Alternative and corresponding configuration tools to YaST modules

English Open Chat
62

I agree.

I was reluctant to change the topic as I feared breaking any mail server aspects, where the forum posts are sent out by email. Often I use that for my initial look at posts if my PC is switched OFF (although lately I have been using my phone’s browser to look at posts, however fonts are much smaller than in an email ) … and I suspect others may do so as well ? Obviously those who use email (to receive posts) won’t see the updates to the main post, but they will receive comments further down.

Still I have no objections to the thread title being changed by yourself or others, if consensus is that causes no issues.

63

HPLIP drivers and driverless printing are alternate paths, with driverless printing being an industry standard for modern network printers that allows basic printing without installing vendor-specific drivers. HPLIP drivers involve vendor-supplied PPDs and filters.

64

What “mail server aspects” are you referring to?

65

You are correct - I am digging too deep to put in the list. But when someone states they use app “xxxyyxx” which I never use myself, I then have to dig into that to make an assessment if it should go in a top level list. However typically its not that simple, and hence I have to dig deep to make an assessment / to understand the recommendation.

And my understanding can easily be wrong - at least for the first few go-arounds. Which is why I posted my understanding.

Ultimately, I believe any finished list needs to go elsewhere - I see this as more of a developing the list thread, not some final polished product.

66

I don’t know the correct term, I receive emails from a number of threads for each and every forum post in certain areas. I have them sent to a separate account I maintain.

67

I think this topic is best in Open Chat for now. It is not a focused, well-defined technical support discussion as such.

68

Well even if the title changes, those subscribed to it will still be notified if they’ve chosen to be.

69

I have no issue there.

It is thou intended to be LEAP-16.0 specific - which was the logic for placing here.

But again, I have no issue for Open Chat.

For that matter, I am happy to make a back up copy , and the entire thread can be deleted if this is considered counter productive spam.

70

I don’t see a reason to delete it, moving it (and changing the title, for that matter) wouldn’t affect subscriptions or visibility. In the backend database, it’s all just pointers. :slight_smile:

72

OK. Thread is now in Open Chat, and topic changed to “Alternative and corresponding configuration tools to YaST modules”

Again - to emphasize, I see this thread as a work in progress. I concede a big reason is to help me learn here but my hope is that this will also assist others.

YaST has been important to many of us for over 2 decades of using openSUSE GNU/Linux, and so ensuring that openSUSE users understand there are corresponding alternative and possibly even better applications, and knowing what they are, I think, for version 16.0, will be important.

For subsequent (v.16.1, 16.2, … etc) likely less so, as everyone will then be convinced the newer apps provide equal or superior functionality.

But until then, to be able to find the equal or superior alternatives, might not be so easy for some.

Thank you to ALL for your suggestions.

After this matures a bit more, I believe decisions could be made whether it remain here (and eventually become obsolete as openSUSE users are adapted to the new way of doing such system level activities), or whether utility remains, and a higher profile is needed.

I am fine with this Open Chat location regardless.

Again technical corrections, suggestions, to the first post, are welcome.

Thank you again to all for your contributions/suggestions.

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73

For my own edification, I am reviewing each section of the “Alternative and corresponding configuration tools to YaST modules” sections, spending a bit more time on each to see if it makes sense in terms of a YaST alternative.

This post is about one module of the “Software Management” section that was in YaST up to LEAP-15.6 , and I am looking at this with a view to see alternatives for LEAP-16.0.

Let me state, that as a user, possibly my initial biggest concern (aside from configuring printing and scanning) with losing YaST would, if not knowing better, be in software management.

That concern was quickly put to rest.

My searching here indicated there are many package managers that could work with openSUSE, and given that, and given my trust in the openSUSE Leap packaging team, I speculate the team looked at them all, and selected Myrlyn as the front end they decided to use with zypper.

So while in " 1b. Software Management " I could note:

  • zypper (CLI)
  • Myrlyn (GUI)
  • zypper up (CLI)
  • Myrlyn (GUI)
  • Gnome Software (GUI) <<<<<
  • KDE Discover (GUI) <<<<<
  • flatpak (CLI) <<<<<<<
  • flatseal (GUI) <<<<<<< !!! v.2.2 available in a 3rd party repos (140.5 MiB on LEAP-15.6 KDE (Gnome likely less) in a 3rd )
  • dnfdragon (GUI) - v.4.1.0 in official repositories. package manager for rpm forked from yum
  • Packagekit (pkon) (CLI &Various GUIs) v.1.2.8 <<<front end to Gnome’s package manager.

My own personal view is that which is of interest to me is for " 1b. Software Management " is:

  • zypper (CLI) where Myrlyn (GUI) is the graphic front end [for both KDE & Gnome]
  • zypper (CLI) where PackageKit (CLI & GUI) is a graphic front end nominally for Gnome but can be installed under KDE
  • flatpak (CLI) where “frontends” are KDE Discover (GUI) or flatseal (GUI) (nominally flatseal is a GTK4 app, I assume for Gnome but can be installed under KDE. I confess I had never heard of flatseal before - v.2.2 of flatseak available in a 3rd party repos for LEAP-15.6. I did not check for any LEAP-16.0 packages - and it may be too early to check).
  • dnfdragon (GUI) - package manager for rpm forked from yum

The above may be inexact. As noted, I am still digging into this for my own edification.

Again, my plan (given no experience with many of these package managers) is to go with zypper/Myrlyn and with flatpak/Discover (as a KDE user).

There are a number of different software apps for Software Manaement that one can choose from here. After looking at this, clearly is no worry for me, IMHO, in losing the YaST software management module.

Again, I currently trust the openSUSE Leap packaging team’s choice.

I have not yet decided if I will update the first post on this. I am thinking I should continue looking at other modules in more detail … consider the alternatives, and then make a more informed choice as to what could/should be updated.

This has been educational - and its reading to me that with the right knowledge, mostly all YaST functionality may be covered elsewhere just as good, if not better than YaSTs individual modules. But I am not “there yet” in my own understanding to be able to debate this with anyone. I need to research more.

The input received on this thread has been helpful.

I hope to revisit some of the other YaST modules next.

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74

Next, again for my own edification, I looked at:

1c. Media check
- checkmedia

openSUSE LEAP-15.6 in YaST under Software Management has a “Media check” section. I suspect ‘checkmedia’ might be the underlying app to the YaST GUI front end.

I believe to use that app from the command line, one needs to first mount an iso, then after doing that run the checkmedia with the appropriate argument < unsure > .

I confess, I always used other apps (such as sha256sum) to check the media download integrity.

For LEAP-15.6, for example, and lets assume the iso for Leap-15.6 is on my PC’s SSD and that it is called:

openSUSE-Leap-15.6-DVD-x86_64-Media.iso

One can simply use a single line group of commands to do the checksum. In my example below I first ran a ‘dir’ to prove the file was in a directory on my laptop. Then I sent the rather long single line group of commands:

oldcpu@lenovo:~/data/linux> dir
total 4523012
-rw-r--r-- 1 oldcpu users 4631560192 Sep  6 17:18 openSUSE-Leap-15.6-DVD-x86_64-Media.iso

oldcpu@lenovo:~/data/linux> wget -q -O - https://download.opensuse.org/distribution/leap/15.6/iso/openSUSE-Leap-15.6-DVD-x86_64-Media.iso.sha256 | sha256sum -c -
openSUSE-Leap-15.6-DVD-x86_64-Media.iso: OK
oldcpu@lenovo:~/data/linux>

Possibly the only ‘unpleasant’ part of that method to do a checksum (for the LEAP-15.6 example) is I needed to ensure I tuned the command for the correct checksum and when sending that wget, there was no verbose feedback indicating checksum was downloaded nor provide progress on checksum execution.

There are a number of easy ways to do this. What I noted is not the easiest.

Still , one can easily download both the .iso and the .sha256 for LEAP-16.0 and there is no need to use a wget command. Simpy run the sha256sum command with appropriate arguments.

Ultimately, the bottom line for me, is losing this YaST “Media check” functionality is of no concern.

75

Replying to my own post. Pondering this, … I think flatseal is more for security … and does not belong here as an alternative.

76

Again - double checking the list for my own edification.

Under Software Repositories I listed:

1d. Software Repositories
- zypper modifyrepo (CLI)
- Myrlyn (GUI)

With YaST “Software Repositories” disappearing in Leap-16.0, my understanding is that the nominal replacement will be zypper(CLI)/Myrlyn(GUI) to manage repositories on Leap-16.0. These are more than capable.

However there is also flatpak and KDE Discover which are used to access flatpak repositories (which I think may be called “remotes” ).

I believe some other apps can enable/disable openSUSE repositories on one’s LEAP install, but can not add nor remove repositories, so these apps are not really alternatives from what I understand.

This is all pretty new to me in terms of clarifying precise functionalities, but once again, I am confident the alternatives to YaST here more than provide the YaST Software repository functionality.

77

I am continuing to review YaST functionality … so to assess better what I wish to learn for LEAP-16.0 given no more YaST.

From the 1st post of alternative’s to YaST I had entered:
1e. Online update Myrlyn, zypper up

I will be honest - I never used this myself. In the past, I simply used zypper or YaST’s Software Management (where one can see updates ‘flagged’).

For my own edification I looked into this a bit deeper. My understanding is the “online update” functionality in YaST managed patches, not just package updates. I believe in this context a “patch” is a special type of metadata that describes an update. This metadata includes:

  • Severity: Classifies the update as Security, Recommended, Optional, Feature, etc.
  • Category: Further describes the patch (e.g., security, bugfix, yast).
  • Description: A detailed text explaining the impact of the patch, often including CVE numbers for security fixes.
  • Interactive Scripts: For some complex updates (like kernel updates that require an installer reboot), it could execute scripts during the patch process.
  • Functionality: It would connect to your enabled repositories, download the list of available patches, and present them in a categorized list.

One could then:

  • See all available patches.
  • Filter them by severity (e.g., view only security patches).
  • Select which patches to apply.
  • Get detailed information about each patch before applying it.

So I guess it had a bit more functionality than a simple update: Possibly it determined dependencies between patches and ensured the system was updated in a consistent state.

While both Myrlyn and Discover provides one updates, from what I read they may not provide the very specific categories that YaST Online update provided. Categories, I note, that I never used.

However I also read zypper (CLI) can provide that with the appropriate argument applied. ie. sudo zypper patches

I have not tested that myself (other than run it once to confirm it indeed appears to provide that category functionality).

Again, I am fully happy that the alternative to YaST online update is more than adequate.

78

My € 0,02 ( ~$ 0.19 :grimacing: ):

  • leave out things that require 3rd party repos.
  • leave out tool usage/details
    Including those will only confuse people
79

In terms of a first page ‘summary’ - I totally agree - unless there is a deficiency (which I have not yet spotted any such deficiency) in the alternative apps in the official repositories.

My current view - which thus far I am confirming with a ‘deeper dive’ into alternatives, is that apps in the ‘official repositories’ will provide adequate alternatives to all YaST modules.

80

I am continuing with a ‘deep dive’ into YaST module alternatives. Keyboard layout is not something I nominally play with, so I had to do some reading here.

Under “Hardware > System Keyboard Layout” in YaST is a functionality that I don’t recall every having used. I noted this module above in the first post:

2a. System Keyboard Layout > localectl, GNOME/KDE Settings (GUI)

My understanding is that YaST’s “System Keyboard Layout” was in essence a GUI fontend to “localectl”. This was applied at a system level to all users. I believe “localectl” may be a core utility of systemd, and it is used by many GNU/Linux distributions. Nominally it only comes into play during the first installation of LEAP.

However the GNOME/KDE Settings GUI, which can be used to also modify the keyboard layout, which in that case are applied in user space at user specific level.

Nominally at the user level, one can use the GNOME/KDE keyboard settings GUI for keyboard layout control.

Both of those have underlying apps (such as gsettings, kde-config-input, libxkbcommon) that they call (where some of those apps can be called at the Command Line level (CLI) but nominally there is no need to call such at the CLI level. Use the GNOME/KDE GUIs).

I read Xfce desktop also allows keyboard settings configuration (via X11’s XKB infrastructure). Under Wayland, Xfce relies on Wayland’s compositor’s input handling (via libxkbcommon) for keyboard support, with XFCE providing only a front-end for layout selection and configuration.

Nominally, I never play around with the keyboard settings - so I can’t in all due honesty comment much more.

But having typed that, from what I have been able to determine, LEAP-16.0 will have adequate keyload layout alternatives despite the absence of YaST’s System Keyboard Layout.

81

I am continuing to review YaST modules, one by one, diving into this a bit deep, for my own edification.

Printer functionality was one of the main things that I feared I would lose with YaST, as I was quite used to the YaST > Hardware > Printer interface.

As noted in the first post, alternative’s to YaST’s Printer GUI are:

2b. Printer
- lpadmin , 
- CUPS Web Interface ( http://localhost:631/admin ) , 
- Avahi (network printer discovery), 
- avahi-discover-standalone (GUI), 
- and vendor-specific tools (such as hplip tools for HP printers: example: hp-setup(GUI)) , 
- GNOME/KDE Settings (GUI)

Under XFCE on openSUSE Leap 16.0 without YaST, network and local printers are managed via CUPS (CLI lpadmin or CUPS Web Interface (GUI) , Avahi for discovery (avahi-discover-standalone), vendor tools like HPLIP, and desktop GUIs (GNOME/KDE Settings or Discover).

I also expanded upon this even more in one of my above posts, in how to figure out the printer’s IP address to use in the CUPS Web Interface.

As noted before in this thread, configuring printers is possibly one of the areas I am most keen to ensure I know how to do for my network printer.

Again - I came away with a good sense that there are adequate alternatives to YaST.

I think the first time I use these alternatives, with out the YaST printer ‘crutch’ will be an experience for me, only because I am not used to using them. But from what I can read, the alternative’s provide the needed functionality.

82

Lee, some more background to my post:

  • Any detail on your webpage about the alternatives requires extra maintenance.
  • Instead of explaining zypper up, zypper dup, rather put only zypper and make that a link to existing documentation/wiki pages. Doing it otherwise ( seen that, been there etc. ) is causing extra work and, in the best case, a lot of duplication with all the risks attached.
  • Since everything YaST related is in the distribution repos, no 3rd party repos should be included, only alernatives that are in the distribution repos
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