I’m new to oST having spent many years over in the Deb/Ubuntu/Mint world but have been frustrated with the release cycles, bad updates, and bugs (not to mention older kernel and packages) and after much research, decided on oST. There are a few things that I’m not understanding yet (and I’m not sure if they are part of oST or KDE, coming from Cinnamon for the last couple of years).
First of all, what is Discover and what is it for? It came up as the default package installer for downloaded rpms but it didn’t work. It kept failing without saying why or giving any way to override the problem. When I forced it over to YasT to install, I got a warning that the package wasn’t signed but I was able to ignore it since I trusted the source and it installed without a hitch. So, why is Discover included and what is it’s benefit? Do you use it? Do you delete it? Why is it better than YasT? Why is it an alternative?
Secondly, do I need to add additional repositories to find more software? There are several programs that I thought might be available in repos but I’ve not been able to find them. Am I looking in the wrong place?
Third, what are the differences between adding the Packman repos via YasT/Zypper vs the opi command?
Hi and welcome aboard.
In the openSUSE world (including Tumbleweed) the main package manager is zypper or YaST2-Software which is a GUI interface to libzypp, so they are basically the same thing apart from the interface.
Desktop environments recently packaged their own package managers, like Discover in KDE, Gnome-Software for Gnome etc. but very few members here use those managers and you are unlikely to receive help about that in case of need.
I never used Discover and don’t know if it works at all with openSUSE repos, maybe Plasma users know better.
The standard repos have a lot of packages, but a few community repos exist for specialized needs; if you are not able to find something please ask here and somebody will help.
Best way to add repos is via YaST or zypper, feel free to ask if you need help; sorry I never heard of the “opi” command.
Stick to Yast don’t bother with Discover (as there is no need with Opensuse). You need to include Packman as explained above. You can do this directly with Yast or via a command line - it makes no difference.
For other programmes that you want to install, that you can’t find, just post back here or have a look here:
This paragraph concerns TW only.
YaST (Software) and Discover, have both an overlapping and non-overlapping feature set. Discover works with:
Plasma addons: many places over KDE let you install addons, but it’s nice to see all of them in a single place;
Flatpak’s: some people need to rely on packaged applications not available in the distro repos. It’s nice to have screenshots and reviews when looking for apps;
Since I never used it for rpm’s and have removed PK, I don’t know if it would show reviews and screenshots like for flatpaks. I guess not. And I think this is a major missing feature from YaST.
To update TW, use “sudo zypper dup”. I also use zypper to install packages (sudo zypper in <packagename>). YaST might be used to search and install packages as well. Also prefer to install rpm from repositories, instead of .rpm’s, because you can then update it alongside the system.
To sum up, I think it makes sense for a DE to include a software center to provide a single experience doesn’t matter the distro. You can “discover” software. With YaST/zypper it’s a bit hard when you don’t know which package you need to install (i.e. no categories).
Third, what are the differences between adding the Packman repos via YasT/Zypper vs the opi command?
Previous posts provided partial answers (correct as far as they go).
If by opi you mean the openSUSE package installer, you shouldn’t use that, or need to use that.
As already described, your choice of tools should be either the graphical YaST (Software Manager or Repository Manager) or the CLI zypper, whatever is your preference because both of these two tools share a common backend which is essential for package maintenance. If you use any other tool than YaST or zypper, the transaction would probably be stored differently which would mean succeeding package transactions could cause conflicts since they wouldn’t have access to the same information.