First everybody complains about Yast1 going away, then they complain why don't we have apt-get type program like Debian. Is there no satisfying some people? Sounds and looks like there is pretty much everything needed to do what you want or replace what you had. Certainly some more features added to Yast2 will be forthcoming in good time, but I just don't understand all the whining I guess. Hey we are Linux guys! We know how to work around things, fix things and make things work that shouldn't for gosh sakes! :o)
Actually I think one of the reasons for the whining is because SuSE said Yast2 in SuSE 8 would have all the features of Yast *and* be much better then the old Yast2. This did not happen. The important stuff from Yast, things used to keep a system updated in the long run is not included (the possibility to compare/update the rpm's in the update folder on suse's ftp), other settings I mostly change manually in the config files, because I think that gives me more control over the settings. YOU only includes a small number of the updates available. apt-get is no serious replacement because the SuSE rpm's don't have the correct dependencies in some cases. For an example try to have java2 installed and try to apt-get some updates. Won't work. Have to deinstall java2. We could do these things with the old yast. When I pay for a distribution I like when things work well out of the box (thats the reason I pay for it). If I download something for free I accept that things don't work properly, and sometimes contribute my own time to that project. /Stefan