SuSE: please sort out the Yast2 online update
Dear Suse, Please sort out the following: 1. Yast2 online update takes 20-->25 minutes to download the updates list. This is on my system at home with a 56K modem, and at work with a leased line. 2. Yast2 downloads all updates for a patch set even if you already have them downloaded. The online update in Suse 7.3 had some intelligence and didn't do this. So now that I've recently installed some KDE3 samba packages from the CD, I cannot get the latest updates for the samba ones as Yast2 downloads all KDE3 updates. 3. How about giving the user some control over the updating of their system with Yast2? We don't want to go the Microsoft route where "Bill knows best". My experience with 7.3 and now with 8.1 has shown some serious lapses in quality. The most serious of which was 8.1's complete messing up of CD-ROM/CD-writer recognition. I knew how to sort this by checking device nodes, links and /etc/fstab, but that's not the point. You're letting yourselves down Suse. Are you like Microsoft which doesn't appear to have quality control or usability at its heart? Your attention to detail stinks. Peter
Op zondag 17 november 2002 13:08, schreef Peter Cameron:
You're letting yourselves down Suse. Are you like Microsoft which doesn't appear to have quality control or usability at its heart? Your attention to detail stinks.
Humm, will this really help to get positive attention to your problem? Because of this remark, one will forget your real problem, and that is a pity. -- Richard Bos Without a home the journey is endless Fresh rpms for SuSE: http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/freshrpms.html
Dear List, Richard I agree with you; Peter Cameron does NOT speak for all Peters! However, we should look a little deeper. Usually this level of invective has its roots in REAL frustration. That being true then those of us who have the interests of SuSE and Linux at heart should consider Peter C.'s frustration as a source of information regarding potential problems and solutions. Peter C. I can assure you that your problems are not the norm and that I have two systems here that do NOT have the problems you describe. So thake heart, smooth running SuSE 8.1 systems are out there and you will have one too. Mine are one fresh install and one 8.0>8.1 upgrade, and aside from a few insignifigant aggrevations I am very pleased with them. But Richard has a point, since this list is 'BY, FROM & TO' end users. You should try to pose your questions in a friendly, non-confrontational manner. My experiance tells me that most of the "listees" have a commitment to solve problems and sharing solutions; and we love a mystery! Good Luck! ............... PeterB On Sunday 17 November 2002 09:08 am, Richard Bos wrote:
Op zondag 17 november 2002 13:08, schreef Peter Cameron:
You're letting yourselves down Suse. Are you like Microsoft which doesn't appear to have quality control or usability at its heart? Your attention to detail stinks.
Humm, will this really help to get positive attention to your problem? Because of this remark, one will forget your real problem, and that is a pity.
-- -- Proud to be a SuSE Linux User since 5.2 --
Good day Peter b.
Peter C. I can assure you that your problems are not the norm [SNIP]
This is interesting. One of the things on the list is that on both Peter's and my system YOU downloads all nedded patch packages _regardless_ that they have already been downloaded and are up to date. This does not happen on your systems? Best regards :o) Johnny :o)
The 02.11.17 at 11:08, Peter B Van Campen wrote:
Peter C. I can assure you that your problems are not the norm and that I have two systems here that do NOT have the problems you describe. So thake heart, smooth running SuSE 8.1 systems are out there and you will have one too. Mine
Suse 8.1 destroyed my 7.3 installation when updating: it forgot there was an "/opt" partition, and wrote everything to the "/" partition instead, filling it up to 100% and thus missing lots of files, rendering the system unbootable. I can not understand why the install did not check the expected size, nor that the partition was full. Yast1 used to warn about insufficent space. It is the first time this happened to me. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
You're letting yourselves down Suse. Are you like Microsoft which doesn't appear to have quality control or usability at its heart? Your attention to detail stinks.
Humm, will this really help to get positive attention to your problem? Because of this remark, one will forget your real problem, and that is a
Richard said in response to me: pity. My opinion is informed by the fact that SuSE has trouble getting the basics right. Getting all the links wrong for CD-ROMs and CD-RWs is frankly inexcusable. I begin to wonder what the balance of their quality control and testing is against their rush to get something out. Something's not right. Another example from the past: out of the box 7.3 wouldn't recognise USB modems, despite it having the correct kernel and modules. I had my USB modem working with 7.0 when I rolled my own kernel with the appropriate modules. Granted, the latter is more outside of SuSE's control, but appropriate testing of 7.3 should surely have exposed this one. The Linux development model isn't an excuse to release products where showstopper bugs are present. I'm currently working as a Java/C++ software engineer. We use some third-party Java components. We certainly make sure that we are aware of any new bugs and limitations in any updates of the third-party software before releasing a product using it As for the YOU updates, it doesn't matter which mirror I choose, the behaviour is the same, whether with modem, or leased line. Plus, if there's any logic in the YOU code to detect what has already been downloaded (and indeed still present in the /var/lib/... area), perhaps it's switched off. I haven't looked at the code. This is a step back as YOU in 7.3 worked correctly. YOU as a concept is fine. It's implementation though takes control away from the user. By that I mean, for example, I cannot select individual packages from a patch set to download. It's literally all or nothing. I've downloaded apt and will investigate that. I prefer to be in control of my system. It's a shame since Linux is definitely desktop ready and I'm a great Linux advocate. I was brought up on an Atari 400 in the very early 80s, then ST machines and then UNIX and first used a windoze OS only 3 years ago. I now use Linux almost 100% at work too, having managed to justify it over the cumbersome windoze XP. I'll be demoing it to my colleagues at some point over the next few weeks. The tone of my emails reflects how frustrated this Linux advocate feels. Peter
* Peter John Cameron (peterca@ukgateway.net) [021117 12:28]: -> ->My opinion is informed by the fact that SuSE has trouble getting the basics ->right. Getting all the links wrong for CD-ROMs and CD-RWs is frankly ->inexcusable. I begin to wonder what the balance of their quality control and ->testing is against their rush to get something out. Something's not right. -> ->It's a shame since Linux is definitely desktop ready and I'm a great Linux ->advocate. I was brought up on an Atari 400 in the very early 80s, then ST ->machines and then UNIX and first used a windoze OS only 3 years ago. I now ->use Linux almost 100% at work too, having managed to justify it over the ->cumbersome windoze XP. I'll be demoing it to my colleagues at some point ->over the next few weeks. -> ->The tone of my emails reflects how frustrated this Linux advocate feels. Peter, I feel your frustration. But since only about 4 SuSE employee's take a passing interest in this userbased list. Sending long emails such as the original addressed to SuSE most likely won't do much good because the only people who will really see this are the users. Which will generate some dialogue, but won't really fix much. It's better to email feedback@suse.de or contact some of the developers of the packages your having issues with directly. :) Please believe that I am not digging on your. It's just an FYI :) latah, -- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.
As a Windows Network Admin that has made the conversion and has created a linux desktop environment for my company to use I suggest 2 things. 1. Identify which packages you use routinely or are of the most importance to you and keep an eye on them. Then when there are updates that are required get them and apply them yourself. I have to take this approach for my MS servers all the time. I don't need IIS patches for my DB servers and so on. 2. Pay for the 90 day installation support. Well worth the 50.00 if you are having a lot of problems. The support desk is really helpful and they have a ton of good ideas. Before we decided to go with Suse for our corporate desktop we looked at Redhat, slackware, debian, etc. None of them have the out-of-the-box package support that Suse does. Or the technical support that they do. My company was willing to pay Redhat for a support contract but they weren't interested in it. Needless to say we have switched to Suse. CB --Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight. On Sun, 2002-11-17 at 15:44, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
Peter,
I feel your frustration. But since only about 4 SuSE employee's take a passing interest in this userbased list. Sending long emails such as the original addressed to SuSE most likely won't do much good because the only people who will really see this are the users. Which will generate some dialogue, but won't really fix much. It's better to email feedback@suse.de or contact some of the developers of the packages your having issues with directly. :)
Please believe that I am not digging on your. It's just an FYI :)
latah,
-- Ben Rosenberg ---===---===---===--- mailto:ben@whack.org Tell me what you believe.. I tell you what you should see.
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
Hi, I agree on the feedback issue, that is the way to give the message directly to SuSE. One problem with the feedback channel is that the reports always comes after the new distribution is released, and there is usually no feedback on the feedback.. :) There is no bug tracking system either. I believe SUSE and their new distributions would be better off by setting up a system like Mandrake's, who are quite good at involving the community for testing before releasing a distribution: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/cookerfaq.php3 I am sure some bugs could be discovered and eliminated with such a system. The community has a lot more different machine setups and varied ways of using their system than a team of selected beta testers. SuSE could then select which bugs to fix before releasing a distribution, and set up a page like this before the new distro was released for bugs that were not fixed: http://sdb.suse.de/cgi-bin/sdbsearch_en.cgi?stichwort=8.1 I think the Mozilla bug system is great too: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided That system has a good way of sorting and organizing bugs, and gives feedback to the user every time a bug is reported, and when it is fixed. Regards, Jostein On Sunday 17 November 2002 21:44, Ben Rosenberg wrote:
* Peter John Cameron (peterca@ukgateway.net) [021117 12:28]: -> ->My opinion is informed by the fact that SuSE has trouble getting the basics ->right. Getting all the links wrong for CD-ROMs and CD-RWs is frankly ->inexcusable. I begin to wonder what the balance of their quality control and ->testing is against their rush to get something out. Something's not right. -> ->It's a shame since Linux is definitely desktop ready and I'm a great Linux ->advocate. I was brought up on an Atari 400 in the very early 80s, then ST ->machines and then UNIX and first used a windoze OS only 3 years ago. I now ->use Linux almost 100% at work too, having managed to justify it over the ->cumbersome windoze XP. I'll be demoing it to my colleagues at some point ->over the next few weeks. -> ->The tone of my emails reflects how frustrated this Linux advocate feels.
Peter,
I feel your frustration. But since only about 4 SuSE employee's take a passing interest in this userbased list. Sending long emails such as the original addressed to SuSE most likely won't do much good because the only people who will really see this are the users. Which will generate some dialogue, but won't really fix much. It's better to email feedback@suse.de or contact some of the developers of the packages your having issues with directly. :)
Please believe that I am not digging on your. It's just an FYI :)
latah,
The 02.11.17 at 16:08, Richard Bos wrote:
Op zondag 17 november 2002 13:08, schreef Peter Cameron:
You're letting yourselves down Suse. Are you like Microsoft which doesn't appear to have quality control or usability at its heart? Your attention to detail stinks.
Humm, will this really help to get positive attention to your problem? Because of this remark, one will forget your real problem, and that is a pity.
Rejecting criticism doesn't make the product be better. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
Good day peter,
1. Yast2 online update takes 20-->25 minutes to download the updates list. This is on my system at home with a 56K modem, and at work with a leased line.
Have you tried some different mirrors? On my 64K line it takes a good 80 seconds on the first alternate mirror in YOU. I expect the SuSE FTP site to be overloaded and slow. Yes, it could go a lot faster if YOU checked what is already locally present, and only downloaded what is new. Anyway, I have sent in a minor bug report about this some days ago. Let's see what happens.
2. Yast2 downloads all updates for a patch set even if you already have them downloaded. The online update in Suse 7.3 had some intelligence and didn't do this. So now that I've recently installed some KDE3 samba packages from the CD, I cannot get the latest updates for the samba ones as Yast2 downloads all KDE3 updates.
Definitely an issue for modem owners. It increases their phone bill. Especially when something like the entire KDE patch has to be downloaded _again_ for the sake of one or two new packages. I have sent a bug report on this too. Lets see.
3. How about giving the user some control over the updating of their system with Yast2? We don't want to go the Microsoft route where "Bill knows best".
I am not sure what you mean. You should be able to select and deselect patches individually. I know I am. Best regards :o) Johnny :o)
participants (9)
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Ben Rosenberg -
Carlos E. R. -
Johnny Ernst Nielsen -
Jostein Berntsen -
Peter B Van Campen -
Peter Cameron -
Peter John Cameron
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Richard Bos -
Robert Besaw