16.1pre not for advanced users either (yet)

English Open Chat
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(forked from Leap 16.0: Not for beginners; probably belongs mostly in Install/Boot/Login, but not all, which is why here in Open Chat)

After multiple attempts to install using 16.1pre (the only place I was able to find any 16.1 Agama .iso), it jumped to “complete” (ready to reboot) after installing less than half the announced number of packages to be downloaded, I looked on github and elsewhere trying to find how to build and provide preconfiguration file/instructions seen referred to variously here and on the mailing lists, but nothing has become apparent as yet. This thread’s inception was hope for an URL to such as a result.

Each of these failed installs resulted in about half the number of expected directories in /. Among the missing: /boot/. Googling “preconfigure agama -reddit -quora” replied “It looks like there aren’t many great matches for your search”, with no result pointing to github or opensuse.org. Granted, https://agama-project.github.io/download warns about brokenness, so perfection I don’t expect, but installing zero kernels is a pretty [b,s]ad result.

I created github issue 3173 " agama 16.1 installer demands seriously excessive disk space on / to custom install" too.

(for any here unfamiliar with me):

  1. first exposure to *SUSE was 8.x in 2003, with hooks to SUSE including
  • HTTP installation
  • YaST2
  • SAX2
  • KDE3
  1. migrated primary OS running 24/7 from OS/2 to openSUSE 11.2 in 2009
  2. using Leap as primary OS since Leap’s original release (42.1)
  3. still using KDE3 as primary DE
  4. running multiple multiboot (test) PCs (no VMs), all of which include TW and/or Slowroll and/or Leap, mostly all three, as well as other high profile distros (Debian, Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, others), and noteably, every Leap version during eaches’ pre-release phase
  5. https://en.opensuse.org/User:Mrmazda

IOW, I’m no openSUSE beginner to either ordinary usage, installation, or pre-release testing.

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Given that 16.1pre status, and Agama itself is still WIP, the best place to have this discussion, with the installer broken or otherwise, is where the project maintainers will actually see it.

Installer failures such as incomplete package installation or a missing /boot and kernel are development issues rather than user support topics, so feedback is most effective on the Agama GitHub tracker or the relevant factory and installer mailing lists perhaps.

Open Chat is fine for general discussion, but alpha installer behaviour is best addressed directly with the developers.

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Initiated.

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IMNSHO an example of wasting developer time and energy. You are not helping anybody, the issues you report are not from a stock install. Compare it to filing a complaint that my bike won’t fly.

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Right. openSUSE is perfect, so even advanced users must only use specified procedures — no thinking outside the box allowed, strictly limited choices, including attempts to improve or cause improvement, even in devel versions?

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Hello BMW : I bought your model and I moved to square headlights, an extra 78cm, 3rd row of chairs, a Ferrari style body, a 6th wheel without a 5th, and a Microsoft Car Control system. Does that affect my warranty or insurance? If so, what are you going to do about that?

Seriously, the current state is not even Alpha, so not in a presentable one, nor reliable for testing as even an Alpha.

Since you’ve used that phrasing before, please tell us your definition of “advanced users”, what criteria are being used for that definition.

Thinking out of the box not allowed? I’m sort of baffled to read that objected against by a person that will not think out of YaST’s, X11’s, DE’s boxes. Currently BTW Leap 16.1 doesn’t have a box ready to think outside of. It’s still cardboard on a roll.

Why the sarcasm about limited choices? You are, like anyone else, are free to build or help others build whatever you want on OBS, albeit within their limitation of choices ( legal, no binaries etc.). Up to your own distro with 8 ext4 paritions, KDE3, X11 and a YaST clone, all running super on 1990s hardware. That way you would have something better than what the dev-teams produce. It’s been done before (Gecko Linux).

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You most seriously exaggerate. I did accumulate a lot of trophies from winning car races in the decade before I got my first modem, and it wasn’t but once using a car exactly as produced by the factory.

Following is from my main PC, from which I write this, zypper upgraded less than 24 hours ago to 16.0 from 15.6, making my 16.0 count 9 (of which one only was created via Agama):

# zypper lr
...
# | Alias    | Enabled | GPG Check | URI
--+----------+---------+-----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | FCL-leap | Yes     | (  ) No   | http://silk.apana.org.au/rpm-opensuse15-unstable-dev
2 | KDE3     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE3/16.0/
3 | NonOSS   | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/leap/16.0/repo/non-oss/
4 | OSS      | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/leap/16.0/repo/oss/
5 | PackmanE | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/packman/suse/openSUSE_Leap_16.0/Essentials
6 | openh264 | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | http://codecs.opensuse.org/openh264/openSUSE_Leap/

This is typical of my test box installations also. #1 is for one app, a multi-platform file manager. Many of the test boxes have TDE on openSUSE instead of KDE3, while a few others have KDE[5,6], and none Gnome, XFCE, Cinnamon, Mate, LXQt, Budgie or any other of the lessers available installed on openSUSE. Last time I compiled anything was 19 years ago, when Samba still supported connectivity with OS/2, and smbfs.ko needed some test customizing.

If one doesn’t weigh-in early enough in pre-release testing, consequent improvement can easily get delayed to 2nd next release.

Any number of things can constitute it. I have 50+ TW installations, 30+ Slowroll, 9 16.0, 33 15.6 kept reasonably current, all of which are in multiboot with each other and other distros in hardware installations, not VMs. I’ve been doing this since before TW or Leap existed, including participation in pre-release testing and bug reporting and triaging. I still have working installations of 10.0, 10.1, 10.2 and many more. I use the recent ones in large part to assist with requests for help by attempting reproduction of reported problems using matching or nearly matching hardware and software, commonly attempting with multiple distros searching for issues that may lie upstream rather than being distro-specific. Also I’m over 70, having first used a computer in 1973, and began building them in 1990. I have to think all this constitutes one such definition.

Most have many more than 8 EXT4 partitions. I don’t think any of my 1990s boxes will POST any more, but I do have one from 2021 with 27 EXT4 partitions, a near average partition count among all my PCs that only have one storage device. I wasn’t aware a YaST clone exists, but it wouldn’t matter, as my main use of YaST for the past 15 years has been in the fresh installation context, which I will be missing, the best OS installer I’ve ever used.

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This does not define “advanced”, it defines “experienced”, which is definitely not the same. In the current world “experienced” does not mean much. If you don’t keep up with the changes, your knowledge is outdated in the blink of an eye. Bringing up the facts about all the outdated stuff you keep around on a ridiculous amount of installs doesn’t make your stance any better.
Given the other facts we cannot even call what you are running “openSUSE”, should rather call it “Homegrown based on openSUSE”. Should devs adapt an installer to that one user in the USA? And maintain it? Including adapting ( and potentially breaking ) other things?

The sad thing is that you are convinced that that is helpful. Well, it is not, it is mostly confusing for others, specially new users, and not reproducible in a reliable manner.

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