On 14/10/2007, Peter Flodin
Hi all,
Having just returned from using Ubuntu as my main OS for a few months (I give another distro a go every now and then, but I have returned everytime so far :-), there is one thing that Ubuntu users have available that makes it very easy to setup a new machine, and that is Automatix. http://getautomatix.com/ . Automatix has got a good wrap lately with the admission that Michael Dell (of Dell Computers) uses it on his personal computer.
It also has many criticisms, e.g. http://mjg59.livejournal.com/77440.html
Ideally one would solve it without yet another way to install things. What stops us (technically, legally etc) creating a similar meta repository for openSUSE, that doesn't host the actual packages but just pointers to download them from the 3rd parties?
There's nothing stopping this really, except it probably can't be hosted by Novell.
eg: http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-1.4.0.118-suse.i586.rpm http://download.gizmoproject.com/GizmoDownload/gizmo-project-3.1.0.77-1.i386... http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmplayer/VMware-player-2.0.1-55017.i386... etc ie. it covers 3rd party packages that we can't host or redistribute, but a nice central location that is a great benefit for the user.
These third party packages can be linked with a YMP link from any webpage, for example the codecs installation on http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/10.3 There is a project to create a complete community hosted software portal which could list all opensuse & third party packages http://en.opensuse.org/Software_Portal . Unfortunately this has stalled somewhat due to lack of time of those involved. But the plan is to have a portal where users can find software for opensuse from any source, and install it easily. There is also my package search on http://packages.opensuse-community.org which I plan to add "install now" links to results this week. (I'm currently working on some major improvements to the search itself, the install now links are next on my todo). -- Benjamin Weber --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org