openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE

[GreyGeek]

I downloaded, burned and ran openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE.

It features KDE 4.4.4 "release 2". Kubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx features KDE 4.4.5.

It's major strength is YAST (Yet Another System Tool) except that there are few, if any, system tools equal to YAST. KNetworkManger behaved as usual, poorly. It was not allowing my Intell 5100 wireless chip to log on, even though it was correctly configured. In YAST, is I switched to ifup and was able to easily get online.

It has TWO major weakness, IMO. The first is the rpm package manager, but as long as they can keep it working .... The second major weakness is that it is too closely tied to Novell, which is depending on Microsoft to stay afloat.

Like most Linux distributions you have to configure for many multimedia options yourself if you want to watch Youtube, the BP videos, or listen to streaming music, etc....

All in all, it's not worth the jump from Lucid, nor from Maveric. YAST is good, but not that good.

[dibl]

Re: openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE

I'm far from an expert, but everything I read suggests that the Debian package management system is superior to all the others, including RPM.

I did install Fedora Core once, about 3 years ago, and played with it for a month or so. YAST worked, once I figured it out, but overall the whole system (with the same video driver/card) seemed a bit sluggish, in comparison to Kubuntu and I think I had E-Live installed too, at that time. So I'm sold on Debian.

[Bruce]

Re: openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE

rpm is great! Have been using for a decade now without problems. Can't say the same debs. As for Novell, they have hardly been "kept afloat" by Microsoft lol.

But hey it's a free world, and I guess everyone is entitled to spread their FUD around :P

I can say this, the few week run I gave Kubuntu was nothing but a horror show. Even back when I started using Linux in 1999 I didn't have to jump through so many hoops, look for so many work arounds and have so many application crashes.

OpenSuSE rocks

[GreyGeek]

Re: openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE

I purchased 22 boxes sets of SuSE from Sept 1998 to May 2006 (IIRC), just before Novell bought SuSE. The Germans produced an excellent distro. Novell's "deal" drove me away from SUSE. I would consider openSUSE because it is not protected under the "deal".

Kubuntu 10.4 (as well as 9.10 and 9.4) have been absolute dream OSs for me. I now have Kubuntu Maveric running as a VM under VBox on my Lucid installation and it is performing very well there as well, despite being initally installed as an Alpha 2. When I increased the video RAM from 26 MG to 64MB the default desktop switched automatically from an 800X600 'Switch and Launch" to the 1024X768 standard KDE4 desktop.

Having installed Kubuntu on a couple dozen machines since I switched to it in Feb of 2009, it appears to me that success depends on two factors, how vanilla the target machine is, and how thoughtful the installer is. I switched to Kubuntu in Feb, 2009, because when I ran the Kubuntu 9.04 LiveCD Alpha 1 my video 3D and acceleration was installed immediately. This was after I waited from September 2008 to Feb 2009 for the Intel video driver patch for Mandriva 2009 PWP to trickle down to my desktop. (It appeared about a month after I left.) Since the video was fixed every feature of my Sony VAIO VGN-FW140/E notebook has worked beautifully, except for the proprietary "Pro MagicGate" USB port, which I never use anyway because I won't buy proprietary USB entertainment media.

My biggest problem with RPM repositories was that if I chose an application which ran on KDE 3.3, for example, but I had KDE 3.2 installed, Knoppix (and a couple other distros) would merrily remove ALL of my KDE 3.2 desktop and install the KDE 3.3 desktop, and then that app. The first time that happened I watched with horror as file after file was removed. it was too late to stop the process and have a runable desktop, so I let it go. To my amazement it completed without a hitch and I experienced my first automatic desktop update. A couple weeks later I installed another app but this time it was an app for the KDE 3.2 desktop and the whole procedure reversed itself, removing my 3.3 desktop, installed the 3.2 desktop, and then the 3.2 app. And it worked! I thought to myself: "Wow, that is neat!". The next time that happened, switching me back up to KDE 3.3, the result was a disaster. I had to reinstall because I could neither downgrade nor upgrade my KDE desktop.

The other problem I had with RPM distros is that, at the time, most of the good apps were at rpm.pbone.net, and similar web based repositories. When I found an RPM package of the app I wanted that would install on my version of KDE, inevitably I'd get a missing dependency. Package A, which I wanted to install, required package B. B required C, which had to be replaced with a newer version. But, several apps depended on the OLD version of C so I fell into "Dependency Hell". "A" was out of reach for me.

I'd use KPackage to test install RPM packages and make note of which dependencies were missing. I'd download and test each dependency and note their dependencies, ad infinitum until I got a set of rpm packages which satisfied all dependencies. Then I'd install them manually all at once. Installing some packages was sometimes a long and laborious process. When Mepis switched to Ubuntu's Debian repository for a while I became familiar with deb packages and the Debian based repositories, their stability and the number of package choices available. That, the video patch, and the fact that Kubuntu 9.04 was featuring KDE 4.2.1, were the three main reasons why I switched to Kubuntu.

KDE4 4.4.4 and KDE 4.4.5 are too close for any significant difference to be a persuading factor in switching distros. The only package openSUSE has that could temp me, barely, is YAST, but as one comment said, it is slow. But, if you do anything manually to disable SUSECONFIG (if I recall the name properly) then YAST ceases to function and maintenance and support are on you from then on.

[Bruce]

Re: openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE

The Novell deal certainly never gave me a reason to stop using "openSuSE", or SLED for that matter. I use an operating system because it works for me, not because of "politics" mentality people want to inflict upon things. That said, perhaps in detail you can tell us about the horrible negative effects it has had on Linux. FUD aside that is. I mean the real world, here is the evidence proof of the negative outcome. Many have made business deals with Microsoft. None that I can find, can't find any related to the RedHat deal either.


Knoppix, rpm's

Thats an odd combination

But if you think it a nice feature for something to replace your entire graphical environment because you want to install one application, then Ohhhhhhhh well :P

I am not sure what packages you are looking for but rpm bone would be the very, very last place I would look.

Not sure why anyone would use Kpackage to install or test software, it's lousy, I don't care if you are using debs, or rpms Kpackage just sucks.

As for Yast, it rocks, it is extremely fast, but if the only thing you are looking at is package management then you are only looking at 1/100th of what it does, can do, and is capable of doing.

SuSEconfig, well I have never found a need to, nor wanted to disable it, in fact I often run it manually.

In the end I am sure "Ubuntu" is a fine distro for folks who enjoy using Gnome. I am sorry to say to me Kubuntu just felt like it was a hodge pdged together on top of distro optimized for a specific GUI, that GUI not being KDE.

I love KDE, and just use what works, and works like it was meant to work, with good system tools that are integrated into the system better then any other I have found, I don't have to install a bunch of ugly foot junk to have a decent running system.

[GreyGeek]

Re: openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE

...
perhaps in detail you can tell us about the horrible negative effects it has had on Linux. ...

Be glad to, but not in this thread.

Knoppix, rpm's

Thats an odd combination

mmm... It could have been Mandriva or SuSE, but I thought it was on Knoppix that the wild upgrades/downgrades occured. It was during the early 2000's. So much for recollections.

But if you think it a nice feature for something to replace your entire graphical environment because you want to install one application, then Ohhhhhhhh well :P

It's not that it was a "nice feature". It just happened, warning and with no option to abort the install or back out.

I am not sure what packages you are looking for but rpm bone would be the very, very last place I would look.

It's been years ago, Bruce, but at the time rpm bone was the best RPM site on the web. One was more likely to find a package there than any place else. Another RPM site was the ELF Liberation Front, which was popular with Mandrake users at the time. I ran it for a couple years. IIRC, the ELF also had a tool that allowed you to create a two line configuration to copy into the config file of the application manager. You know, the more I think about it the more it seems to me that it was Mandrake or Mandriva, not Knoppix.

Not sure why anyone would use Kpackage to install or test software, it's lousy, I don't care if you are using debs, or rpms Kpackage just sucks.

I'm not talking about modern distros, Bruce. KPackage was an alternative RPM installer. I preferred it to the other tools because it had a test feature that was easy to use and would report missing dependencies without actually installing the app. When I had all the RPMs collected in one directory I used a konsole to issue single command to install them all. I'd have to look up the syntax because I don't remember it now.

As for Yast, it rocks, it is extremely fast, but if the only thing you are looking at is package management then you are only looking at 1/100th of what it does, can do, and is capable of doing.
....

I haven't run an installed SUSE (any flavor) since the mid 2000s. At that time YaST WAS slow, and even for a simple change, say to the printer, it ran through all 20 or so of its config scripts, even if the script didn't do anything. When running openSUSE 11.3 from the LiveCD it still ran slow, but that is to be expected and not a criticism of 11.3.

YaST is, without a doubt, the best system configuration tool in Linux. For the average user it would be suicide to go outside YaST and tinker with SUSECONFIG, or use the CLI to do anything: package management, display settings, graphic server setup, printer setup, networking, etc... IMO, YaST is so complete that there is rarely a reason to go to the CLI.

.....
I am sorry to say to me Kubuntu just felt like it was a hodge pdged together on top of distro optimized for a specific GUI, that GUI not being KDE.

I don't think "hodge podge" is an apt description. It isn't that the tools that are present aren't good, except for KNetworkManager, which doesn't work in openSUSE 11.3, either. It is that there aren't enough GUI system tools and those that are present aren't well integrated. PCLinuxOS and MEPIS suffer from the same problem.

System Settings (KDE4's admin tool) is a fine KDE4 admin tool, but its system tools aren't first rate yet and they are scattered. Desktop should be integrated with Display and Desktop Theme, and the combination should allow the user to create their own xorg.conf file, if need be. Network Settings is not a network configuration tool.

Part of KDE4's problem with System Settings trying to be a system admin tool is that the system, xserver and most peripherals are configured, up and running before kdm is run. That's why, IMO, wicd is a better and more stable network tool than KNetworkManager -- it is running before kdm is started and doesn't depend on kdm or the KDE4 API.

openSUSE's solution is to create a set of low resolution graphic dialogs presented by Python (?) scripts that alter settings in configuration files. When the graphic dialog is closed scripts use the config files to create, edit or delete devices and their configurations. openSUSE's system admin tool doesn't need to have kdm or KDE4 running to be run itself. That is a good approach, and one which the German SuSE developers had copyrighted outside the GPL and refused to allow other distros to copy. IIRC, YaST is now GPL but it is so tightly woven into SUSE that one might as well start from scratch and write their own sys admin tool.

[Bruce]

Re: openSUSE 11.3 LiveKDE

Knetworkmanger is running just fine for me on two laptops (Toshiba A505, wireless and ethernet) (HP DV5000, wireless and ethernet) and three desktops (Ancient Dell with wireless and ethernet) Custom built pc (ASUS M2N-E, with wireless and ethernet) and a (SuperMicro X5DEi-GG with dual Xeon processors, and dual gigabit ethernet adapters). Not so much as a hiccup out of any of them. All connecting to a Linksys WRT54gs router with WPA2. I just aquired the SuperMicro server, it's a new toy to tinker with.

Not sure why are comparing opensuse to kubuntu but spend more time talking about the bad experiences of numerous other distros that have nothing to do with opensuse, or using examples from 5 and 6 years ago.

It could well have been knoppix (debian) years ago that made the huge changes you talk about as knoppix didn't play well with many debian repositories, but that really is irrelevant for the topic of this thread. Unless this thread is about very old distributions that have little or nothing to do with the latest Kubuntu and openSUSE.

Needless to say all of the above computers and laptops installed and run perfectly, no hoops to jump through, no weird work arounds, they just work and work flawlessly. All installed using the DVD not CD.