Managing Software

[john_tomas]

Here just my small crazy idea about Yast and software management based on newbies (i personally know) complaints:

OpenSuSE Suggestions

I really do believe that removing and upgrading software should be a lot easier... newbies can't deal with too much technical things.

Just an idea...

[sefk]

I think that a lot of people have difficulties with opensuse because they want to see another ubuntu/mandriva like distro "that even my gramma can use". However, imo, opensuse is not designed for gramma. It's a power-user distro with cutting edge features.

So, about the suggestions, I'm not a big fan:
1: similar feature exists, at least in the gnome main-menu (I'm not too sure about kde's thou).

2: Even if we put the feature in yast, it's not that great: Opensuse still don't have a deborphan equivalent. So removing package gimp doesn't really uninstall gimp: files on which gimp depends but who doesn't depends on gimp will stay there, even if it is not use by any other applications.
A good example is package compiz-fusion-gnome. It's only a metapackage, so removing compiz-fusion-gnome will cause no difference. However, following the suggested presentation, compiz-fusion-gnome should at the same level as Openoffice or The gimp.

This feature, if one day is installed, depends on mostly 2 things:
A: add an equivalent of deborphan in zypper
B: revamp the whole repo and dependencies organization.
A is cool, but B...

3: Why shouldn't newbies learn one day?

[some-guy]

This is is why patterns and package managers exist(also 1-clicks), to simplify life

[DenverD]

> opensuse is not designed for gramma.
>
> So...I'm not a big fan:

on the other hand, a couple of years ago i helped a (then) 62 year old
granny migrate from Winders ME to SuSE 10.2 with little fuss and bother
(other than installing, setting up (with her passwords etc) and telling
(and demonstrating) her to use Firefox instead of Internet Exploder; and
Thunderbird instead of Outhouse, and OpenOffice instead of Winders
Orifice)..

of course, i didn't give her the root password ;-)

dd
she loves it...loves to brag to her tea-time-old-lady-friends [every
time a new virus wipes them out] that she doesn't even HAVE a virus
checker, and and updates Office (etc) for free!!

[Cryovac]

I agree with many of the OP points, but if all were included it would result in less control over package libs and deps and so perhaps the best solution is for a 'basic' and 'advanced' packaging feature. The problem being of course that RPM does not have any such 'reverse-dep' removal capability and so the point is almost nonexistent until that is resolved.

[cjcox]

Cryovac wrote:
> I agree with many of the OP points, but if all were included it would
> result in less control over package libs and deps and so perhaps the
> best solution is for a 'basic' and 'advanced' packaging feature. The
> problem being of course that RPM does not have any such 'reverse-dep'
> removal capability and so the point is almost nonexistent until that is
> resolved.

It's not designed for that... so... don't count on that one getting
resolved anytime soon. Would probably require moving away from rpm.
And no... AFAIK, the infamous apt-get-deb isn't going to solve
this either.

[Cryovac]

Originally Posted by cjcox

It's not designed for that... so... don't count on that one getting resolved anytime soon. Would probably require moving away from rpm.

Well...moving wouldn't break my heart but I also don't tend to make a fuss over a few libs sitting here or there.

[oldcpu]

Originally Posted by DenverD

> opensuse is not designed for gramma.
> So...I'm not a big fan:
on the other hand, a couple of years ago i helped a (then) 62 year old
granny migrate from Winders ME to SuSE 10.2 with little fuss and bother

Indeed, my 82-year old mother has openSUSE-10.2 running on her desktop PC. She uses the openSUSE-10.2 boot partition for most of her multimedia (family photos, playing videos off the web, playing videos given to her by family) and for getting images from her digital camera ... she also uses it for web/internet surfing, picking up her email from hotmail, playing solitaire ... etc ...

I confess I don't understand these comments that "opensuse is not designed for gramma" ... IMHO (based on real life experience) if openSUSE is properly installed for gramma, then gramma will have no problems.

[john_tomas]

if openSUSE is properly installed for gramma, then gramma will have no problems.

how would you do that???

Has to the rest of the comments... your Grammy's are to far advanced to my 30 years old friends!!!

and my comment is also based on real life experience!!!
they are always afraid of removing something they shouldn't or to let useless trash or their computer

[DenverD]

> they are always afraid of removing something they shouldn't or to let
> useless trash or their computer

well, when i set up a computer for granny i don't give her the root
password...therefore she CANNOT trash her computer..

she CAN accidentally delete HER files, and HER videos and etc...but, she
can NOT trash the system..

linux is FAR safer in that way..

its asking unknowing folks to ADMINISTER (administrator = root) their
system when you get into trouble with system trashing...isn't that the
way winders does it--one password and you can just go in and delete the
kernel..

DenverD