[lug] SUSE- comments

[John Karns]

On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Deva Samartha uttered:

> Yast interface has changed significantly since 6.1. 6.4 introduced 
> graphical (X) interface Yast 2 which I experienced as in need of ironing 
> out bugs.

Agreed.  Y2 also seems to have a lot more overhead in loading and memory
useage - 64MB RAM required I believe.  I also experienced other problems
with graphics card detection etc.  Only tried it a couple of times
though.  Haven't tried Y2 with SuSE 7.  I've grown accustomed to Y1.


> In 7.0 the bugs were gone (as far as I can see).  It offers a default 
> setting for the novice user and a deeper interface for the "prof". I find 
> it pretty slick.  Yast 1 (curses based) is accessible by killing the X 
> under Yast 2 during installation.
> 
> I need Yast 1 sometimes off the boot CD/floppy and the newer distributions 
> come up in Yast 2.  Do Ctl-Alt-BS and you are back in Yast 1 (here, I know 
> installation mode only, never using Yast 2 when system is up).

Simply type 'manual' at the boot: prompt during the 1st 3 seconds, and it
will give you the coice of which Yast version to use, without having to
enter Y2.


> But, as I hear, Debian seems to be superior having more automatism to upgrades.

Don't know, as I'm not familiar with Debian.  But the SuSE approach is
pretty well automated, IMO.  If 'update' is selected from the menu, it
reads the RPM database and compares version numbers of the installed pkgs
with those of the new system, then prompts with the choice to install ALL
pkgs, or only those which have been updated.  It does this via a pkg
version comparison.  It also presents a full selection list of pkgs to be
installed, giving the option to deselect (i.e., uninstall) any if desired.  
It does a pretty good job of avoiding overwriting most system config files
such as /etc/passwd, smb.conf, et al.


> >Don't get me wrong.  I did run SuSe at home for a year or so.  It is nice
> >in its own way.  The biggest problem I had with it was a continual fight
> >between me and YAST.  YAST wants things configured its own way, and I
> >sometimes wanted to change this.  You had to be careful that if you made a
> >change to the system configuration outside of YAST, that the next time you
> >ran YAST it wouldn't simply trash the changes you had previously made.

The main config file that Yast uses is /etc/rc.config, a plain ASCII text
file.  It is possible to edit this with vi.  IIR, I've never experienced a
problem with losing any changes to it.  The system startup scripts in
/etc/rc.d all start by sourcing /etc/rc.config.  So many of the options,
especially the "START_*" lines seem to pertain only to script references,
and are not seen by SuSEconfig.

When exiting Yast, if you've made system config changes more profound than
say adding a new user or group, then SuSEconfig will be spawned.  This
utility takes care of such tasks as updating various supported window
manager configuration files to add any relevant items in case you've
installed any additional X app rpm's, modifies /etc/lilo.conf and other
system config files as necessary.  If desired, you can also disable
SuSEconfig from running by changing the approprite /etc/rc.config setting.


> For upgrades, I wait for their next release, copy my harddisk, upgrade and 
> cross my fingers, if it fails, use the old version on the other harddisk or 
> install from scratch.

I recently discovered that it often works better if you boot from the 2nd
CD instead of the 1st.  I don't know the specifics, but seem to remember
reading that it is configured slightly differently in regards to how it
uses a ram disk or some such memory related issue.  Indeed, I've had mixed
results with the upgrade process, but overall very few failures.  I've
even upgraded from 5.1 to 6.4 directly, skipping the intermediate
versions, and had about a 50% success rate.  If I had known earlier than I
did about the 2nd CD boot issue though, I might have fared better.


> Earlier ( pre SuSE ), I did upgrades to stay near the bleeding edge and 
> found the keeping up of versions, libraries, getting all the stuff together 
> and working is a major pain.
> 
> With SuSE, I buy the upgrades and cross my fingers. Their releases are 
> often one version behind and their rpm's  and kernel are tailored to their 
> distribution. Security upgrades and bug fixes can either be automatically 
> installed (internet) or manually downloaded and installed with Yast or from 
> the commandline.

I usually revert to the stock kernel version, and AFAIK never exerienced a
compatibility issue with installed RPM"s vs the stock kernel.


> Before deciding on a distribution (2+ years back), I evaluated RH, SuSE and 
> Caldera with SuSE coming out ahead on user interface, online support 
> database and installation. Redhat would not install, Caldera had a poor 
> desktop. SuSE appeared mature in comparison.

My experience was very similar, although I don't remember having
difficulty getting RH installed.


> would chose a distribution which has industry support/acknowledgement but 
> for unknown rational reasons, I would stay away from RH.

My experience with RH left me wanting something better.  It gave me the
feeling that they were too reckless and left too many loose ends flapping
in the wind.  To equivocate, I haven't taken another look at it during the
past 3 or 4 years.  However the latest gcc fiasco doesn't really give me
much impetus to do so and suggests that they haven't changed very much.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
John Karns                                              jkarns at csd.net