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SuSE Businesses

SuSE Presents The YaST2 Package Manager 193

Posted by timothy from the everyone's-a-critic dept.
AnonyMouse writes "SuSE presented the brand new version of YaST2 which includes a new package manager for the upcoming SuSE 8.1. OSNews posted an article about it, pointing off the mistakes made by SuSE in the design of this new package manager." Eugenia's review seems unduly harsh to me, but you can look at the screenshots and judge for yourself.
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SuSE Presents The YaST2 Package Manager More

SuSE Presents The YaST2 Package Manager

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  • Screenshots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by infornogr ( 603568 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @07:50PM (#4258629)
    "Eugenia's review seems unduly harsh to me, but you can look at the screenshots and judge for yourself. " If you _can_ judge a program solely by its screenshots, you probably don't even need to.
    • On the other hand, what business does he have writing a review of a product he's never used? Not unly is that unduly harsh, it's unfair. That's like reviewing a movie based on the trailers.
    • "Eugenia's review seems unduly harsh to me, but you can look at the screenshots and judge for yourself. " If you _can_ judge a program solely by its screenshots, you probably don't even need to.

      True, but by looking at the screenshots, you can form an initial opinion on the program - or, in this case, on the review, too.

    • Yes & No.

      You can't judge program performance from screenshots, but you can have a good idea of program UI design. And the article focus on UI design.

      The thesis in the article is quite simple: if this is supposed to be used by first-time Linux users (and it is assumed that this is the case), then SuSE made an huge mistake.

      Only, SuSE is not Mandrake (or windos XP). It aims at office desktop and server deployments (which can procure support contracts), as well as (or more) than at home desktops (which cannot). Both in case of servers and in case of office desktops, there are experienced people dedicated to install/deinstall applications. These people may appreciate a powerful tool that help them to cope with Linux complex system of packages.

  • Looks Good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cscx ( 541332 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @07:52PM (#4258641) Homepage
    Not as glitzy as WinXP's "Add/Remove Programs" but it's uncluttered and seemingly easy to use. Finally a step in the right direction.
  • Is it free or proprietary? I seem to remember it was proprietary. If it has not changed, then it does little good to GNU freedom, and even if it may make Linux more popular, it would be a fragmented popularity, so none the better in the end.
    • I don't think the target audience of this program (Linux newbies) care very much about whether their package manager contributes to "GNU freedom".

      • Re:Free or proprietary (Score:5, Insightful)

        by leandrod ( 17766 ) <l@dutras . o rg> on Saturday September 14, 2002 @08:03PM (#4258693) Homepage Journal
        >
        I don't think the target audience of this program (Linux newbies) care very much about whether their package manager contributes to "GNU freedom".

        It is not about catering for any particular class of users, but about making GNU a coherent, open platform, not simply a fragmented, proprietary product.

        In the long run, freedom and coherence matters, even for newbies. Or perhaps especially for them, as hackers can always find their way around.

      • What's the point of switching from Windows if you are just going to tie yourself to a different vendor? The fact of the matter is that the openness of a technology matters, and if you don't believe me, talk to some of the fools that got sucked into using Caldera's proprietary installation routines. Caldera's management tools were cool, but it wasn't too long before they were charging per processor fees, and now their Linux distribution has all but vanished and they are back to beating the SCO Unix dead horse. So now their customers get to unlearn all of the Caldera specific stuff they learned and start again. Similar things have happened with several of the other proprietary Linux distributions including Corel's brief foray into the world of Linux.

        The fact of the matter is that there are plenty of distributions that have good Free Software management tools. For newbies I would recommend either RedHat or Mandrake, and if you really want to see a Linux box that is easy to keep up to date install Debian. The apt packaging tools make Windows update look pitiful. They aren't graphical, but a single one line command will download and install any package and all dependencies.

        Or you can learn the hard way. The market has been particularly brutal to companies that have tried to take Linux in a more proprietary direction. In fact, the reason that RedHat is at the top of the food chain is that they have consistently given away their software. SuSE, Caldera, Corel, and many others have at times had niftier products, but it has always been RedHat's tools that have spread because they were free. Apparently SuSE still hasn't learned it's lesson.

        • i still don't see what it matters if there package management system is not TOTALLY free, i am pretty sure i read somewhere that it was open just not GPL (a little more restrictive i think?)

          and how does the package manager tie you into a single vendor? you can still use rpm or apt from the command line in any distro....you can also still use some of the various other front ends to apt and rpm like kpackage.

          i am all for linux and open standards, but i believe some things are best opened and some things are best remained closed (from a business perspective)

          I mean the package management system is still using standard packages is it not? it's not like only SuSE branded packages will work on SuSe?

          In the linux world all distros come from the same base...so you have to differentiat your products by the "value added" stuff you put on top of it.

          • If it doesn't matter if YaST2 is Free or not, then why doesn't SuSE simply free it? The answer is simple, SuSE believes their proprietary installer/management console sets them apart from the competition. They also want to be able to charge you for each and every installation. I agree that the risk is minimal. Anyone who can learn YaST2 can learn to use someone else's tools should something happen to SuSE. However, why take the chance. The other distributions have perfectly acceptable tools, and their tools are Free Software.

            SuSE's choice to use proprietary software in their distribution has already hurt them quite a bit. SuSE's popularity is declining steadily despite the fact that they have pretty neat tools. Apparently enough people care about Freedom to effect SuSE's market share.

            Plenty of distributions have tried differentiate their products with proprietary value adds. RedHat has taken a completely different tack, however. They have seeded the market with their technology by making in Free Software. By doing this they have guaranteed that the technologies that they are expert in are the ones that are copied. Everytime that someone wants a base distribution to build their new idea on, they choose one of the Free distributions, and usually that means RedHat. That's why RedHat is synonymous with Linux, and that allows them to get the best Linux consulting gigs.

            • They also want to be able to charge you for each and every installation.

              Wrong.
              No, not only wrong, this is FUD.
              Please read up on the yast(2) license before spouting off such a nonsense.
              If they won't change the license in suse 8.1, and you know more than I know about this change, I have no idea where you get this from.

              If not, I can only ask you to inform yourself and tell me how your sentence above can hold.

    • I tried downloading SuSE and installing it to test it out, but this newbie just didn't have the brain power make the "CD 1" it demanded I provide. The instructions were pretty clear: "Buy it to try it".
      • Yes, that is their business model. It makes sense, but it's annoying. If you read the README, they at least come out and say it. You can always pool resources with a few friends.

        You can download a trial CD, which is a live bootable CD. I've never done it. You can download CDs of prior versions of SuSE (perhaps the 8.0 images are out now?). You can install the current version via FTP, but their FTP site is several months behind the CDs, so it is probably beyond everybody (not just newbies) to make the CD 1.
        • >
          that is their business model. It makes sense, but it's annoying.

          I fail to see how annoying users into trying competitors makes sense to your bottom line. If it was really so much better than anything else, it would still be wrong but at least they would be rich.

          Bad conscience does not give good dreams, even in silk sheets; but he way it goes, they might as well have the bad conscience nightmares and in a slum.

          At least suffering the consequences gives one an incentive to repent.

  • Nice theme. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by e_n_d_o ( 150968 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @07:57PM (#4258662)
    Is there some requirement that states that media reviewers of an operating system must modify its default color scheme and appearance in such a way as to make the user interface appear as undesireable as possible?

    Yes, the user interface is configurable. But the distributor spent a great deal of time deciding on defaults that will appeal to most of its customers. It's unprofessional to review a product and post screenshots with modified settings.
    • Indeed. First impressions are very important. The wrong scheme can confuse the eye, and hinder comprehension and fascilitate use. Especially to the average business/ home user. It is irresponsible of the reviewer to do this, if not downright rotten.
    • I don't see any evidence that he altered the images or the UI. Those images seem to be straight from the source official suse.de-hosted png files. If the distributor spent so much time deciding on the best defaults, those images represent the distributor's decision.
      • Yup, you're right. I didn't realize the screenshots were coming from suse.de. Well, I guess it's nobody's fault but their own. Well, actually, I imagine its just the theme that that developer was using, and he probably wasn't expecting his screenshots to be showcased on /.

        This was simply the most recent case of a non-default theme I've seen in a review, and finally figured I'd make a comment. The actual issue that bothers me is when independent reviewers create a review with their own screenshots, after they've spent an hour in the theme prefs adjusting it to their own personal taste. I've seen it done way too may times to the RedHat 7.x series, for example.
        • Which is why, if you're taking screenshots for use in computer manuals, your publisher expressly *forbids* custom themes, fonts, icons, etc.

          Unfortunately, you'll see this rule broken quite often in magazine articles, even venerable CT publishes screenshots done in horrible color combinations.

    • Re:Nice theme. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Josuah ( 26407 )
      The screen shots were posted by Stefan Hundhammer [www.suse.de] and aren't part of the offical SuSE web site. This was just a single developer putting up some stuff on YaST2 with screenshots from his personal working environment.
    • there some requirement that states that media reviewers of an operating system must modify its default color scheme and appearance in such a way as to make the user interface appear as undesireable as possible?

      That is not Eugenia's fault as she didn't take them.

      What she is guilty of is reviewing a program without _ever_ having used id, solely based on these admittedly ugly screens.

  • Am I going insane, or this woman judged the package manager only by some snapshots? Does she want us to take it as a serious analysis?

    Oh... wait!! It is the same woman that cannot make her Gentoo GNU/Linux work and then blame the package system, because they are source and not binary based!!!

    • Actually her Gentoo Linux article was a great summary unlike this one. I had the same bug on my system with grub. I just emerged lilo to fix it. Gentoo is not a newbie distro. If you want a quick "everything works out of the box" distro then RedHat, SuSE or Mandrake would better fit the bill and this is what she rated poor.

      She stated that the portage is clearly an advantage over other distro's> . Try not to be so quick to flame anyone who has a different opinion. What she did not like about it was ease of use, too cuting edgeness, and also you need to configure everything. The part about kde3 running slower then mandrake was accurate. Mandrake uses special optimized patches when compiling kde. Gentoo does not use the patches or switched by default becaue they will brake many apps but you can compile kde yourself this way if you wish. This will be fixed with the next version of gentoo compilied with gcc 3.2.

      I have thought of emailing the gentoo crew and suggesting that Gentoo should have a debian like release schedule. You can have a stable/trusted distro, a bleeding edge one, and a beta one.I would also recommend that they should update emerge so the user can select if he/she wants a stable version, or cutting edge version, or beta version of whichever package. As an example, I could still use my legacy perl 5.6 code if the distro ships with perl 5.8 by default. I would just select the version number or type "emerge perl -stable" as an example. And last but not least it would be nice to also have an iso with a preconfigured gui installer which setups up everything automatically. If they did this, gentoo would rock and finally give many users a chance to leave binary hell. Linux is about configurability and hacking and sadly windows and mac have the lead because you point and click and the package installs. No dependancies to worry about.

      Doing all of these thing would probably make a much better review and finally make gentoo the killer distro.

  • OSNews Reviewer does not understand. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beernutz ( 16190 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @08:04PM (#4258695) Homepage Journal
    That this package manager does not FORCE anything on you. If you dont want to know about versions and such, simply ignore them. If you dont want to search for which packages contain a certain library, then DONT!

    The reviewer seems to believe that since HE is confused by the screenshots, that everyone will be. Personally, I find the shots encouraging! This manager seems to have a LOT of power, and honestly, it seems to be fairly straightforard in its design. (as much as you can tell without using it.)

    I really wish people would refrain from reviewing things based solely on opinions of screenshots. I realise that opinion has a LOT to do with shaping a review, but to pan a product, simply because the screenshots confuse you seems both stupid and short-sighted.
    • It's not even that; What the reviewer doesn't realize is that even though they want to appeal to new users, SuSE does NOT want to alienate any of their CURRENT userbase. And although I don't particularly love SuSE, I know a fair amount of competent Linux users who swear by it.

    • Re:OSNews Reviewer does not understand. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You miss an important point though. By making all of this information available, the interface is cluttered. By cluttering the interface, it is harder for the user to identify the information they are actually interested in. Observe the following; try to find the letter "A" below...

      1. GGHGSGEJKAKFHHDK
      2. G H A

      Which was easier, 1 or 2? This is the problem; if you throw a bunch of crap on the UI, then the user has to work much harder. Users are lazy.
    • From their comments, they should review Debian. ;->

      I don't think they even understand the differing phillosophies between Windows and Linux distros...

      ALL BINARY BASED DISTROS WILL HAVE DEPENDANCY PROBLEMS FOR ONE SIMPLE FACT:
      There is (almost) NO amount of quality control or procedures that will allow 3rd parties to blindly submit packages (esp library packages).

      This is complicated by the fact that binary-only commercial products often ship as RPM, but without enough release & quality control because Linux is a second-class citizen in the developer's world.

      Debian avoids these problems by: 1) accepting packages to be maintained in the proper format by their developers, who can compile and link against the correct libraries and avoid dependency problems... and 2) by including many many more libraries in the standard distribution than any RPM based distro.

      Never the less, Debian testing & unstable experience dependancy problems. Unless you run unstable and don't update for a few months you won't (to my experience) have an unresolvable dependancy.

      Mac OS X's framework structure makes it much easier to maintain and link against multiple libraries. Their application configuration phillosophy (no registry, no dll's.. hmm NetInfoManager might be breaking that) and new tools (xml/dtd based configuration) prevent many other installation & maintinance problems.

      Windows has only begun to avoid the old "DLL hell" (i.e. dependancy problems) that have existed for ages. When you uninstall a Windows program have you uninstalled all of the DLL's that came with it, or did you risk a missing dependancy? When you install a new application have you ever found that an old one doesn't work? Was it a DLL or a registry or an application extension problem? All of these are dependency conflicts.

      Windows XP's rollback features promise to solve some of the DLL hell at the cost of disk space & complexity. Other standardizations (MSFT's ODBC api's, DirectX, Driver Certification) have avoided many dependancy conflicts, but some problems (file extension mapping, registry brokenness, broken links, uninstall leftovers) have existed for so long that developers simply work their way around them instead of developing new standards as gnu/linux tends to do (for example, package managers themselves, the menu and alternatives systems).
  • I'm not a SuSE user. I think that I've got SuSE 5.something on CD somewhere around, but I never did more than install it and check it out, and in the future, it's pretty unlikely that I'll use SuSE. That said, I don't think that the problems that the author found were quite as severe as they're made out to be.


    In my mind, the only reason why there are different distributions is because there are different kinds of users. I think that Red Hat is probably the best choice for new Linux users... installation is trivial, the learning curve is pretty gentle. If you're a Linux newbie, might as well get Red Hat, especially if you're not a programmer type. You're more likely to have a smooth ride.


    My point is that I think that most of the viewer's complaints were made against features of YaST2 that seemed overly complex, but I think that for the most part, most of the complaints weren't valid. For the kind of user who would use SuSE, it's probably just a slicker way of installing the OS, and I'm sure that SuSE users will appreciate it. For those that would be intimidated or confused, there are other avenues to get up and running with Linux that may be less daunting.

    • Red Hat is probably the best choice for new Linux users
      That runs contrary to my experience. Mandrake is far easier on the newbie than Red Hat, which is targeted more at the experienced crowd. SuSe is in between Mandrake and Red Hat in ease of setup/use for the newbie. Red Hat is targeted towards the programmer/hackers out there.

      I do agree that most of the complaints were a bit premature, given that the reviewer never used YaST2, even the older versions of it (5.0 came with YaST1).

      Anyone who thinks that Windows has it all nailed on DLL (library under Linux) versioning has never done much with Windows. Windows does hide everything under the covers about versioning, which makes thing seem simple. Just wait until something goes wrong and you have no easy way of telling who changed which DLL, and when. Microsoft has been adding features to track this kind of thing, because even they couldn't debug many DLL conflicts, since they involved non-Microsoft products. This results in many (or most) re-installs of Windows.

      Mandrake, SuSe, and Red Hat, in order from newbie to expert, are the distros that are readily available on the shelf, at least in the USA. Red Hat in particular, with their pricing policy for support and updates, targets corporate accounts more than the newbie crowd, who are often just trying things out.
  • I trust this will be a product that will kick some ass. Well ... SuSE always kicked ass.

    It's very intersting what this product will trigger and what RedHat will do in response. Does the Linux competition wars start here?

  • Eugenia is a whining bitch. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 14, 2002 @08:15PM (#4258751)

    Everything which if commercial is better in her little world. Freedom means nothing.

    In her world GCC sucks because ICL6 optimizes better and VC++ has a pretty editor bundled (never mind that those are c and/or c++ only and VC can't even compile my code!).

    Everything sucks especially when compared to BeOS (something about moving windows around which isn't 'smooth' enough or whatever under any other OS).

    Valgrind is 'better than nothing [osnews.com]', but a mere toy compared with PurifyPlus (closed source and only $4800 for a unix license!) because... well, her husband who happenes to use PurifyPlus said so (guess there's no reason to think he'd rationalize it's superiority, especially if he paid $4800 for a license :-).

    I'm amazed her opinions gets so much attention, they mostly seem skin deep to me.

    • I couldn't agree with you more.

      Her husband later said that he'd never used valgrind. He just had a glimpse at the webpage.

      When people realise Eugenia is a moron, the world will be a better place.

      I really would like to know what, if any, qualifications Eugenia has. Why do people pay any attention to her? What makes her reviews so much more important than someone elses?

  • All you need to know (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Webmonger ( 24302 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @08:20PM (#4258779) Homepage
    This quote sums up the reviewer's whole attitude: "you can't be a Unix and try to sell your product to plain users too."

    Seems the reviewer's upset that Suse is, well, a Linux distro. Her prescriptions for dealing with dependencies suggest she's never used apt, either.

    And pointing at Windows as a good example of installation behavior is just silly. On Windows, dependencies are shipped with the application, and sometimes you wind up with system libraries getting overwritten with older versions. And sometimes the older version's better, and gets overwritten with a newer one. Microsoft's had to write new features like "Windows File Protection" because of this.

    On one point, I will agree: an installer or package manager should be as simple as it can be. If you install a package, any dependencies it requires should be automatically installed.

    But all this stuff is a solved problem. It boggles the mind that people would rather use their own wierd solution than build on apt.

    • sometimes you wind up with system libraries getting overwritten with older versions
      Only if the person writing the installer is stupid. Unfortunately, with the economy in the dumper, installation specialists such as myself are considered a luxury. They usually toss the InstallShield or Wise package to the junior programmer and tell him to "find some time to throw together the installer". This is typically done the week before they ship to the packaging company.

      BTW, if anyone needs an installer written correctly, contact me. I'm available. InstallShield and InstallAnywhere are my specialty.

      • Man, it's sad that there are people who need to spend days configuring installers. Making an installer should consist of making a list of files and dependencies, and not of routing around Windows brain damage. Yeah, you can install the DLL's in the program's folder, but then DLLs don't make much sense.
        • It's not just dropping files onto a computer. If it were just that, there wouldn't be a need for specialty programs (and programmers) to do it. Besides putting the correct files on a system, which can be different depending upon the operating system and other variables, you may need to configure the program to run. This could be very simple or as complex as initializing and loading up an sql database.

          One of the worse installers I have ever seen was for the Informix database. If you followed the instructions to the letter, you were GURANTEED to fail. And no, I did not write that installer. In my opinion, they never fixed this problem because a large amount of revenue was generated from the support services that helped install and configure the package.

          For the consumer world, the user should never have to manually configure anything to run the program This should also be true in the business world, especially if hundreds of workstations need that software since manual steps guarantee headaches for the IT department.

          • For the consumer world, the user should never have to manually configure anything to run the program. This should also be true in the business world[.]

            Now I understand why there's all that nonsense involving default admin passwords for databases connected to the 'Net. (Sorry, it was too easy to pass up.)

            • Now I understand why there's all that nonsense involving default admin passwords for databases connected to the 'Net. (Sorry, it was too easy to pass up.)
              Actually, you nailed it. I had a bit of a disagreement at one company. They wanted me to hardcode the ms sql password into the installer and they expected their customers to set the admin password to this. This was for a program that would have access to large amounts of personal financial information. I refused to do something so stupid and implemented a dialog box that asked for the admin password, properly hidden by *'s, of course. It then validated the password (by trying to connect with it) before continuing with the installation.

    • It boggles the mind that people would rather use their own wierd solution than build on apt.

      The apt frontend which supports LSB packages (rpm, as opposed to dpkg) works well, but can be confusing. Many new users becomes confused about the difference between update and upgrade, and sometimes forget the need to run update at all.
      Additionally, apt lends itself to resolving dependencies fro mmultipel sources - its not possible to say `update my entire os, but only from the a single source' unless you want to keep reediting your sources.list whenever you'd like to do so. This makes support a bit of a problem, as apt is inclined towards treating third party packages the same as distribution packages.

      I'm not sayign apt is bad (every freshrpms fan knows its quite good), it just isn't perfect, and there's more to package management front ends than apt. Checkout redhat-config-packages from the current Null beta - its much more polished, but not quite as flexible as up2date or apt. But for the average desktop user, it just might be good enough to take away the pain of installing software on Linux.
      • Apt isn't a front-end. It's more like a library.

        The commandline tools "apt-get" and "apt-cache" are utilities that use APT, not APT itself. It's also used in graphical projects like Synaptic and gnome-apt, as well as the console-menu tool Aptitude.

        This is why I said "build on" APT.
    • On one point, I will agree: an installer or package manager should be as simple as it can be. If you install a package, any dependencies it requires should be automatically installed.

      I'm not familiar with apt, it could well be great, but I think that feature has been part of YAST for a long time, too.

  • As a SuSE user, I see that new package manager as a step forward, it solves a lot of problems that I had with previous versions, add a lot desired features, and at least for me seems that will make things easier.

    For the usabilty point of view, well, I think no package manager yet scores perfect, but anyway is too much noise for screenshots that could be intended to show how powerful can be that new version.
  • While i can admit that the package manager is too complicated for the averege user it reflects something vital. Versioning and installing of programs in linux needs a standard that makes it esier to install applications. I have no problems whatsoever but i can imagine how frustrated a newbie could get. It should be possible to change the versioning system to someting more coherent and easier. If you polish todays system it wont help the underlying problems of dependencies and versioning. automatic download of depending packages solves the problem but in a very advanced way. There must be a simpler way to fix this. Small programs should be compiled statically since an increse of a couple of megs is well worth not having to grind your teeth over missing packages.

    • Re:Better versioning system and installing standar (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It is very easy. Pay for regularly scheduled upgrades from your vendor every 2-3 years. If you want it to have behave like Windows, you have to treat it like windows. Just because you can't download the nightly snapshots of windows libraries as source can compile and install them yourself in whatever order you choose whenever you feel like doesn't mean Linux has an inferior installer. You don't have to choose every beta package individually every week, and even if you do, Debian and Mandrake have free applications that make it a breeze. If you want Redhat or SuSE or tell you what you want, their installers have buttons that say "just do it and tell me when it's done"
    • Ok, having sensible versioning standards in OS would be great, some of the systems used are horrible, I agree.

      However:

      Look what the lack of standard versioning scheme throughout the open source community is forcing SuSE to do [...] A commercial OS would have enforce such a standard on all its engineering teams

      What is she smoking exactly? There is no Windows standard for version systems. Every app comes with it's own scheme. There is not even a scheme for Windows itself: Win98, Win2k, WinMillenium, WinNT4, Win3.1, WinXP. Ask a newbie to put those in order. Their apps version system is similar "clear".

    • A commercial OS would have enforce such a standard on all its engineering teams, eliminating such problems, and therefore eliminating the need that the user should check out if there is a new version available or not!
      Eugenia seemed to agree with you in the 'review'.
      Maybe the community could lean on some of the more creative folks and urge them to apply their creativity more to the product and less to the version numbering system.
      Or the Linux Standard Base [linuxbase.org] could weigh in. I know, we view standardazation as the Siamese twin of censorship, but it can have the effect of lowering the entropy in the system.

  • Yuck. (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Tony Hoyle ( 11698 )
    Someone at SuSe needs to read a book on UI design... I couldn't make head nor tail of what those dialogs were trying to tell me, and I'm used to Linux. A newbie would probably reformat and install Windows if presented with that.

    Hopefully it was just a beta he was looking at and most of those dialogs will be consigned to the trash where they belong.

  • SuSE 8.1's YaST2 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by noodlez84 ( 416138 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @09:03PM (#4258978)
    Please, note, folks: it's not out yet. SuSE actually listens deeply to its customers, and if people don't like it, it will be fixed (of course, SuSE listens more to the real customers who hang out at the suse-linux-e mailing list which generates >200 messages a day.)

    Please note, also, that SuSE is not designed for the "Average Joe", which the OSNews.com review brings up all the time. SuSE is designed more for the intermediate-professional level. One piece of evidence for that is the existence of a NCurses (i.e., console) version of YaST2.

    Eugenia Loli-Queru, the author, also bitches about the ability to remove system libraries and about the ability to find which pickage provides a certain library (or what needs it). Frankly, I find that a lovely feature, and will be sure to use it.

    The author ends with the question: "Does this truly solves the problem for the customer?" The answer is a true yes (IMO), because SuSE's customers are not first-stage newbies. As a longtime SuSE user, I have found that if SuSE has to choose between power and simplicity, power will win, and I applaud them for that.

    As one of the few Linux companies with a _profitable_ software division, there's real concrete proof that SuSE knows what they are doing. At least wait until the product launches before writing a scathing review...
  • "Advanced search: Which package provides that library my program needs?" Do you truly think that Joe User needs or should be forced to know or search about this? If your answer is "yes", then, Mr SuSE, you got no clue about desktop system design.

    The reviewer clearly doesn't have A CLUE! That's an extremely useful functionality. I can certainly empathize with trying to install an rpm that isn't listed in YaST...because often times it breaks because of a missing dependancy...and it usually takes AGES to find what package it's in!

    So... clearly the reviewer is just spouting on this point or, more likely, simply doesn't understand what it means.

    • Or perhaps you're missing the reviewer's point. While I've occasionally sparred (mildly) with Eugenia, she's right on target here; unfortunately, she's not expressing herself too clearly (English being her second language sometimes does show through). Whether the "advanced search" is useful for fixing broken dependencies is honestly irrelevant. The point is that desktop users shouldn't need to know about things like library dependencies.

      It's a generally well-accepted principle of human-computer interaction that if you allow this kind of "under the hood" access because occasionally you have to--in other words, because of the scenario that you're describing--the program isn't well-designed. If it often breaks, as you say, that means this isn't an "advanced" mode, it's a "we can't get our dependency handling right" mode.

      I think the earlier comment someone had about using apt as a back-end is right on target. From a UI standpoint, even (gasp) typing "apt-get install emacs" stomps over any GUI package manager with poor dependency handling, no matter how elegant and refined the GUI might be.

      • desktop users dont need to know they are running a yast2, suse, a kernel.....
        desktop user maybe are too dumb.

        Ever had to search for a missing dll on your windows and never found out what program actually provided that library?

        Linux for the dektop is not the product of one company and consists of many packages from many sources. When you need to install program X which relies on another program Y from 2 different sources and X complains it needs library libY, then you'll notice how important this tool can be.
        If all programs available on SuSE 8.1 originated from SuSE then we wont have this problem, and that what makes Linux different and powerfull, although still not perfect...

        -an

      • desktop users shouldn't need to know about things like library dependencies

        I'm sorry. I really don't think that's right. Linux is a system with shared libraries. That's something which doesn't need fixing. But as long as that's the case, I see no reason to insulate the user from this fact. Yast2 seems to reveal dependencies in a very straightforward way, so noobs only need to press OK whenever they don't understand something, and all will go well. However, at no expense to them, they learn something about the internal structure of their software environment. This is exactly what they need if they are one day going to graduate from the noob status and start seeing the real power of *nix. BTW, this graduation is not going to happen for someone on OSX unless they really work at it. I think SuSE's utility does a much better job informing them what's under their hood without asking them to do anything more than press "OK". How this could be a bad thing, I don't understand.

    • I can certainly empathize with trying to install an rpm that isn't listed in YaST...because often times it breaks because of a missing dependancy...and it usually takes AGES to find what package it's in!
      SuSE has for a while had a nice program called pin that searches for libraries in packages very well. That having been said, judging from the screenshots, SuSE 8.1's package manager looks neat.

  • Objective journalism (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @09:40PM (#4259143) Homepage
    I'm certainly no friend of either SuSE in general or YaST in particular, but after reading this article, I am left with the uneasy feeling that this was just not objective journalism, but in fact outright bashing, and I'm kinda saddened by this. is this really necessary? Debating things, even in a controversial way, is certainly a good thing, but let's try to not get personal - the last thing we need is this kind of mudslinging amongst ourselves.

  • This is typical (Score:4, Informative)

    by ViceClown ( 39698 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @09:51PM (#4259176) Homepage Journal
    This is the second time this week I have seen Eugenia express a knee-jerck opinion on something without putting much thought into it. The first was calling for a user friendly Gentoo but that's a different argument. I don't care who you are - calling a program a "UI disaster" without even actually using it is VERY irresposible. As a reporter she should be doing due dilligence and research before forming an opinion or dare I say "review" on a new piece of software. The good people at SuSE are working VERY hard at trying to make managing binary packages easier and here's someone slamming them before it's even out the door. This is irresposible reporting at it's worst. OSNews has become a soundboard for Eugenia's opinions and she has no problems shelling them out at her every whim. This was the last article I plan to read at OSNews. I'de prefer to get unbiased news elseware.

    Sincerely, Former OSNews Reader

  • UI is difficult. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Error27 ( 100234 ) <error27 AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday September 14, 2002 @10:15PM (#4259247) Homepage Journal
    Well it's not really that difficult, but it does require some thought.

    The main problem with the screenshots is that they seem to be of obscure features rather than the ordinary things I would do all the time.

    apt-cache search
    apt-cache show
    apt-get install
    apt-get upgrade -u --fix-missing

    That's all I need 95% of the time.

    I'm confused by what the color scheme was meant to represent, and what the problem is with the project versions.

    These screenshots are obviously designed by programmers for programmers. That's why there is a screenshot of dependency hell. A marketter would not have included it. On the other hand, I trust open source because I know the developers are going to be honest even if it doesn't make business sense. It would be nice to fix dependency hell, but it can't realistically happen. Microsoft fixes it by controlling the entire process and by releasing new versions less frequently than even Debian. Linux is developed too fast, and by too many different people for the problem to go away entirely.

    "Actually, all the user needs to know is that there is a new version available. Nothing else." I disagree, I sometimes wonder what version is going to be installed. They could make all the new versions a different color, that way everyone wins.

    The article let's windows off too easily. I have never liked windows update. It always makes me nervous. To download a patch to active X, I had to turn on active X. How do I revert changes? It never tells me what it is doing to my system. These days windows update seems to be turned on by default. It pops up when I use other people's systems. Windows update is like X-10 ads without the buxom babysitters. I don't think it ever gives any information about what program is going to upgraded. I never know if I should press yes to upgrade, or if it is going to trash the system.

    Eugenia's articles are great. We need more discussion about user interfaces.
  • Mommy, I'm scared! Them bad old boys at SuSE told me what is available for my server and what I have! I get so confused when I see all those styles of versions an not standard ones like 2000 SP1 or NT SP6 or (fill in the blank)!

    How can anyone make the silly assed proposals this guy did? What? Translate all of the versions of each package into a standardized set of SuSE versions? How then can I tell what version I chave compered to Red Hat, or the real package itself?

    Silly Silly MS folks should go figure out needle point or something if this stuff is too complicated for them to grasp. They certainly shouldn't be playing with computers if they truely want to work with toasters!

    • Re:Waaa Waaa!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Zemran ( 3101 )
      The blank you missed was Beos. The author of the article is a Beos advocate looking for a new direction in life. She is lost and does not know what she is talking about.
  • Shouldn't it be named YaYast instead of Yast2?

  • Nobody uses SuSE? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anthony Boyd ( 242971 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @10:52PM (#4259375) Homepage

    Wow. Lots of people posting about SuSE who don't appear to actually use it. I want to make just two points. First, while I understand that their installers are not GPL'd, I also understand that this is what makes them a profitable enough company to be stable. I don't want SuSE to be like Mandrake, asking for handouts. I want Linux to survive, and companies teetering on the edge make me uncomfortable. Second, YAST is not new (obviously), so any hype about managing packages is overstated. YAST has done that for a while. But what is new, and -- sorry -- what I and other customers asked for, is the ability to search inside a package for libraries and such. For me personally, I wanted to get Xine and Xmms working from a compile, and there were cascading dependencies. I didn't want to compile everything. So it is NOT that SuSE put that there because they screw up dependencies and have "advanced search" as a bandaid. They have it there (at least in my case) so that I can select a library, get all the sub-dependencies taken care of, and then I only need to use gcc for the app itself.

  • Did you even read the article?

    He complains about regular users being able to render a system unbootable by letting them remove core system libraries. He's also very concerned about the lack of auomatic resolving of dependencies.
  • It all depends on your newbie. If your newbie is computer-literate, they can install SuSE 7.3 over FTP.

    My newbie could get around Win32 adequately. His home box always seemed "slow." He saw KDE 3.0.3 running on my Gentoo box, and noted I was always raving about Linux and how he should try SuSE. So, he went home, and grabbed SuSE 7.3 bootdisks, on his own. He then did everything the installer asked - I just gave him some names of IRC clients and the name "KDE", and he installed it all himself. And that was YaST1. (Which IMHO was a better package selector in ncurses, but apparently it works nicely again in 8.1's YaST. I've installed a 7.2 and 7.3, ran 8.0 for some time, but I've just recently installed Gentoo. I love it :) But that's getting a little OT... )

    In any event, later, SuSE apparently installed sendmail so he could send email, and he could run pine and successfully send me email.

    So is he a brighter newbie than normal? Or is Eugenia a dumber newbie? I think that SuSE gets high marks in terms of usability for me - my one gripe about 7.3 was that it didn't start XDM/KDM/GDM automagically. (I love that word...) It was fixed in 8.0. And it used YaST2 for installation under X or some FBDev... it was a dream to upgrade from 7.3 to 8.0. I just hit "upgrade", fed it its 7 CDs (HEH), and it went. He's a convert now. (I've been a convert for 4 years - now I only boot win2k if there's a game that I wanna play - WineX is helping with that, love it already! - or... well.. I don't boot win2k otherwise!)

    Happily,
    pi
    • my one gripe about 7.3 was that it didn't start XDM/KDM/GDM automagically. (I love that word...) It was fixed in 8.0

      Hmm.Personally I prefer installs that don't automatically turn on GDM on install. Particularly if you've seen those many distros that simply thrash and flip out in cycles if it doesn't work (I note that woody nails gdm if it doesnt come up after 5 tries... Last time I looked at redhat it still flipped out if the X setup was wrong.)

      It's pretty easy to first tune X up and *then* set the default inittab level to x windows afterwoods
      • I'm using RedHat 7.3, and if the X server keeps crashing (like when you forget to recompile the NVIDIA module after upgrading the kernel *ahem*), a friendly text mode dialog pops up, asking you if you want to reconfigure X or if you want to fix it yourself in text mode.
      • But that's not very newbie-friendly... The newbie doesn't wanna see "login: ", the newbie wants to see a big graphical "Welcome! Enter the username you set up when you installed: " or something like that. .. or maybe that's just me.'
        --j

  • OK...I DO use SuSE.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kikensei ( 518689 ) <joshua@nOSPam.ingaugemedia.com> on Saturday September 14, 2002 @11:29PM (#4259488) Homepage
    I've been using it exclusively on the desktop for 2 years and on a few servers at work. This is a step in the right direction for the distro. In SuSE 8, the developer's sought to become more compliant to the LSB (Linux Standard Base) and to streamline their distro. Prior to 8.0, SuSE was sporting both Yast and Yast2. Yast was a carry over from ealier distro's which included an NCURSES based package manager (among many other things). Yast2 provided a clean GUI that could be run under X or via NCurses at a terminal (or over SSH...great!) allowing for easy system updates and administration for newbies and exerienced alike. Those who don't like Yast can turn it off and take responsibility for managing the system manually. With 8.0, Yast was removed from the distro and a BIG complaint from their user base was the loss of the Yast1 package manager. This clearly is a response to their user base to integrate a package manager into Yast2 (and a powerful looking manager at that). Please. If you don't use SuSE refrain from the constant "apt" this and "emerge" that. SuSE works very well with apt4rpm if you so desire and if you like Debian or Gentoo (I don't have the patience, it was fun to get it working, but when I'm building several workstations, Gentoo ain't happening), then use them. Linux distro's can peacefully coexist, and as an admin and desktop user of SuSE's distro, I'm glad to see a GUI and console package manager re-integrated into the distro. I'm sure it will only get better.
    • I too (am forced to) use suse at work.

      My biggest complaint is the way that yast operates. rather than work with the config files for a particular part of the system directly, it keeps its changes in a databases, than shits them out to the actual config files afterwards.

      If you have ever made manual changes to any config, you are fscked as soon as you use yast for that 'quick change' you couldn't remember how to do with the text files...or if you have multiple machine admins, good luck.

      And yast doesn't support all of the possible config options available for certain things either, so you HAVE to tweak them by hand (1152x864 resolution on the video card I use at work, for example).

      My last gripe is that ridiculous mix of /etc/rc.d scripts and /etc/rc.config for configuring what gets started or not. Come on! Pick one method and use it. That mix is just confusing to anybody using that distro for the first time. Having to muck with it in two places is wrong.

  • YaST review (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Daimaou ( 97573 ) on Saturday September 14, 2002 @11:56PM (#4259552)
    I don't know how many of you frequent OSNews, but Eugenia is always very critical of Linux, Java, OS X, or anything not Microsoft or BeOS.

    I personally think it is poor reporting to post such a rancorous review of a program based entirely on screenshots. In her forum section, she admits to having never used YaST, so the review is based entirely on nescience, sensationalism and a dislike for anything Linux (although she regularly denies it).

    Eugenia has a bad habit of telling her readers to f**k off and die and deleting posts she doesn't like, so it won't do any good to try and reason with her to be more intellectually honest in her articles. It's best just to take this horrid review with a grain of salt.

    YaST is a very good tool, and from the screenshots, they have fixed some things that needed to be fixed. It looks very good to me and I look forward to trying it out when 8.1 is released.

  • With power comes responsibility. I welcome more information and control over the packages that are installed. I have tried many of the popular distributions, and I often find packages that I never use but are installed by default in the distributions. These packages are potential security risks and uses up valuable disk space.

    I have used SuSE 6.x - 7.x in production and have found the tools included to be better and more comprehensive than the most popular distributions. And SuSE does not charge for online updating.

    If you don't know which packages you want to use, use a default selection.

  • I've been using the beta versions of 8.1 for a bit, and I was sceptical about this new version of YaST's package tools. SuSE have dropped the Slackware-derived package series', and opted for grouping. This concerned me, as I've become very used to the series system since I started using SuSE (6.3).

    However, when I actually used the new tool (gosh, soneone basing a judgement on using it? Whatever next...?) I found it really easy to use, more importantly, I was able to select the packages I wanted to install extremely quickly, and then go and make a coffee while it got on with installing them. Anything to reduces the time before I go get a coffee is a good thing!

    One great thing is you can finally turn off automatic dependency checking. Sometimes you just want to force an install of something that you know full well clashes with something else, previous versions of YaST wouldn't let you do this, but now you can ust turn off the dependency checking and away you go. So, if you wanted to do that, you could leave that package till the last one to select, so everything else has it's dependencies verified, turn off the checking, add your 'extra' package, and away you go.

    I've not tried it's YOU functionality, yet, I tend to use Fou4S anyway, so I'm afraid I can't comment on that.

    Oh yes, the ncurses version of YaST generally (not just the package tool) is vastly improved ,it's a lot faster to use, no more tabbing between sections and remembering which key to hit with ALT, it moves around the interface with the cursor keys :)
  • Self-important journalism. Let's take a few examples..

    Firstly, they decry the fact that YaST2 doesn't simplify the version numbers. And *then* they get upset that YAST2 does try a simplification using colour. YaST2 says "We're trying our best here, and it seems to work pretty well" where petulant reviewer mumbles something about hating versioning systems on Linux. Frankly, it seems they don't understand the nature of open-source.

    Then they complain about a search feature to see which package provides a given library, and tries to convince us that that's only something 'power users' need - personally, it was one of the first things I learned to do with the RPM tool when I installed Linux for the first time - non-standard packages off the net would often complain about missing libraries.

    To add to everything else, this article is written by someone who by their own admission hasn't used the tool yet, and is going purely off screenshots. What a retard.
  • When installing Suse, there is usually a screen that appears that has a bunch of options such as
    • Minimal system (no gui)
    • Basic gui
    • Default
    • Default with Office
    • Everything
    • Manual package selection

    It is only if you select Manual package selection that you even see the package manager.

    If you simply accept the default, or just use the other predefined options it skips over the package manager completely.

    And incidentally, the earlier versions of the package manager DO automatically handle dependencies.If you select a package, it will automatically select anything it depends on for you, and then tell you that it has done so.

    You can of course go back and override these automatically selected packages if you are feeling brave.

    To get into that mess shown in the last screen shot would have taken quite a lot of deliberate effort to "vandalise" the work done by the package manager.

  • Things like these (among others):

    "Advanced search: Which package provides that library my program needs?" Do you truly think that Joe User needs or should be forced to know or search about this? If your answer is "yes", then, Mr SuSE, you got no clue about desktop system design.

    Well...the thing is, SuSE is really aimed at companies (they want support contracts!) with professional sysadmins. It is used on the server a lot, and if it is rolled out on the desktop it will probably be done by a companies admin.

    So, if something breaks, our happy sysadmin could look up missing dependencies of a certain package - rather usefull I'd say.

    And no, Joe Avg User probably doesn't want this, that's why it says 'ADVANCED search', i.e. Joe Avg Stupid User shouldn't go there in the first place, but just select 'Automagically use my harddisk as you see fit', then 'Default Desktop Install', and that's just about how much he should see of the install process.

    But for sure, I would *love* this advanced search thing (fortunately, Gentoo Portage has it built-in :)

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