Looking for an answer

English Soapbox
#1

After having much difficulties finding a way to install openSUSE 12.3 x86_64 on my laptop and just today finding a way to get it done I am now looking for a reason to keep it.

I spent several hours installing this OS after weeks of trying to find a way to install it and to my dismay it seems barely usable if atall usable. from the extensive list of bugs in these forum threads and those I have experienced myself I am left wondering why I or anybody else would/should use such a flawed OS? Does it get better? Did I chose to install a first version after a major overhaul that messed up a previously decent OS? Are there redeeming factors I didn’t spend enough time to find for this SUSE?

I logged out of SUSE and ran back to my Ubuntu (which openSUSE tried so hard to destroy during installation) after only visiting one internet site and failing an attempt to enable my wireless connectivity via network manager AND Yast2, network manager had all wireless options greyyed out and Yast2 wanted to install a pakage which couldn’t be installed because pakagekit had it locked out even though I did not attempt to install/run any other packages and I even closed out what few windows I had opened including of course firefox.

Is it being unreasonable to expect a newly installed OS to do such a simple task as enabling a wireless connection? Am I asking too much to expect it to be capable of doing things that even Windoze can do and do well (which if you have used Windoze you know that says a lot)? Can I expect things to improve or would I be better served by removing my new openSUSE 12.3 and freeing up that linux partition for a better preforming distro?

This is my first SUSE distro so I don’t know if SUSE is worth the headaches. SUSE is not my first taste of linux, that would be mandrake linux (can’t remember the version) that installed fine but was too limited in capabilities at the time (did not come prepacked with modem drivers and my pc back then had no networking capabilities other than it’s modem) and I have tried a very old redhat, several fedora’s (i think from version 9-14) and mandriva’s (the new name for mandrake for those that don’t know), a version of mint, Kubuntu 13.04 and every version of Ubuntu from 10.04 through 13.04. I am not a linux expert but not entirely a linux newbie either.

Mainly my point is this; Should I continue to give SUSEa chance? Is it normally a worthwhile OS or am I as a person, just completely incompatible with SUSE?

#2

This message is now in the correct forum for a rant on using openSUSE. Your message is not a real request for help.

It is obvious that you are inexperienced in using Linux and openSUSE in general and that is OK, but for real help with any issues, break it down to its basics and ask for help in the proper forum. Absolutely everything I try to do with openSUSE 12.3 is working like a champ for me, including internet, mail, streaming media support and programming. No OS is perfect and some experience in using a certain distro is required to hit optimum performance.

I do wish you good luck with what ever distro you find you can operate and good luck to you.

Thank You for Trying openSUSE,

#3

> After having much difficulties finding a way to install openSUSE 12.3
> x86_64 on my laptop and just today finding a way to get it done I am now
> looking for a reason to keep it.

That is probably frustrating to you.

> I spent several hours installing this OS after weeks of trying to find
> a way to install it and to my dismay it seems barely usable if atall
> usable. from the extensive list of bugs in these forum threads and those
> I have experienced myself I am left wondering why I or anybody else
> would/should use such a flawed OS? Does it get better? Did I chose to
> install a first version after a major overhaul that messed up a
> previously decent OS? Are there redeeming factors I didn’t spend enough
> time to find for this SUSE?

If you just installed it today I’d bet you haven’t spent enough time with
it. With that said, what were the issues you had getting it installed?
The install I did went pretty simply on a new HP laptop, though I had to
reboot once to get the wireless working (apparently this was documented in
the readme that I didn’t read… my bad).

> I logged out of SUSE and ran back to my Ubuntu (which openSUSE tried so
> hard to destroy during installation) after only visiting one internet
> site and failing an attempt to enable my wireless connectivity via
> network manager AND Yast2, network manager had all wireless options
> greyyed out and Yast2 wanted to install a pakage which couldn’t be
> installed because pakagekit had it locked out even though I did not
> attempt to install/run any other packages and I even closed out what few
> windows I had opened including of course firefox.

packagekit runs automatically. Waiting a minute or so has always fixed it
for me, and if I am in a hurry ‘kill -9’ is my friend. With that said, I
haven’t hit that block in quite a while… probably since 12.1, which may
be because of improvements or luck.

> Is it being unreasonable to expect a newly installed OS to do such a
> simple task as enabling a wireless connection? Am I asking too much to
> expect it to be capable of doing things that even Windoze can do and do
> well (which if you have used Windoze you know that says a lot)? Can I
> expect things to improve or would I be better served by removing my new
> openSUSE 12.3 and freeing up that linux partition for a better
> preforming distro?

Personal opinion: there isn’t a better-performing distro. Of course,
that’s personal because openSUSE is my favorite. Choose the one that
works best for you, but do not expect for anything to work perfectly for
all of your needs after an hour of uptime. The installation issues, well,
I’m sorry you had them, but while others have hit snags I’ve also read a
lot of posts from people who clicked Next and Finish and had it working,
even dual-booting, without problems.

> This is my first SUSE distro so I don’t know if SUSE is worth the
> headaches. SUSE is not my first taste of linux, that would be mandrake
> linux (can’t remember the version) that installed fine but was too
> limited in capabilities at the time (did not come prepacked with modem
> drivers and my pc back then had no networking capabilities other than
> it’s modem) and I have tried a very old redhat, several fedora’s (i
> think from version 9-14) and mandriva’s (the new name for mandrake for
> those that don’t know), a version of mint, Kubuntu 13.04 and every
> version of Ubuntu from 10.04 through 13.04. I am not a linux expert but
> not entirely a linux newbie either.

You sound like you have a fair bit of experience here and there, then.

> Mainly my point is this; Should I continue to give SUSEa chance? Is it
> normally a worthwhile OS or am I as a person, just completely
> incompatible with SUSE?

The only people I’ve met who were incompatible with <os/> were the ones
who weren’t willing to try. Whether or not that’s you I cannot say. If
you’ve managed Mandrake, Fedora, and Ubuntu, openSUSE is probably only
mildly different. With that said, it may help to have a thread
specifically for your install issues (if you did not already) and describe
the options you chose for the install (Gnome/KDE/other, partitioning
options if changed, what you had on the disk(s) before (Ubnutu
apparently), expectations, results, etc.).

Good luck.

#4

On 2013-06-05 04:36, Just Playin wrote:

> Mainly my point is this; Should I continue to give SUSEa chance? Is it
> normally a worthwhile OS or am I as a person, just completely
> incompatible with SUSE?

That’s for you to decide. Choose whatever works for you best and keeps
you happy. Me, I would run away from Ubuntu faster than you from
openSUSE :stuck_out_tongue:

About your networking problems: I bet you did not read the release
notes, it is written there. If you want help on that, after reading that
post, please ask in the wireless subforum, without the ranting part,
please :slight_smile:

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#5

On 2013-06-05 04:48, ab wrote:
>> After having much difficulties finding a way to install openSUSE 12.3
>> x86_64 on my laptop and just today finding a way to get it done I am now
>> looking for a reason to keep it.
>
> That is probably frustrating to you.

The thread has been moved without warning NNTP users.
You have to resend in soapbox so that the OP sees it.

Any other NNTP users, please don’t post here.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#6

“If you just installed it today I’d bet you haven’t spent enough time with
it. With that said, what were the issues you had getting it installed?”

I didn’t stay with it long that is true, I had things I wanted to do that required networking and it wasn’t allowing me wireless connectivity and I wanted to be wire free. Some of my many issues were; I made several DVD discs for installing all of which gave same install time error, couldn’t find a repository it NEEDED and could not successfully install without it, the ONLY USB drive I have large enough for the dvd installation is in use and I did not wish to undo what was on it and redo afterwards, the cd installs I downloaded flat refused to work (caused system to repeatedly reboot every time i tried to use it and my favorite way to install, via grub2 iso install, that works perfectly for Ubuntu/Kubuntu wasn’t working for SUSE (needed different script and took me until today to figure out the correct scripting for SUSE).

Now for some of today’s installation issues, not a big deal but was somewhat annoying, the version I downloaded wasn’t a live distro, a slightly more aggrevating issue, partition selection is extremely non-user friendly and the install seemed hell bent on taking out either my Ubuntu or my Kubuntu installs, it for some time only allowed me to toggle which one of those Iwas willing to lose, another quite frustrating installation issue (partly my fault as my downloaded version wasn’t a live distro), the installation took several hours because it seemed to have to download EVERYTHING even though it was a DVD image I was installing from (Ubuntu and Kubuntu both take roughly 30-45 minutes from a CD image and I DID choose to install updates during install on those as I did on SUSE).

Post installation issues, wireless capabilities non-existant, wireless capabilities not configurable (at least for me since nm had them greyyed out and Yast2 needed another package installed and packagekit had that locked out and i tried for 10-15 minutes to get it to finish.

Any and all non-buggy annoyances can perhaps be gotten past but for all its claims of being user-friendly and not buggy, that I haven’t seen.

“packagekit runs automatically. Waiting a minute or so has always fixed it
for me, and if I am in a hurry ‘kill -9’ is my friend”

A.) Where to find terminal? (perhaps under activities I could have searched for terminal using search so refer to point B.) lol)
B.) Not familiar with kill -9

“Personal opinion: there isn’t a better-performing distro.”

Ubuntu runs quite nicely, very intuitiveset up, very user friendly, installs hassle free, very quickly and most if not all hardware fully functional immediately after install (hardware must be user activated after install). One drawback to Ubuntu I can think of right off, doesn’t seem windoze software friendly.

“You sound like you have a fair bit of experience here and there, then.”

A little maybe, by far not an expert in any distro.

“The only people I’ve met who were incompatible with <os/> were the ones
who weren’t willing to try. Whether or not that’s you I cannot say. If
you’ve managed Mandrake, Fedora, and Ubuntu, openSUSE is probably only
mildly different.”

I try to remain open minded but with all of today’s frustrations with today’s installation… I like to try out distros because just because I have found Ubuntu to be almost everything I need (aside from windoze programs compatible,which Kubuntu seems quite capable of), that doesn’t mean there isn’t abetter distro out there for me.

I guess a better way to ask my question may be to ask someone who really likes SUSE, What about SUSE stands out for you that might encourage me to log back into my newly installed SUSE partition and get to know it better? My SUSE experience thus far isn’t exactly enticing me much.

#7

Actually, you are incorrect on all points but you are entitled to think asyou like. If this is any indication of what kind of community this distro has then perhaps you are correct on one point, this may not be the distro for me.

“No OS is perfect and some experience in using a certain distro is required to hit optimum performance.”

I have never said any OS was perfect, I just kind of expected much less flaws, both from the OS and from forum mods on this site.

#8

Welcome.

You didn’t really give any detail on your issues.

As someone who uses a range of distros (including Ubuntu) I find it unlikely that you would find such a depreciated performance/result from openSUSE, compared to Ubuntu. It very rarely happens that way, since the kernel is involved in so much.
Overall, and being totally honest, I do find openSUSE one of the most stable and reliable OS’s I use.

And really, you ought to address your issues specifically and where appropriate, individually.

#9

Why, in all the time you spent trying to get things working, did you never ask for help in these forums? You only come now to say that you don’t intend to use it any further. Posting questions here will save you a lot of time and pain, if you should return to openSUSE.

#10

The most important issues were the time it took to install SUSE (to me several hours is an unreasonably long install especially since ALL other OS’es can be installed on this and all other computers I’ve installed on in under an hour and usually in 30-45 minutes including Windoze) and not being able to enable my wireless capabilities. network manager had everything wireless greyyed out and yast2 wants to install an additional package which packagekit blocked from installing.

I was actually kinda shocked by these issues I had today as most linux distros I’ve tried have not givenme near the grief this one has,especially when it came to chosing my desired installation configuration where it was hell bent on either installing to my Ubuntu partition or to my Kubuntu partition, it didn’t seem interested in allowing me any other alternatives including the SUSE partition I had pre-set tup for it.

#11

Come to these forums on the internet with issues during a non-live install??? But to be fair you are correct, I could have, it just would have required me to disconnect the network cable from the computer I was doing the install on or rearrange my entire living room to move a computer closer to where the internet comes into the living room since I was using my longest available cable for the install.

I am more accustomed to being able to utilize my wireless capabilities during install but that didn’t appear to be an option during this install.

#12

Install on a modern machine should take about 10 minutes. That’s to the point where the actual install completes and it reboots.
On 12.3 once it reboots and performs the autoconfig, you get to login. You should reboot again right away to overcome a network bug.

WIndows? Don’t care for it. It’s a thorn in my side, every time I have to install it for someone.
And it’s totally not linux so no point comparing.

3 hours to install is too long.
What can you remember of the install that indicates where the delay was?

#13

“You only come now to say that you don’t intend to use it any further.”

No, I come here asking those fond of SUSE for reasons that might persuade me to continue using SUSE. So far I don’t see any reason especially since the sheer number of issues posted here on these forums appear to mirror my own hassles thus far. I am just hoping that those hours of actually continuous uninterupted installation might not have been a colossal waste of time, that SUSE may just be worth the headaches. I am not counting any time downloading the iso or seeking information on how to install SUSE noram i counting the time spent on failed attempts at installing, the several hours i count is the actual package download and installation that occured between when i finally convinced SUSE to install on the SUSE partition I created for it and when it finally completed its install and allowed me to actually check it out some.

#14

Post deleted - this was an adminstrative moderator post associated with the merging of a splintered thread (the original which was splintered off still inside install/boot/login aread) to soapbox where this thread is now located.

#15

It’s been my experience that installs take typically 30-45 minutes but occasionally up to an hour and once on a machine not meant to run XP it took 1 hour and 20 minutes but that was the machine’s fault.

I too don’t care for Windoze.

Care to share what makes SUSe a great choice for you?

“3 hours to install is too long.
What can you remember of the install that indicates where the delay was?”

3 hours??? I started around 13:00 and finished just after 19:00, lol. I don’t know what lagged it other than perhaps all the packages (looked like all were language packs which it seems all distros force down our throats when most if not all of us don’t need nor want. why don’t they leave those off and only install the language you select on installation configuration or at least make them optional?

#16

Well, no matter what we say, I have a feeling we are not going to persuade you. Find what works, and go with that. openSUSE has no more problems than any other OS, but apparently it doesn’t work on your system. That’s a shame, but I’m sure you’ll find something that will work for you. There are many others out there.

#17

Thank you, this was never meant as a rant even if some feel it comes off that way. I really want to know if there is anything that stands out about SUSE that might make the headaches I incurred installing it worthwhile.

I have seen so many talking about SUSE like it was such agreat distro that I had to try it and i like the logo and the grub2 loader looks \awesome. If I do decide to ditch SUSE I will likely go find the config files for its loader so I can make my Ubuntu’s grub2 loader look awesome too.

#18

Oops, misread oldcpu’s post.

As it seems nobody here can come up with any reason SUSE stands out as a great OS I suspect that I must assume that it really is a crappy OS and not worth the time I spent trying to install and finally getting it installed, sure would have been nice if I had known before wasting so much time on it. I would suspect if it wasn’t such **** someone would have been able to think of something good about it.

#19

On 06/05/2013 08:06 AM, Just Playin wrote:
> I would suspect if it wasn’t such **** someone would
> have been able to think of something good about it.

since '95 i’ve used (or at least booted and rummaged around at least
as long as you seem to have in openSUSE) OS/2, eComStation, Red Hat,
Xandros, Mandrake, Mandrivia, Fedora, Knoppix, Debian, Puppy, Ubuntu,
Solaris, SUSE, openSUSE, and without a doubt several i have forgotten
(i used to get a new DVD in the mail every month with two to four new
releases which would boot and run live–from Linux Format [magazine]
so i have seen a lot more than those few i mentioned)…

my stable, dependable, predictable, usable, productive, fast,
friendly, sometimes beautiful/polished/trouble free and easy to
install daily driver has been SUSE/openSUSE since the 9.x days
(2003-2005)…

with that extensive background i’d have to say: i think Ubuntu is
probably perfect for you, and you should probably grab your ball and
run back to there, and stay.

openSUSE is not for everyone. Use what works for you. we say that a
lot around here
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aforums.opensuse.org+“Use+what+works”

i tried Ubuntu and came back to what works for me–without making
even one discouraging/FUD remark in the Ubuntu (or any other) forums.

–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Caveat

#20

Apologies if the quotes come out wrong here - I couldn’t find the original post using NNTP.

I suppose the best answer is just to use whatever works for you. Linux offers choice, and so why not make use of it?

Okay so you are asserting that openSUSE is flawed'. My openSUSE installations (including all my software and everything else) usually takes just less than an hour and I encounter no problems so my experience of openSUSE is that it is not flawed’. And many people, particularly forums regulars here (as you would not be surprised to learn), would also not
share your experience. If you find it flawed, use another OS.

SUSE and openSUSE are not the same OS. If you want try SUSE, you will find striking similarities with openSUSE and so
based on your belief that openSUSE is `flawed’ I suggest you avoid SUSE.

The obvious thing here is to boot up into Ubuntu to post the details of your network issue to the openSUSE forum so that
the community could help you.

Depends on which OS you refer. If you mean Windows, for which hardware vendors are very quick to provide driver support
than no it’s not unreasonable to expect this. Linux is not free; you pay with time rather than money. And openSUSE has a
non-proprietary policy which means some things won’t just work until after you’ve installed the batteries.

Yes you are, for the reasons I’ve just described above. The difficulty here is a mismatch between what openSUSE offers
out of the box' and your expectations. That's not openSUSE's fault and not your fault either. But if your expectations continue to be based on Windows, then a distro _with_ batteries installed’ may suit you better, such as Linux MINT.

It depends on what you mean by better performing'. If you mean it just does the job’ without imposing upon the user
the responsibility of making informed decisions, then perhaps MS Windows or MacOS would suit your tastes better. Or if
you want a `free’ operating system, then Ubuntu or one of its derivatives may serve you well.

You don’t have to try to justify your `Linux credentials’ to us or anyone else. If you don’t like something, don’t use
it. From the communty’s perspective, it seems odd that your issues only come to light in the forum at a time when it
appears you’re just about to reformat you openSUSE partition. If you posted your issues as you were encountering them,
then the volunteers here would have tried to help you by offering advice. But now it seems as if you want to move on,
then we might as well not bother.

No you shouldn’t. Don’t give it a chance. Although others may dispute this, you appear to have completely the wrong
mindset for it. You expect proprietary grade support from the start. You only complain to us after you’ve struggled
without asking for help. You don’t seem to know the difference between openSUSE and SUSE. Your description of your
issues' contain no specifics (e.g. what hardware do you have? which desktop environment did you install?). You've already said that openSUSE is flawed’ in your opinion, so why stick with it? Maybe, just maybe, you may come back
later, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.