downhill rapidly. It was unable to make the jump from pure linux distro to a corporate model with commercial viability and it died (only to re-emerge for a period of time a Mandriva (nick named mandribble) and then again faded into obscurity. That brought me here with the release of 7.0 (Air), installed from a nice boxed set. Yast, at the time, provided a very good and very simple install. I still have one old box in the bone-pile that will boot 9.0pro and the oldest spinning disk reachable on the network still has: $ cat /mnt/pv/etc/SuSE-release SUSE LINUX 10.0 (i586) OSS VERSION = 10.0 running on the default at the time: /dev/sda2 on /mnt/pv type reiserfs (rw,relatime) Had it not been for the deal with the devil in 2008 and the debacle of making the new "Released" KDE 4.0.4a default on 11.0 released that year, I doubt I would have run another distro. Since that time I have tried about every distro out there. I currently have servers running Archlinux, desktops of Debian, Ubuntu and openSuSE. And what has been the lesson from working with the different distros? Answer: Linux is Linux is Linux... It's all the same under the hood. (even VMWare is just Linux underneath) So what makes a distro? Well, if you break it down, it is the: 1) package manager, how do I install, remove, manage packages, 2) availability and selection of packages to install, 3) package concurrency with upstream (or backported patches), 4) installer and configuration tool (if any, none are required), 5) the upgrade path between releases (or a rolling release), and 5) the community. So is one package manager really superior than another. Should that dictate your choice? (answer: No) Whether it is RPM, dpkg, apt or pacman or the various derivatives, they are work well. Just more syntax and different commands to make friends with. So is there any distro that really has a greater selection of packages that would push you in that distro's direction over another (answer: No). All major distros do very good jobs in provide reasonable commonality in what is available. So is there a difference in package concurrency with upstream that may drive your choice? (answer: Yes) This does matter. This is where you talk about the "bleeding-edge" and whether the distro stays current with the upstream kernel and package versions. This matters to those that buy the "bleeding-edge" hardware the day it comes out and want their distro to be able to handle all the latest and greatest right off the bat. Is this a big issue? It depends on your needs. I've never needed the kernel released today to support the hardware I just bought -- but some people do. It's also impacts the build tools that are available if you are building software that needs features in the latest compiler versions or libraries. Big issue? -- depends on your needs. So is there a difference in installers? (answer: Yes). It all depends on how dirty you want to get your hands while working on your car. You don't need an installer at all, all you need is a way to boot the kernel and provide a minimal shell to allow your to format and partition your disks and then a place to load packages from. If you can set your local and timezone, partition your disks, create the filesystems, bring up your network, and load packages using a package manager -- then you don't really need an installer or configuration tool -- but they do make things nice to get started. If you don't want to get your hands dirty -- you don't want Arch, it ditched its installer 4 or 5 years ago and now only provides a way to boot the kernel and a pacstrap script to chroot into your newly created and formatted partitions to invoke installing the remaining packages you want. It works surprisingly well, but there are no training-wheels on that bike. The remaining distros all have fairly similar installers (though whether you choose patterns or groups, etc. differs) So is there a difference between the upgrade paths offered by the distros? (answer: Yes). This boils down to "How painful is it to keep my system running -- long term?" There is nothing worse than a forced upgrade as a distro reaches end of life and a new security issue emerges. Until you have tried the different approaches the distros have to this problem, it is hard to compare. A good rolling release makes this a seamless process, but for production boxes, you can get caught with individual package updates requiring user intervention. (some very non-trivial intervention, e.g. apache 2.2 -> 2.4, php 5.6 -> 7, etc..) So the benefit of a release sticking with a version over its lifetime does provide consistency in this regard, but that just means you face all changes at once -- which may be easier to plan for -- based on your use. So is there a difference in communities? (answer: Yes) You can create the greatest distro on earth, but if your community responds to new users with "If you don't already know, then go **** yourself", the distro is likely to go the way of the Dodo. The community should also encompass what, and how good, the reference documentation is for the distro, and how well and how current it is maintained. With all of these factor, all distros fall somewhere on a sliding-scale between good and bad. So why openSuSE? Well, it does a pretty damn good job with all 6, now offers both released versions and a rolling release (tumbleweed), and it has always excelled with providing an exceptional community (this list) for both new and experienced users, the recent squabbles notwithstanding. So rather than ask what should I use, in the days of 50M - 100M internet, you should just go try each one. There is a quick reference or wiki for every package manager that gives more than enough detail to get you going. Then you can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses between the distros and choose the one that fits you the best. You may be surprised, any of them "can" meet your needs -- Linux is Linux is Linux..., but which one is the best, or favorite, for you, is not a whole lot different than which are the best or favorite pair of shoes for you? (and you can't know until you walk a mile in each and compare) -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 06/14/2018 08:47 PM, Stevens wrote:

David, one of these days I'm going to drive over and knock on your door and buy the coffee (or beverage of your choice). You're only about 2 or 3 hours from here (nw of Denton). Thanks for your insight. I seem to remember also moving to opensuse when Mandrake died. Before that I had an AT&T unix pc. Glad those days are gone.

Yep, spent plenty of time in that neck of the woods. (latest up there was a case against the Wilson N. Jones hospital in Sherman) In my younger days had more than a few at the Yellow Rose and whatever the other club was just east of Lewisville on 121 (as well as the motocross trails at the bottom of the dam over there on Fish Hatchery Road). Good old Texas Hwy. 24 (now US 380) was nothing but a lonely 2-lane blacktop back then and there was nothing between LBJ and Denton on 35 except the intersection (I grew up in the space between Dallas and Plano.... when there was space between Dallas and Plano, back when the toll-road stopped at LBJ -- and when there were still drive-in theaters in both Richardson and Plano -- that's been a while back....) My mom even taught at Lewisville High School for a number of years. When I left in '87, you could still get around up there without any traffic and Denton was just a blip on 35 with NTSU (now with a name change to shake the party-school rep, re-badged as UNT -- wooo) Sad thing about that area is I don't even recognize it anymore. If somebody told me growing up that all the farms and fields we hunted every day after school would be nothing but another 40 miles of subdivision and urban sprawl -- I would have told them they were crazy. But I digress... -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 14:28, Liam Proven wrote:

Fedora's implementation, YUM and now DNF, is pretty smoooth -- but the supplementary tooling, such as the graphical package manager, are very poor indeed. Synaptic is still the best graphical package manager I've seen on any OS of any form. YAST's inability to allow the selection of multiple packages to remove drives me crazy.

Yast has a "Right click - all in this list" sub menu, have you tried that. Dave P -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 16:51, Felix Miata wrote:

I find using apt/deb yum/dnf incomprehensibly difficult compared to zypper. e.g.

[...] I think this boils down to personal preference and familiarity. When I switched away from SUSE, Zypper didn't exist yet. I am not yet at home with it. But all my supplementary repos are set at priority 99. There's no real logical priority between them; apparently that is a user issue. I.e., do it yourself. IMHO that's bad. I get nagged a lot about whether I want to "upgrade" a package to a lower version number, because Zypper seems only to look at the 1st value after the decimal point. IMHO that's bad. I get asked a number of questions whenever I do a large upgrade -- is it OK to do these supplementary packages? Are you sure you want to continue *after* it's downloaded 500 packages over 15min. I get nagged about VirtualBox packages every single time. I don't want this stuff. I don't care. I want a "do it and don't ask again" option. I get nagged about vendor changes. If it's newer, I want it to just install it. Don't ask me. Do it. I get told it won't install upgrades *because* of vendor changes. I don't care. Just do it. No I do *not* want to go and edit a config file; I expect a command to do that. No, manually instructing it to do each one individually by copy-and-pasting a command is not a good alternative. When I remove stuff, I get a screenful of errors about X will break Y, Y will break Z and Z will break X. That is cyclical: remove the lot. Don't hassle the user. Decide. Apt -- note, not apt-get, which is now historical on Ubuntu; just ``apt'' -- doesn't ask me this stuff. It just does as it's told and it never asks me to decide. A system upgrade is 2 commands: apt update apt full-upgrade -y Zypper nags me more than any other packager I've used in a decade. I am sure there are ways around this, and I am sure there are people that want this, and I am sure there are good reasons. But, personally, I don't care. You have your orders: go do them. No questions. DNF requires even less hand-holding. One command and the system is up to date. But if I tried 4 different XML editors, and I want to remove them all, in Synaptic I just tick them, say remove, and the job's done. I can't do that at all in DNF and in YAST each one must be a separate operation, probably each involving confirming the individual removal of 20 submodules. To respond to one point:

zypper se -s irefo lists existing package versions of Firefox*. I only needed to look at one man page to find that out out.

Which of these man pages shows an equivalent? apt

That one. All the rest is historical baggage. Forget it. ``apt search irefo'' Done.

...

Synaptic is still the best graphical package manager I've seen on any OS of any form. I've never found a powerfule yet friendly GUI for apt, including

synaptic, or

for yum or for dnf. I guess I'm just spoiled by YaST2's power and UI logic.

*Shrug* Individual preference. I don't know of any tool that even approaches Synaptic's power, for me. YAST, for my personal use cases, doesn't even come close. But of course it does a thousand other things that Synaptic doesn't, so I still like it a lot and find it extremely useful. I just find its package-management functionality a little weak compared to what I was used to. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 18:44, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2018-06-15 17:09, Liam Proven wrote:

...

But all my supplementary repos are set at priority 99. There's no real logical priority between them; apparently that is a user issue. I.e., do it yourself. IMHO that's bad.

Just choose the priority...

I look up the recommended solution and I do what it says there. I don't know what priorities to choose or what's important; every guide, and every one-click install, seems to set them all at the minimum one. This may be a valuable field for a skilled sysadmin, but I am not a skilled openSUSE sysadmin. As such, I expect the OS to make such decisions for me, or to make it easier.

Then enable vendor change. The default is "no", and for good reasons. I want "no". Yes, there is a command line option to enable it.

So if everyone says don't do it, why should I do it? I follow the advice I find online, and in response, the packaging tool nags at me. I think that is suboptimal. Is that wrong of me? I do not like it that the packaging tool says "there are 42 other updates available that I won't install". That worries me. However, my choices are to either do them individually -- bad -- or to change a config file and make a permanent change or remember to revert it manually -- also bad. I think a simpler option would be: [1] Have an interactive option to do those updates too. [2] Have a secondary option to remember the choice. For comparison look at the difference between "recommends" and "suggests" in Apt. Ubuntu defaults to ``--install-recommends'' and has for years. But you can also add ``--install-suggests'' too -- but it can add a large number of additional packages. If I tell my OS to update itself, I expect it to install all available updates. I am not happy when it says there are more but it won't do them.

Remove the kernel. Just do it. Borked system.

Sure, I've done that before. :-) It's the Unix way. It does what you tell it to do. I expect this of all Linuxes, TBH. But on Ubuntu it was easy to fix. I booted from a CD with root=/dev/sda5 or whatever, and then once it booted, I did ``apt install linux-kernel-generic" or whatever it's called. Job done. It ran ``update-grub'' for me and everything. This stuff is still rather more work on openSUSE, which is why I'd probably primarily recommend openSUSE as a _server_ distro. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 19:57, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Liam Proven [06-15-18 12:58]:

...

I think that is suboptimal. Is that wrong of me?

yes, since you do have control of the option. do you do everything everyone tells you?

When I'm learning a new piece of software, *yes!*

...

I do not like it that the packaging tool says "there are 42 other updates available that I won't install". That worries me.

but YOU have configured it to do that. you are only worried about a choice you already made.

No I didn't. I did what I was told. Nobody told me to do anything else.

...

However, my choices are to either do them individually -- bad -- or to change a config file and make a permanent change or remember to revert it manually -- also bad.

you either want control or you don't. but YOU have a choice.

It's not all about choice, you know. Ubuntu got to be the world's most popular distro because it simplified things. Download ISO; burn CD; install; enter your name → working system. There are 1,001 text editors on Linux. I don't know what is the best. I prefer for an expert who knows this to choose for me. So, for instance, with original GNOME 2 Ubuntu, I got given Gedit and it worked. Fine. Job done. Don't pester me with stuff I don't *need* to answer. Distro maintainers know more than me, so they should make a sensible choice for me. E.g. "if you're using GNOME 2 then use the GNOME 2 text editor. But, don't use the GNOME 2 web browser, because it's really niche and not widely-supported. Use Firefox." This doesn't stop me choosing my own later if I so decide. It makes entry welcoming for me, because it helps me, without restricting me. It doesn't stop me doing anything. Now, sure, some users are experienced and want these choices. They know how to make informed decisions. Fine. Good for them. Perhaps that is openSUSE's target audience. But all experts were beginners once... -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 22:29, Felix Miata wrote:

Like when apt upgrade inexplicably reports packages have been "held back"?

Slightly but only slightly. That is very rare and I presume that there are good reasons for it -- e.g. they are critical dependencies of something not (yet) being upgraded. I get these notifications from zypper _every single time I run it_. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2018-06-15 18:55, Liam Proven wrote:

On 15/06/18 18:44, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2018-06-15 17:09, Liam Proven wrote:

...

But all my supplementary repos are set at priority 99. There's no real logical priority between them; apparently that is a user issue. I.e., do it yourself. IMHO that's bad.

Just choose the priority...

I look up the recommended solution and I do what it says there. I don't know what priorities to choose or what's important; every guide, and every one-click install, seems to set them all at the minimum one.

This may be a valuable field for a skilled sysadmin, but I am not a skilled openSUSE sysadmin. As such, I expect the OS to make such decisions for me, or to make it easier.

But you see, the default and the recommendation is "don't add more repos". Problem solved. Once you (we) add more repos, you (we) have to learn things. And the thing is, there is no official guide for setting priorities that I know of. The default setting (99) mostly works. It is people that have many repos that offer the same packages who have to decide. For instance, I set Packman to have a lower priority number, which can be anything, for example, 98. Basically it means: if there is a package that is both offered in default OSS repo and packman, choose the packman one. If I add a second multimedia repository, then I have to decide if to put it above, below, or at the same prio than the existing ones. And no, I don't have a clear mind, but I guess it should be 98 and Packman 97. I guess most people don't choose.

...

Then enable vendor change. The default is "no", and for good reasons. I want "no". Yes, there is a command line option to enable it.

So if everyone says don't do it, why should I do it? I follow the advice I find online, and in response, the packaging tool nags at me.

Don't allow vendor change unless you know why.

I think that is suboptimal. Is that wrong of me?

I do not like it that the packaging tool says "there are 42 other updates available that I won't install". That worries me.

It should not. Just ignore the message. The updater is simply giving you some information, and the correct thing is just accept it. You do not need those updates. It simply tells you that with another configuration there are other update possibilities, other choices.

However, my choices are to either do them individually -- bad -- or to change a config file and make a permanent change or remember to revert it manually -- also bad.

Your choice is "do nothing".

I think a simpler option would be:

[1] Have an interactive option to do those updates too. [2] Have a secondary option to remember the choice.

For comparison look at the difference between "recommends" and "suggests" in Apt.

Ubuntu defaults to ``--install-recommends'' and has for years. But you can also add ``--install-suggests'' too -- but it can add a large number of additional packages.

If I tell my OS to update itself, I expect it to install all available updates. I am not happy when it says there are more but it won't do them.

Be happy that it doesn't do updates that might be wrong for your configuration. It is installing all the available and correct updates.

...

Remove the kernel. Just do it. Borked system.

Sure, I've done that before. :-)

It's the Unix way. It does what you tell it to do.

I expect this of all Linuxes, TBH.

Well, openSUSE tries to make it difficult for you to shoot your own foot. It is a feature :-)

But on Ubuntu it was easy to fix. I booted from a CD with root=/dev/sda5 or whatever, and then once it booted, I did ``apt install linux-kernel-generic" or whatever it's called. Job done. It ran ``update-grub'' for me and everything.

This stuff is still rather more work on openSUSE, which is why I'd probably primarily recommend openSUSE as a _server_ distro.

Once upon a time, there was a (open?)SUSE app that would automatically repair the system from the DVD. But it had problems and disappeared. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.3 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On Saturday, 16 June 2018 11:27:38 ACST John Andersen wrote:

[...] AND YES, I use YAST where I can see exactly what is going to be done, without dry runs, and wading through a man page 4 reams long. [...]

YaST is great, but on tumbleweed I prefer the "zypper dup --download-only -- auto-agree-with-licenses" incantation first, before finally running "zypper dup".

Things like Zypper with 4000 options, some totally surprising and UN-intuitive, really aren't easy for anything except repetitive by-rote tasks. I avoid it where ever possible.

I really suck at typing in long strings of fuzzy numbers and letters to specify a package.

For finding and installing individual packages, I agree - on openSuSE, YaST is king. And, yes, for that, it is much easier than apt (or even aptittude). Mind you, the structure of the openSuSE repo's is much easier and more intuitive (in my mind, anyway) than the way the debian (and other debian-based distros) repos are structured. All of this reminds me of the ages-old SysV Init vs BSD Init debates - again, a log of it boils down to personal preference, workflows and what one is used to. Oh, yes - from a packaging point of view, I find creating deb packages *much* easiser and more intuitive than trying to do the same for rpm packages. To me, RPM is obtuse and thoroughly confusing, while deb seems very logical and easy. I'm sure there are others that disagree. :) -- ============================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au CCNA #CSCO12880208 ============================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Saturday, 16 June 2018 19:37:36 ACST Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2018-06-16 07:02, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

On Saturday, 16 June 2018 11:27:38 ACST John Andersen wrote:

...

[...] AND YES, I use YAST where I can see exactly what is going to be done, without dry runs, and wading through a man page 4 reams long.

[...]

YaST is great, but on tumbleweed I prefer the "zypper dup --download-only -- auto-agree-with-licenses" incantation first, before finally running "zypper dup".

On TW *you have* to use zypper dup. But you can use "download in advance then install" in a single command.

That's true, but I prefer to supervise the installation process. Downloading can happen when I'm in bed, but installation when I'm at the kb. -- ============================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au CCNA #CSCO12880208 ============================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sunday, 17 June 2018 1:55:43 ACST Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2018-06-16 12:36, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

On Saturday, 16 June 2018 19:37:36 ACST Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2018-06-16 07:02, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

On Saturday, 16 June 2018 11:27:38 ACST John Andersen wrote:

...

[...] AND YES, I use YAST where I can see exactly what is going to be done, without dry runs, and wading through a man page 4 reams long.

[...]

YaST is great, but on tumbleweed I prefer the "zypper dup --download-only -- auto-agree-with-licenses" incantation first, before finally running "zypper dup".

On TW *you have* to use zypper dup. But you can use "download in advance then install" in a single command.

That's true, but I prefer to supervise the installation process. Downloading can happen when I'm in bed, but installation when I'm at the kb.

Then I would try the actual dup without a refresh. The repos might have got updates between the download and the second actual dup, so it might download things again ;-)

Yes, that has happened, but it's usually a very small subset of the previously downloaded packages. :) -- ============================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au CCNA #CSCO12880208 ============================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

* Constant Brouerius van Nidek [06-16-18 09:40]:

On Saturday, June 16, 2018 5:07:36 PM WIB Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2018-06-16 07:02, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

On Saturday, 16 June 2018 11:27:38 ACST John Andersen wrote:

...

[...] AND YES, I use YAST where I can see exactly what is going to be done, without dry runs, and wading through a man page 4 reams long.

[...]

YaST is great, but on tumbleweed I prefer the "zypper dup --download-only -- auto-agree-with-licenses" incantation first, before finally running "zypper dup".

On TW *you have* to use zypper dup. But you can use "download in advance then install" in a single command.

Sory to interupt with a question. What is this single command?

zypper dup --help look for download -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member facebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 16/06/18 12:23 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2018-06-16 15:31, Constant Brouerius van Nidek wrote:

...

On Saturday, June 16, 2018 5:07:36 PM WIB Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On TW *you have* to use zypper dup. But you can use "download in advance then install" in a single command.

Sory to interupt with a question. What is this single command?

zypper dup --download-in-advance

obviously :-)

You mean it's not even as complex as RTFM? -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Liam Proven composed on 2018-06-15 17:09 (UTC+0200):

Felix Miata wrote:

...

zypper se -s irefo lists existing package versions of Firefox*. I only needed to look at one man page to find that out out.

...

Which of these man pages shows an equivalent? apt

That one. All the rest is historical baggage. Forget it.

``apt search irefo''

Done.

I did a bit of confusing apt with dnf, which seems to want to keep versions a secret, but with apt, there seems to be nothing (concise, exactly what I want) like zypper: # zypper se -sx firefox-esr | wc -l 25 # zypper se -sx firefox-esr Loading repository data... Reading installed packages... S | Name | Type | Version | Arch | Repository ---+-------------+------------+--------------+--------+------------------ | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 52.8.0-1.3 | noarch | Mozilla131 | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 52.5.3-2.1 | noarch | Mozilla131 | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 45.8.0-1.10 | noarch | MozillaLegacy | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 45.8.0-1.8 | noarch | MozillaLegacy | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 38.8.0-1.29 | noarch | MozillaLegacy | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 31.8.0-1.37 | noarch | MozillaLegacy | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 17.0.11-1.56 | noarch | MozillaLegacy | firefox-esr | srcpackage | 52.8.0-1.11 | noarch | Mozilla v | firefox-esr | package | 52.8.0-1.3 | x86_64 | Mozilla131 v | firefox-esr | package | 45.8.0-1.10 | x86_64 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 38.8.0-1.29 | x86_64 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 31.8.0-1.37 | x86_64 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 17.0.11-1.56 | x86_64 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 52.5.3-2.1 | i586 | Mozilla131 v | firefox-esr | package | 45.8.0-1.8 | i586 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 38.8.0-1.29 | i586 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 31.8.0-1.37 | i586 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 17.0.11-1.56 | i586 | MozillaLegacy v | firefox-esr | package | 52.8.0-1.11 | x86_64 | Mozilla ----- [Debian Stretch & Buster] # apt search firefox-esr | wc -l 284 Stretch, 287 Buster Since man apt doesn't seem to offer an exact match option, I won't pollute the list with the whole mess, just the head: # apt search firefox-esr | head -n25 # Buster WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts. Sorting... Full Text Search... firefox-esr/testing 52.8.1esr-2 amd64 Mozilla Firefox web browser - Extended Support Release (ESR) firefox-esr-dev/testing 52.8.1esr-2 amd64 Development files for the Gecko engine library firefox-esr-l10n-ach/testing 52.8.1esr-2 all Acoli language package for Firefox ESR firefox-esr-l10n-af/testing 52.8.1esr-2 all Afrikaans language package for Firefox ESR firefox-esr-l10n-all/testing 52.8.1esr-2 all All language packages for Firefox ESR (meta) firefox-esr-l10n-an/testing 52.8.1esr-2 all Aragonese language package for Firefox ESR firefox-esr-l10n-ar/testing 52.8.1esr-2 all Arabic language package for Firefox ESR firefox-esr-l10n-as/testing 52.8.1esr-2 all Assamese language package for Firefox ESR man apt suggests maybe apt list might be useful, but it only manages to list one package. man apt-cache suggests pkgnames, but it finds 94 packages, all but firefox-esr and firefox-esr-dev of which are l10n; or showpkg which wc reports having 358 lines. The question still comes back to which/if among multiple man pages has the answer that matches the need (what versions are on the mirrors). man apt is less than two screens full, little but an outline pointing to apt-*. -- "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Liam Proven composed on 2018-06-18 13:59 (UTC+0200):

Felix Miata wrote:

...

[Debian Stretch & Buster]

Whoah. Hang on a minute there.

I'm talking about Ubuntu and Ubuntu's ``apt'' command. You're using a different distro. I don't use Debian myself and I don't know how far behind its ``apt'' command is, so I can't comment on that at all.

Debian is the foundation on which *buntus are based. I would be shocked to find the closest equivalent releases had any differences in apt behavior. I could have referred to Xenial, but Stretch is over a year newer, Buster not even a release yet, and I've yet to find a compelling reason to install Bionic. -- "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 19/06/18 09:52, Felix Miata wrote:

Zypper is king of package managers, bar none.

And once again: you are perfectly welcome to your opinion, but you should never assume that what you personally prefer is what everyone prefers. This is your belief. It is not an objective truth. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Liam Proven composed on 2018-06-15 17:09 (UTC+0200):

DNF requires even less hand-holding. One command and the system is up to date.

Here, one command and the / filesystem fills up before the first package gets updated, no apparent option to update in bunches or one package at a time. Phooey on atomic. However much / filesystem space you think you need, or can give, practicality demands twice as much, or many more than one command. -- "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 21:12, Per Jessen wrote:

There's probably not much to do about that - they are supplementary, how can the system know their priorities?

If the user is doing an update, and the package is newer, install the newer version. Subject to a switch or something, not as a global default. ISTM there's a split here. There is SLE, a very stable enterprise distro, and there is openSUSE Tumbleweed, a rolling-release distro. Making the defaults for both the same is perhaps not ideal...?

Yes, I agree. There is always a perfectly reasonable explanation, but from a pure user perspective, it's illogical.

Thank you. :-)

...

I get told it won't install upgrades *because* of vendor changes. I don't care. Just do it. No I do *not* want to go and edit a config file; I expect a command to do that.

Hmm, isn't that typical of the Linux environment though? If I want to change something basic, I open a config file with vi. Some applications also have commands for the same, postfix for instance, but most haven't.

With a rolling-release distro, updates are a daily task, no? So if there's a safe default, but one day, it's a small update of only a dozen packages, easy to check for safety by eye, then a one-off "install everything" switch would seem useful to me.

This isn't Leap we are talking about, I hope? If it's Tumbleweed, you asked for it. It is bleeding edge, BYOBA. (I made that up).

Bring Your Own... Bad Attitude? :-)

Generally, on Leap, zypper does not ask me (m)any questions, other then "are you sure?"

I'm currently using Tumbleweed on my desktop and Leap on my laptop.

...

But if I tried 4 different XML editors, and I want to remove them all, in Synaptic I just tick them, say remove, and the job's done. I can't do that at all in DNF and in YAST each one must be a separate operation, probably each involving confirming the individual removal of 20 submodules.

zypper rm ?

What the CLI can do is not very relevant to a comparison of graphical tools. I could type them all out in full, by hand, yes. I don't want to. That's one of the *reasons* for a graphical package manager, IMHO. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2018-06-18 06:31 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

<snip>

Such great effort put into comparisons of package managers... yet no one can tell me how to get penguins in a Grub2 boot screen O:-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Le 18/06/2018 à 17:30, Darryl Gregorash a écrit :

On 2018-06-18 06:31 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

<snip>

Such great effort put into comparisons of package managers... yet no one can tell me how to get penguins in a Grub2 boot screen O:-)

wait for christmas :-) jdd -- http://dodin.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 2018-06-16 06:55, Rodney Baker wrote:

Apt also has another huge advantage when one is managing multiple systems that don't have direct access to the internet - apt-cacher. This allows me to have only one machine that has permissions to get to the internet, and it proxies and caches requests for clients on the internal network (without needing to maintain a local repository mirror). Even better - apt-cacher-ng now caches for zypper/yum as well, so I can now use my Pine64 running debian (at home) or the debian VM (at work) to proxy and cache updates for both openSuSE and debian/raspbian clients.

That's a feature that I have missed on openSUSE for ages. Seems nobody wants to create it. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.3 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On 2018-06-17 02:29, Rodney Baker wrote:

On Sunday, 17 June 2018 3:02:22 ACST Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

On 2018-06-16 06:55, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

Apt also has another huge advantage when one is managing multiple systems that don't have direct access to the internet - apt-cacher. This allows me to have only one machine that has permissions to get to the internet, and it proxies and caches requests for clients on the internal network (without needing to maintain a local repository mirror). Even better - apt-cacher-ng now caches for zypper/yum as well, so I can now use my Pine64 running debian (at home) or the debian VM (at work) to proxy and cache updates for both openSuSE and debian/raspbian clients.

That's a feature that I have missed on openSUSE for ages. Seems nobody wants to create it.

I know. :( But, there is an answer now. Set up a Raspberry Pi 3 (or better still, 3 B+) running raspbian and an external drive (for storage), install and configure apt-cacher-ng (not too much, if anything, to change from the defaults anyway), and modify your repo url's to point to the internal irl or IP address of the Pi:

So, http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed becomes http://

Works great. :)

Debian clients use the apt proxy config directive to achieve the same result.

Oh :-o Shame we don't have that. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.3 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On 2018-06-18 14:10, Liam Proven wrote:

On 16/06/18 06:55, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

More than once I've wished that apt was available on openSuSE, but by the same token I've also wished that YaST was available on Debian. On balance, I'd miss YaST more than I miss apt. :)

Yes, I'd agree with that.

OTOH there are other considerations -- e.g. recently I sold an old laptop of mine to a friend. I wiped it and reinstalled it for him, naturally, with openSUSE.

I tried GeckoLinux Cinnamon -- it wouldn't even boot the installer.

I tried openSUSE with Cinnamon. It worked but didn't build a complete graphical OS -- no graphical log in, for instance.

So I did it again with XFCE. This worked.

But I had to manually enable NetworkManager, manually install some extras, and the machine's multimedia keys (browser, mail, play, stop, forwards, backwards) didn't work. Nor did its physical volume control.

A week later, it died on him. He reinstalled with Ubuntu 16.04 and tells me it all worked flawlessly, media keys, volume, everything -- as it had done for me before.

These may seem like small details but they are the sort of things that swing a distro choice... and once someone has chosen something, getting them to change their mind is harder...

I just installed a laptop with Leap 15.0 this weekend, design made on 2016 («Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR», 11.6"). Everything seems to work out of the box, even the touch screen. Volume keys work. Brightness keys work. Other keys I have not tried, those that would send video to an external display. The edge volume key works. The edge key to stop rotation produces "o" in the terminal. I have not yet tried wifi or BT, but I know that NM detected the wifi SSIDs around. BT doesn't have a GUI in XFCE, AFAIK. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.3 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On 2018-06-18 16:36, Liam Proven wrote:

On 18/06/18 14:39, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

I just installed a laptop with Leap 15.0 this weekend, design made on 2016 («Lenovo Yoga 300-11IBR», 11.6"). Everything seems to work out of the box, even the touch screen.

Volume keys work. Brightness keys work. Other keys I have not tried, those that would send video to an external display. The edge volume key works. The edge key to stop rotation produces "o" in the terminal.

I have not yet tried wifi or BT, but I know that NM detected the wifi SSIDs around. BT doesn't have a GUI in XFCE, AFAIK.

This *was* a few months ago. I was using 42.3.

Also, I have long noted that Lenovo Thinkpads have some of the best Linux support around. Alas, my workbench/test machine was a Toshiba Satellite Pro.

I googled a lot before doing the purchase... I read forum threads of people attempting to use Linux on whatever machine I was looking at. Before that Lenovo I was looking at Acer. Lenovo was not in my top list, because my mobile phone is a Motorola, now Lenovo, and I'm not happy with it. Their Windows proprietary side has few updates. The last bios update, for instance, was from 2016. They only upgraded the Intel video driver, I think, and their custom configuration utility, Vantage. So the Linux support comes from the community, not from Lenovo - but I'm happy that they don't hinder things.

There are traces on various mailing lists of my struggles with this thing, as well as on my blog...

I may have seen some.

https://bugs.dogfood.paddev.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1212199

https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/35410.html

E.g. between Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.04-1, AMD stopped maintaining the fglrx driver for the version of X.org that Ubuntu was using, so OpenGL stopped working. Switching *from* proprietary *to* FOSS drivers is not trivial -- the main path is the other way, and that is what is mostly tested.

It's just one of thousands of models of Toshiba laptop, and probably few people continued using these things after Windows Vista was superseded.

I wanted a small, not powerful, laptop without nvidia nor amd graphics.

Thinkpads are a bit different...

Seems so, although this is a Yoga. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.3 x86_64 "Malachite" at Telcontar)

On 15/06/18 17:32, Anton Aylward wrote:

I wouldn't know. I don't use Yast for package management, I use zypper and I can add, remove, lock, unlock multiple packages at the CLI.

That's fine. I can and do most simple maintenance tasks at the CLI. However, if I don't know what a package is called, or I want to manipulate a few separate packages at once, or install a bunch of packages without finding a neat exclusive wildcard, or for whatever reason, I prefer a GUI. I'm happy enough with CLIs but I like GUIs too. Let's say, for instance, that I am experimenting with different desktops. I pick this task as it's a real one I've done recently on openSUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu. I might add the distro's metapackage (or whatever it's called) for Xfce, e.g. apt install xfce-desktop or sudo zypper -n in patterns-openSUSE-xfce (See? Already more complex. With apt I don't need to worry about a package versus a "pattern" -- everything's a package, even if it's just a package of packages.) But that gives me a basic install. If I want to add accessory bits that aren't included, I might run the GUI and search for "xfce", browse the list, tick a dozen, then click "install". What if later I want to remove 5 of the dozen? In Synaptic I would just right-click them, pick "remove" and hit "apply". In YAST I can't do that. I'd have to do it one by one, and for each, click through a series of dialogs if removing xfce-a breaks xfce-b and removing xfce-b breaks xfce-a. For 5 packages, this is a major pain and a 15min job. For 20, it's a nightmare. When I tried to remove KDE this way, I ended up with a non-bootable system and had to reinstall.

I look at the CLI package tools on the Debian, recall the ones I used on Mandrake back when and MUCH prefer zypper!

/De gustibus non est disputandam/. Or /Chacun à son goût/. There can be no argument about taste. These days, I am more used to apt, and IMHO it is the single best packaging system I have used on any OS. But that's just my opinion. I remember when SUSE Linux Pro got apt4rpm and I was delighted. Sadly, again IMHO, it didn't go anywhere, and instead SUSE invented its own recursive depedency-solver. I happen not to know how to drive it very well yet, and to feel that the packaging bit of YAST isn't the equal of Synaptic. But then, overall, having YAST at all more than compensates for that. I have not really used urmpi in anger, and whereas YUM and DNF are fine, I tried Yumex, the recommended graphical wrapper for YUM, and found it terrible.

I'm sure I must have used Yast for some things, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps I'm confusing 'use' with 'experimenting to see what was there'.

As you choose. I am definitely not here to say anyone is wrong.

"Synaptic' as a package manager? Googling I see that it seems more capable than yast. But is there a openSuse version? I don't see one. http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/links.html

Synaptic is a graphical wrapper for Apt. Apt handles .deb packages via ``dpkg''. Even if there were a SUSE port, it would be little use, as SUSE does not use Apt or dpkg or .deb packages. It uses zypper, ``rpm'' and .rpm instead. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

Anton Aylward composed on 2018-06-15 18:40 (UTC-0400):

There is also a link "Using APT on RPM-Based Systems" It should lead to http://www.linux-mag.com/id/1476/ but it doesn't :-( <quote> Now, apt doesn’t actually install packages; instead, it calls rpm to do the grunt work. </quote>

Written 13 years ago.

I suppose of Zypper were actually a script it would as well. But zypper uses "libzypp.so" as you might expect but also "librpm.so". So yes, under the hood, it uses the innards of RPM rather than the CLI-level RPM as a script would.

Go check # ldd $(which zypper) yourself.

As I understand it Synaptics has a version written in Python.

# zypper info zypper-aptitude ... Summary : aptitude compatibility with zypper Description: provides compatibility to Debian's aptitude command using zypper I've never installed it. I'm not sure what exactly I'd need any .deb packages on openSUSE for with the wealth of repos and package selections it offers. On Debian before Stretch, before the prompts inducing to use apt instead of apt-get, I probably used aptitude as much as I did apt-*, commonly to clean up packages held back, and far more often than I tried to use Synaptics. -- "Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Whatever else you get, get wisdom." Proverbs 4:7 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 16/06/18 00:40, Anton Aylward wrote:

I'm well aware of that. But check the list of available Synaptic download for various distributions I gave the URL for.

Fedora is listed and that uses RPMs.

OK. I *think* I tried this, about 4y ago. It only handles management of .deb packages installed with the Fedora port of dpkg/apt -- it doesn't touch the native package management system. Similarly if you install rpm on a Debian machine. It doesn't replace the whole package-management toolchain.

There is also a link "Using APT on RPM-Based Systems" It should lead to http://www.linux-mag.com/id/1476/ but it doesn't :-( <quote> Now, apt doesn’t actually install packages; instead, it calls rpm to do the grunt work. </quote>

Yes, but that was 15 years ago and it's talking about apt4rpm. http://apt4rpm.sourceforge.net/ Note that the last change was in 2005. It's a dead project now, AIUI.

As I understand it Synaptics has a version written in Python. Great. I could write a package manager in, say. Ruby using Ruby/Tk and the "Ruby bindings for rpm (package manager)" and the "Ruby bindings for libzypp" Or Perl ..

Well, with the rise of containers and containerised app distribution formats such as Flatpak, Snappy and so on, I think in the next few years, packaging tools are going to recede into the background. I have spent some time trying out Endless OS: https://endlessos.com/ It's an interesting distro. Nicely stripped-down GNOME 3 front end, rather phone-like, with a superficial cosmetic resemblance to the Windows desktop too -- taskbar/panel at the bottom, a launcher at the left end, clock at the right, etc. I believe it's Debian underneath but the shipping OS has no package manager at all. Updates are whole-system-image, based on OSTree, a bit like updating a phone OS. Apps are all Flatpaks. I think it's pointing the way to future distribution architectures. Old Linux hands will hate it -- it's a lot less customisable and open than traditional distros. But, it's a lot more robust, a lot more end-user friendly -- even more so than Windows. The end user experience is more like a phone or tablet, but with the richness of a desktop. So, no, I don't think anyone will put any real work into bridging RH RPM with SUSE RPM with Mandrake RPM, or RPM with DEB, or any of that. By 2020 or 2022, I suspect that only people building distros will be using package managers at all. End users will get read-only root filesystems, transactional updates, and containerised apps -- SUSE MicroOS style. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Fri, 15 Jun 2018 21:16:09 +0200 Per Jessen wrote:

Liam Proven wrote:

...

Fedora's implementation, YUM and now DNF, is pretty smoooth -- but the supplementary tooling, such as the graphical package manager, are very poor indeed. Synaptic is still the best graphical package manager I've seen on any OS of any form. YAST's inability to allow the selection of multiple packages to remove drives me crazy.

That must be something specific to the Qt version - it certainly works fine in ncurses. Maybe a bug, YaST has had a lot of work recently.

I don't understand Liam's comment at all. In Qt YaST I just bring up a list of packages and right-click on the icons of each package, select delete and move on to do the same with the next one. So what's the issue? PS But I do agree that synaptic is very nice for package management. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 21:16, Per Jessen wrote:

Liam Proven wrote:

...

Fedora's implementation, YUM and now DNF, is pretty smoooth -- but the supplementary tooling, such as the graphical package manager, are very poor indeed. Synaptic is still the best graphical package manager I've seen on any OS of any form. YAST's inability to allow the selection of multiple packages to remove drives me crazy.

That must be something specific to the Qt version - it certainly works fine in ncurses. Maybe a bug, YaST has had a lot of work recently.

Er, no. I spoke with the YAST project lead about this when I joined the company last year. He confirmed it and said that he might reconsider and look at adding the functionality if I could offer a convincing use-case. However, I've been busy with my actual day job. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 16/06/18 15:11, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

Darryl Gregorash wrote:

...

On 2018-06-14 08:07 AM, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

...

Le 14/06/2018 � 15:29, Stevens a �crit :

...

I mean, what is its main claim to fame? for me it's the config tools (YaST, but others also) being available in any variations, that is bare bone server, desktop...

and of course the fact that it's easy to install, easy to manage...

use SuSE since 6.x (20 years?) and tested most other main ones

jdd I hate to sound "me too", but these are also the reasons why I have stayed with SuSE over the years. I went looking for a Linux distro almost the same day IBM announced it was discontinuing OS/2 (around 2001/2002, iirc, but maybe earlier), which I had been running since version 2.0. After a quick comparison of features, I rather quickly settled on SuSE 6.3, and I have been running SuSELinux/openSUSE ever since. I took a little longer to give up on OS/2, 2004/2005, otherwise very much the same story. I also complete agree with what jdd wrote, as well as what Mikhail wrote about KDE.

claim to fame? dunno, for me SuSE Linux was my first Linux distro. I never had much reason to look elsewhere. The hardest thing for me, moving from OS/2 to Linux, was missing the "Workplace Shell" desktop environment. That had some really cool features that no Linux distro has ever matched. I ran OS/2 from version 2.0 right through to

On Friday, 15 June 2018 1:54:05 ACST Per Jessen wrote: the last days of Warp 4, before it became eComStation (which is still available, btw, but not exactly cheap).

$110 for a 3-year sub. is not THAT bad, is it? (I still have the 3 1/2" floppies for the last version OS/2 I used :-).)

Apart from that, I started with FC4, tried Mandrake and a couple of others, but settled on openSuSE around 9.2 and haven't looked back. I've thought about switching to debian (my Raspberry Pi's all run Raspbian, and I have a couple of Debian VM's running in the virtual environment at work), but I can't leave YaST, and openSuSE is still the best distro for KDE.

BC -- "..The times have been That, when the brains were out, the man would die,.." "Macbeth", Shakespeare -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Monday, 18 June 2018 1:16:06 ACST James Knott wrote:

On 06/16/2018 11:42 PM, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

(I still have the 3 1/2" floppies for the last version OS/2 I used :-).)

I remember making the floppies with images from ftp sites! ;-)

BTW, I have Warp 4 running in a virtual machine on my notebook computer, along with Windows 98 and W10.

I would do the same, except that my installation media got damaged. :( -- ============================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au CCNA #CSCO12880208 ============================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 06/16/2018 01:11 AM, Rodney Baker wrote:

The hardest thing for me, moving from OS/2 to Linux, was missing the "Workplace Shell" desktop environment. That had some really cool features that no Linux distro has ever matched. I ran OS/2 from version 2.0 right through to the last days of Warp 4, before it became eComStation (which is still available, btw, but not exactly cheap).

That WPS really was something and hasn't been duplicated elsewhere.  Real loss.  I started with OS/2 2.0, when it was first released, and continued using it until after I left IBM in 2000.  I then gradually moved to Linux. One really great thing about the WPA was the extended attributes, which could contain up to 64 KB of metadata about a file.  Also, REXX scripts could run directly from the extended attributes, if they could fit in that 64 K.  This provided much better performance than interpreting the script every time it was run.  You could also do so much searching within that metadata. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 17/06/18 15:07, Rodney Baker wrote:

all open in their respective apps in the state in which you last left them

 - is this more-or-less what LibreOffice does ? regards ... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 16 June 2018 at 07:11, Rodney Baker wrote:

The hardest thing for me, moving from OS/2 to Linux, was missing the "Workplace Shell" desktop environment. That had some really cool features that no Linux distro has ever matched.

I was on OS/2 from 1994 to 1997 (Warp 3). I had to leave because of the application scene drying up. Could you describe what desktop features were really cool? I do suspect there's an open-source reimplementation somewhere out there, so if you can name them I would look for it. -- Yours, Mikhail Ramendik Unless explicitly stated, all opinions in my mail are my own and do not reflect the views of any organization -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sunday, 17 June 2018 22:04:12 ACST Mikhail Ramendik wrote:

On 16 June 2018 at 07:11, Rodney Baker wrote:

...

The hardest thing for me, moving from OS/2 to Linux, was missing the "Workplace Shell" desktop environment. That had some really cool features that no Linux distro has ever matched.

I was on OS/2 from 1994 to 1997 (Warp 3). I had to leave because of the application scene drying up.

Could you describe what desktop features were really cool? I do suspect there's an open-source reimplementation somewhere out there, so if you can name them I would look for it.

See James' and my other replies regarding work space folders (amongst other things). -- ============================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au CCNA #CSCO12880208 ============================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 14/06/18 17:41, Mikhail Ramendik wrote:

(BTW can someone tel me the premier distros for XFCE and LXDE? Or these don't exist?)

Very good question. Mint has a good Xfce version. Xubuntu and Lubuntu are both pretty good, too. LXLE is perhaps richer than Lubuntu but maybe over-cluttered. I've had a very brief play with Fedora Xfce and it is streets ahead of the GNOME experience, but that's mainly because I don't like GNOME. So at a guess, Mint for Xfce and LXLE for LXDE. I think there's no clear winner for LXQt yet as it's not really finished. -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 15/06/18 02:17, Liam Proven wrote:

On 14/06/18 15:29, Stevens wrote:

...

I mean, what is its main claim to fame? The answer to that has changed over the years but I wonder what it is now. Maybe someone here can make a compelling case for the use of opensuse instead of any other linux distro. If so, I would like to see it. What use case would cause opensuse to be selected? I suppose in order to answer that, one must be fluent in the various linux dialects. I am relatively fluent in various Linux dialects, so I guess I could have a try.

I have just returned to using *SUSE after some years away. I started with Lasermoon Linux-FT in 1996, experimented with Red Hat Linux on servers in 1997-1998, first switched to it as my main desktop briefly with Caldera OpenLinux in 1999, and for longer with SUSE Linux Professional in about 2002. I switched to Ubuntu with 4.10 in 2004 and still use it on my home laptop, for now.

I also regularly evaluate other distros, including Fedora, Mint, Elementary, Bodhi, Arch, Debian, Devuan, TrueOS, and others.

<pruned> Have you looked at Manjaro Linux (with KDE) (https://manjaro.org)? BC -- "..The times have been That, when the brains were out, the man would die,.." "Macbeth", Shakespeare -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On Sat, 16 Jun 2018, Liam Proven wrote:

On 15/06/18 05:37, Basil Chupin wrote:

...

Have you looked at Manjaro Linux (with KDE) (https://manjaro.org)?

TBH, not really. I did run Arch until recently, though. AIUI Manjaro is Arch with an easier installer and preconfigured desktops, no?

-- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084

I recently noticed that Manjaro had risen to the top of the distrowatch leader board. I've now got Manjaro in a virtual box and have been evaluating it as a more desktop-oriented rolling-replacement for Leap. In respect to it's relationship with arch, Manjaro's wiki explains it this way: https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=Manjaro:_A_Different_Kind_of_Beast "To ensure continued stability and reliability, Manjaro utilises its own dedicated software repositories. With the exception of the community-maintained Arch User Repository (AUR), Manjaro systems do not –and cannot– access the official Arch repositories. More specifically, popular software packages initially provided by the official Arch repositories will first be thoroughly tested (and if necessary, patched), prior to being released to Manjaro's own Stable Repositories for public use. ... "A consequence of accommodating this testing process is that Manjaro will never be quite as bleeding-edge as Arch." ... "Another feature that sets Manjaro apart from Arch and other Arch-based distributions is its focus on user-friendliness and accessibility. This extends far beyond just providing an easy graphical installer and pre-configured desktop environments. Manjaro also provides a range of powerful tools developed exclusively by the Manjaro Team..." OpenSUSE has served well enough for for the last decade. It's a tough call to make a switch. I'll have to poke around in the corners a bit more and see if it's worth while. Cheers, Michael -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org

On 16/06/18 01:17 AM, Rodney Baker wrote:

One more reason why I've stayed with openSuSe so long - this mailing list and the users here that have been so willing to share knowledge and provide support and advice over the years.

I too, was originality a mandrake User. I left after they became "too corporate". if I leave openSuse it will be because of that and because the above gets terminated and replaced with a mailing list version of StackExchange.com. The real value of this list isn't in some sort of Q&A problem solution database, but in the social binding of a community. Even at the lowest the level the "me too" replies tell you that you are not alone, that you are not just another customer statistic, they it's more likely that there is a real problem than you being and idiotic outlier. The original 'hobbyist hackers' producing and exchanging free software, the learning and all that was there to differentiate from the formality of the corporate way of doing things, even for those of us who had the daytime jobs doing it the corporate way. if we lose that side of things to corporate principles and rigidity, then for many of us it becomes a "why bother", or perhaps we go elsewhere to try and recapture that 'hobby' side. This is not to decry the necessity of the corporate side of things, just saying that they should not dictate *all* of your life. There's been enough SF written on that themes from "The Machine Stops" to "1984" and much else. But they are all characterised by the 'corporate' not recognising the need for the 'social'. -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org