on-line update via yast breaks "stuff"

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1

As fairly new opensuse user, I have to say that I’m finding the on-line update in yast to not be worth the bother any more.

First it was breaking my X config on my NVIDIA driver, so that X would fail after the update and I’d have to reinstall NVIDIA’s driver once again.

But the other day it also started to break my wireless driver.

Now strictly speaking, this is a badly formed complaint. I should be able to go to the Yast logs and look up which package update may have had some thing to do with both breaking the X and wireless driver.

In fact, I should not be saying “break” at all and should verifying that it just isn’t some small readjustment in configuration which could easily be repaired without having to go to the extremes of removing, rebuilding and reinstalling both drivers (which is what I did).

But the problem is time. I can do all that, but somehow it seems against the philosophy of yast, which is not meant to be so manual.

So the upshot is, I’m pretty disappointed, and wont be doing any more on-line updates, unless anybody can shed any light.

2

Both wireless and graphics drivers are compiled against the kernel. That’s a bit of a generalization because for me all my drivers are installed automatically because the drivers are actually a part of the kernel. But for many - they have to download and install a driver or add an online repository to supply the driver to build against the kernel.
Particularly in the case where you manually install say a nvidia graphics driver, will you always have to re-install the driver.

If you are a convert from windows, this will be a bit of a new concept. Because windows never has kernel updates.

3

caf4926 wrote:
> If you are a convert from windows, this will be a bit of a new concept.
> Because windows never has kernel updates.

hello stabu,
all caf said is true…especially the part about new kernels…they
seem to come every couple of months…whereas windows comes every two
or three hundred dollars…

but, you can do yourself a favor…i guess you installed your
nvidia drive the 1-Click way, whereas if you did it the “hard way”
(see http://en.opensuse.org/Nvidia) the next time a kernel came out
YaST would automatically download and install 1) the new kernel, 2)
the new kernels headers, 3) recompile the nvidia driver using the new
kernel header, 4) install the new nvidia driver…

and, you would then learn that the “hard way” is really the easy way
(unless you like all of that manual helping of YaST every kernel update)…

HOWEVER, with reference to your “wont be doing any more
on-line updates, unless anybody can shed any light”: don’t tell anyone
but there are folks who do NOT automatically do every on-line update
which flows out the door…

i mean, if you have a burning need to be on the edge of the sword then
do them immediately…otherwise wait a while…say a week and then
look around the fora for threads like “latest update killed my
openSUSE, whaaaaaaaaaa” (you can use the forum advanced search to
(say) check all posts in the last one or two weeks, month) where you
might then find that the broken update has been repaired…

one thing to remember: if you want a stable, dependable, production
system then you probably should not be using openSUSE 11.2 to begin
with!! (i’m using 10.3, it hasn’t had an update since it went
non-supported when 11.2 came out…but, i’m not afraid it will be
cracked nor rooted…so…i use it)

if you have to have stable, then you should (imo) realize that we here
are mostly in the business of squashing BUGs in leading edge software
which will lead to the periodic production and release of commercial
quality software that is sold and supported by Novell…if you need
secure, stable, dependable (not broken by YaST) production quality
system get SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) or SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server (SLES)…compared to the alternatives it rather
inexpensive (especially if you value your time…how much have you
spent fixing problems introduced by the community release?)

ymmv (disclaimer: i do not and have not ever worked for Novell, nor
have i ever installed nor run SLED, but i may someday…)

–
palladium

4

OK, got it, many thanks you guys for the nice replies (although I’m not a windows convert, but … I’m able to not take offence :-D)

Palladium especially for your lengthy reply. I feel guilty almost …it’s just that usually I expect off-the-cuff two to three line replies.

Thanks alot, you’ve both painted the picture well for me and I am now enlightened.

Cheers!