Are there any professionals left at opensuse?

English Open Chat
#1

Evidently, 42 was not a lucky number for opensuse, despite its notoriety.

After a year in working and two months after release, the OS is in endless crashes. KDE crashes, windows crash, VNC crashes, there are crashes in Qt libraries, Plasma5, and even the Konsole crashes. I encounter many per day.

Well then why release advanced technologies if they don’t work? Consider the following imaginary story. Customers at a restaurant complain that most dishes are so bad that are inedible. The cook comes out and says that the meat they received from Northern Mountains is rotten (but it is not GMO food!), or something else in food supply is rotten (but it is also not GMO food!), that’s why cooked dishes in most restaurants in the city are spoiled. The fast food service nearby has not received complaints, he says. But as far as he knows, they are not guarding their supply being high-quality.

Is there any difference between the cook’s stand and opensuse’s stand?

There was a Remastered release in about 2006, I don’t remember what caused it. Maybe it is the time to take a leap as big 0.1 and release opensuse Leap 42.2 immediately, which will be essentially the updated opensuse 13.2? Or, considering that 42 didn’t bring luck, take a leap as big as 0.9 and release opensuse Leap 43.0? Or even take a leap as big as -28.8 and release opensuse 13.3?

I have spent big effort fighting the crashes in several computers. But I could not correct the problem. I don’t have the knowledge, tools, colleagues around me.

The crashes come so often I cannot use the computers. I am taking a leap as big as -28.9 and reinstalling opensuse 13.2 which used to work. This is the first time I am taking a negative leap. Again weeks of non-productive work for me, because a programmer somewhere used the ninth element of an 8-element array perhaps?

This is not good for opensuse - releasing a bad product, and not knowing how to correct.

#2

Or just install the Gnome flavor that works (almost) flawless? Thanks to those professionals that mimicking SLED chose Gnome 3.16 instead of the “next” 3.18…

#3

I haven’t been experiencing that.

Yes, plasma 5 still has the feel of a beta release. But I haven’t had a problem with crashes.

Okay, that last update (of QT) did cause problems. There was a message popped up at the end to the effect that I should logout of the desktop and login again. But, of course, I couldn’t logout. So I had to use CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE (twice) to crash the desktop. Then on a system where I was using “sddm”, it turned out that “sddm” was frozen anyway. So I used CTRL-ALT-F1, logged in at the terminal as root, and did

# shutdown -r now

to reboot.

But, mostly, 42.1 has been very stable here.

#4

The only KDE issue I started to get repeatedly on Leap was a refusal to log out/reboot/shutdown. It just froze with high cpu usage and I had to ctl/alt/backspace out. A change to the KDE build service repository and 5.5? resolved that for me.

It hasn’t been an issue on my parent’s desktop though. That one has had a couple of one off sort of things happen but that’s been it. I don’t know why there should be differences in reports and experiences but I do know this. There is no way I’d have my parents who are in their 80s and not that computer literate or computer confident using a machine even 1/8th as bad as the OP mentions. The fact is they are loving leap (and their new PC build I upgraded to leap from 13.2 after a couple of weeks) and just sort of see “a shiny new computer and the best one they have ever had”…

#5

Good to hear that somewhere Leap 42.1 worked. Maybe the authors of the release had tested in a similar computer.

But to me, it is not good. Now opensuse staff will say or think: “Here, see, Leap works. Maybe it is your computer that is defective. Or certain packages that you have installed cause trouble. Look into the root problem.” It would be better, in terms of usability and brand popularity, if Leap crashed in most places - then they would dig into the problems.

Programmers know this: it is easier to find a defect that shouts out rather than a subtle bug that pops up sometimes.

I don’t like Gnome, and would rather use an older opensuse with KDE.

As soon as I switched to opensuse 13.2 in one of my computers, the crashes stopped. Not a single one.

I am
curious to learn whether anybody was able to use VNC to log in to a computer running opensuse Leap + KDE? Here are commands to try. It can be tried within the same computer.

To start the VNC server, first create a password with

vncpassword

Answer ‘no’ if there is a y/n question asked.

Start the server with

vncserver

In the same or another computer, start the client (viewer) with

vncviewer 127.0.0.1:1

or

vncviewer 127.0.0.1:2

or

vncviewer remote_ip:1

or similar.

Give the password and assess Leap’s quality.

#6

I am using the light DE’s (xfce/enlightenment) in Leap and it worked out of the box.
I’ve seen too many problems with plasma 5 in the forum and been curious enough to try it.
So far so good and never crash. So in general it is not as you perceived to be.

#7

Well, I’m one of those , who see a lot of crashes. I don’t’ see the point of denying that the leap with kde5 it’s not stable.
You may say, that this is kde5 issues.

#8

I’d be doing the same as you if faced with that choice…

It’s not something I use but have just tried it on my desktop (as yet, untried on my parents’ PC). I get a crash after a first attempt to log in to vnc. Subsequent attempts to log in to vnc do not cause a crash but I only get a blank (black) window which I don’t think is right.

#9

In most cases the nouveau driver is the culprit. AFAIK it’s being worked on

#10

Two of my computers use nvidia drivers.

Good to know that somebody is working on the crash issue. But where: at opensuse or at nouveau?

#11

On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 14:56:01 +0000, ZStefan wrote:

> But to me, it is not good. Now opensuse staff will say or think: “Here,
> see, Leap works. Maybe it is your computer that is defective. Or certain
> packages that you have installed cause trouble. Look into the root
> problem.” It would be better, in terms of usability and brand
> popularity,
> if Leap crashed in most places - then they would dig into the problems.
>
> Programmers know this: it is easier to find a defect that shouts out
> rather than a subtle bug that pops up sometimes.

Programmers also know that if users run into problems, if the users
report the problems and ask for help rather than posting on forums asking
if there are “any professionals left” in the project, they’re more likely
to be able to get those problems fixed.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

#12

I am worried that opensuse project may disappear. It loses popularity.

The project may be cancelled. Funding may be withdrawn. Somebody may buy or take ownership in some other way and divert. Opensuse can be merged with some other Linux. It can be forked into a weaker branch. It may be put into slow development mode only to support existing installations for 4 years. And so on.

And the reason for all these would be low quality.

Look what is happening with Leap:

  • Worst opensuse and suse distribution I have seen in years.

  • Not usable by me despite my wish and attempts. I am not recommending opensuse any more.

  • Major flaws not being corrected, and it is unknown whether they will be corrected at all. Left for users to deal with.

  • No 32 bit version despite many old computers around. Why lose a share of the market for nothing?

  • No Live CD. How come other Linuxes, even the weak ones, have it?

  • A web page that doesn’t answer the question “What is opensuse?” and has two photos on it, both out-of-focus, one of them containing precious peoples’ faces.

  • A wiki that has become a mess.

  • Very bad login screen and login managers.

  • Much less login screen settings than in opensuse 13.2. Where are, for example, “Focus password” or “Hide users” or “Select Font” settings of login manager?

I am worried, one day to receive an announcement or read in the news that “The OpenSUSE Project, formerly known as SUSE and SuSE Linux, has ceased …”

#13

On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 18:16:01 +0000, ZStefan wrote:

> hendersj;2745437 Wrote:
>>
>>
>> Programmers also know that if users run into problems, if the users
>> report the problems and ask for help rather than posting on forums
>> asking if there are “any professionals left” in the project, they’re
>> more likely to be able to get those problems fixed.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>>
> I am worried that opensuse project may disappear. It loses popularity.
>
> The project may be cancelled. Funding may be withdrawn. Somebody may buy
> or take ownership in some other way and divert. Opensuse can be merged
> with some other Linux. It can be forked into a weaker branch. It may be
> put into slow development mode only to support existing installations
> for 4 years. And so on.

This is all highly unlikely.

In any project, time is a constraint and a limited resource, and any
project that’s well run has to focus its efforts on what’s right.

For the specific issues you’ve had (technical issues), have you raised
bugs?

> I am worried, one day to receive an announcement or read in the news
> that “The OpenSUSE Project, formerly known as SUSE and SuSE Linux, has
> ceased …”

As I said, it’s very unlikely this will happen. But it takes the
community providing feedback and bug reports - just complaining about
things doesn’t get technical problems solved.

Report bugs when you run into them. Ask questions - but spreading FUD
about the future of the project doesn’t do anything to help fix those
problems.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

#14

Good to know that opensuse will not disappear soon. I didn’t know. As an outsider, I couldn’t find an independent assessment of opensuse’s future.

I have filed a bug report with KDE project. Like most of the bug reports I have filed, it was marked as duplicate, and the original issue either is not resolved or there is no solution understandable by me. In fact, I never got a solution through bug report filing.

There are several recent posts on the same topic in the Forum: plasma crashes, VNC crashes, instability of KDE. Some of the posts are written by me.

There are many answers but no solution. I have tried most of the suggestions.

It seems that nobody knows what to do. Neither at opensuse, nor at KDE, nor at other Linuxes who also suffer from plasma’s crashes. Qt also has similar bugs filed, but they don’t know themselves how to cure, and have proceeded to release of next version. The issue is more than six months old.

Leap shouldn’t have picked a badly damaged software package set.

#15

In an older computer with Nvidia G02 driver, I had to switch desktop effects to use XRender. Otherwise I had problems.

#16

On Mon, 28 Dec 2015 19:56:01 +0000, ZStefan wrote:

> Good to know that opensuse will not disappear soon. I didn’t know. As an
> outsider, I couldn’t find an independent assessment of opensuse’s
> future.

It would be good to ask questions rather than use an inflammatory subject
line to try to get attention.

> I have filed a bug report with KDE project. Like most of the bug reports
> I have filed, it was marked as duplicate, and the original issue either
> is not resolved or there is no solution understandable by me. In fact, I
> never got a solution through bug report filing.
>
> There are several recent posts on the same topic in the Forum: plasma
> crashes, VNC crashes, instability of KDE. Some of the posts are written
> by me.

Forum posts aren’t the same as filed bugs. Discussion amongst users
about issues they’re having is useful - don’t get me wrong - but filing
bugs on bugzilla.opensuse.org is useful for things related to openSUSE -
and if it needs to be pushed upstream, the developers will say, generally.

> There are many answers but no solution. I have tried most of the
> suggestions.

Often times, workarounds can be made to work, but nobody here is a
mindreader - if you’ve asked in one of the support forums (note that this
isn’t for “support” per se), be sure to include as much relevant
information as you can - including what you’ve tried.

> It seems that nobody knows what to do. Neither at opensuse, nor at KDE,
> nor at other Linuxes who also suffer from plasma’s crashes. Qt also has
> similar bugs filed, but they don’t know themselves how to cure, and have
> proceeded to release of next version. The issue is more than six months
> old.

It could well still be under investigation. Some software issues take a
fair amount of time to diagnose, and if they’re not able to be
consistently reproduced, that can make it take longer to resolve the
issues.

> Leap shouldn’t have picked a badly damaged software package set.

Hindsight is always 20/20 - openSUSE in general and Leap in particular go
through an automated QA process (in addition to beta testing by users
like you and me), but automated QA is only as good as the scenarios
tested for - which means it ultimately comes down to people trying things
and reporting what’s wrong.

No software gets released 100% bug free. Especially something as complex
as a Linux distribution - which is far more than just an operating system.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

#17

Would the facts that SUSE is actively supporting openSUSE and SUSE is recruiting because it is continuing to expand assure you that openSUSE is unlikely to disappear soon? For a measure of openSUSE’s future, you could also look at the number of contributors; nearly all the work is done by people who have no connection with SUSE.

#18

To some extent, yes.

But there are other dangers.

Ubuntu is on the rise. There are Ubuntu laptops sold. They even have Ubuntu phone. In all offices I have seen, it is Ubuntu that is synonymous with Linux.

Mint jumped from 10th place on distrowatch.com to first.

Opensuse went from second to fourth.

The number of participants in this forum is falling.

Suse has changed ownership several times in years. One more change may change opensuse’s direction; say, the new owner may decide that now opensuse must serve only the needs of medical industry, and abandon all other stuff.

#19

Thje bug on VNC crashing was submitted to https://bugzilla.opensuse.org, # 958890, on December 14th.

The developers answer that it is the modification of libGL by Nvidia that causes crash.

The elephant - that the whole thing works in 13.2 - is not discussed.

No solution is offered.

#20

Just one other comment on this. I’ve just logged into Gnome on my desktop PC and tried to use vnc as you describe.

That also fails. With Gnome, I get “Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can’t recover. Please logout and try again”.