New to SUSE? Yeah, I was too. And YaST...yeah, I know. Everyone raved (raves) about how great it was (is), but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the heck I was doing with the program. I would get errors out the wazzu when trying to load up repos. Then when I finally got them loaded, the programs (I knew were there) wouldn't come up in the searches. Ack! After trial and error (and more errors and more errors) I thought I got a handle on YaST...thought I knew what was going on. Enter Ubuntu...Ubuntu 5.10 RC was released, and (the distro wh*** I am) I shunned SUSE and spent a few months with that. Finally came back to SUSE, and found I had forgotten how YaST worked....probably cause I'm a bit slower than the average bear.

Anyway, I think I've finally got a pretty good handle on YaST (again). And, I now understand why everyone raves about how great it is. So, this...let me help you get YaST up and running.

The first thing you need to understand about YaST is it needs to be told where to go to get things. The way to do this is to load it up with source repositories. After you're finished installing SUSE for the first time, YaST only has one source repository...your install CDs/DVD. That's OK to get the SUSE ball rolling, but not so good if you want updated packages or you want to install packages not included on the CDs/DVD. So, let's install some new sources! (For the purposes of this post, I'm just going to list the official SUSE repos. There are however many mirrors around the world that contain the same packages. Here's a list of international mirrors.. They might provide faster service.)

The 4 official SUSE repos are here on this page (scroll down until you see the bold headings "base", "official KDE", "official GNOME", and "official misc"). We're going to install sources for those four repos.

Open up YaST (the SUSE button-->System-->YaST). Type in your root password, and then click on the "(change) installation source" option. At the next page, you'll see a white box with your CDs/DVD as the only option. Under that box, there will be some buttons. Click on "add". At the dropdown menu, select "ftp." This will bring up another little box. There are two dialogue boxes: one with the heading "server name" and another with the heading "directory on server." In the "server name" box, enter In the "directory on server" box, enter Click "OK." You have just added the base source repository for SUSE LINUX 10.0. (If you are running a different version, change the version accordingly.)

Let's do this three more times...yay! Add-->FTP-->
"server name""directory on server"Add-->FTP-->
"server name""directory on server"Add-->FTP-->
"server name""directory on server"Now, we're going to add two of the most popular source repositories for non-official SUSE programs (things like video codecs, video player plugins, etc): guru and packman. This time, after clicking "add", select "HTTP" (instead of FTP).
"server name""directory on server" (don't worry....it's not a mistake that we selected HTTP when the address reads FTP...things will work out!)
Add-->HTTP-->
"server name""directory on server"For guru and packman, there are no international mirrors.

OK. So, now we have added 6 new online source repositories. The last thing we need to do is turn on the "refresh" option for your online sources. To do this, highlight the source, and then click on the "enable/disable" button. You should notice an "on" in the refresh column of your source. What refresh does is check the sources, when you load up YaST, for new programs since the last time you were in YaST.

You should be good to go. The above source repositories should provide you with most every package that you might need (from codecs to upgrading KDE and GNOME).

A note on SUSE versions: do not mix versions. It's not a good idea. They might work, but more often than not, they might not work and cause problems. If you're using 9.3, use 9.3 source repos. If you're using SUSE LINUX 10.0 (retail, evaluation, open-source), use 10.0 source repos. If you're using OpenSUSE 10.1, use 10.1 sources. Not mixing causes less headaches...with Linux as well as with alcohol!

A note on swaping in international mirrors for the repos we used above: what you are looking for in a directory path is a file called "directory.yast". If the directory path you are entering does not have that file, you will return an error.

For example, I use mirrors in Japan. The "server name" is "ftp.riken.jp". The directory path for official Base reads "/Linux/suse/suse/i386/10.0/SUSE-Linux10.0-GM-Extra/". That's the path that contains the "directory.yast" file. If I were to enter a path like "Linux/suse/suse/i386/10.0/", then I would return an error, cause that path does not contain the "directory.yast" file. Does that make sense?

A note on updating Firefox: the above repos do not give you an update for Firefox. You have to download that manually. Then, use YaST to uninstall you current version of Firefox (and mozilla-translations, if you have that loaded). Finally, load up the new version of Firefox by clicking on the RPM and choosing the "install package with YaST" option.

Finally, some link-tasim...

I know, I'm a bit too long winded for you (I like the sound of my own keyboard tapping). So, try out this nice and short guide (I have used it many times myself):
http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=Add_YaST_Source
Lists of YaST sources:
http://www.opensuse.org/Additional_Y...e_Repositories
http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=Findin...Ms#YaST_Sources
International mirrors:
http://www.novell.com/products/suselinux/d...nt_mirrors.html