openSUSE is stuck in the past.

English Open Chat
#1

Every few years I check in with opensuse, but I never keep it as an OS for long… :confused:

Firstly there are some broken things I’ll outline later. But the main reason is the design: it is just so dated. People are good with computers now, especially those who use Linux, so we are not impressed any more by bouncing icons or redundant dialog boxes. We want clean designs that do not patronise the user. Here are my favourite things to hate about openSUSE

  • The “blip” noise on changing volume, and the massive “LOOK I"M CHANGING VOLUME” icon that obscures the screen while doing it. Yes, I am aware you are changing volume, for several reasons. For example, I myself put my finger out and pressed the “change volume” button. What I am listening to has changed volume. The volume tray icon has changed. So please don’t BLIP and make the screen unusable for two seconds.
  • The bouncing “opening program” cursor. Firstly, it is just a shameless copy of mac’s bouncing icons (from over ten years ago). And secondly, it doesn’t look good because the framerate is too low. It’s like something the work-experience guy did back in 2007, yet everyone forgets to delete! It’s just embarrassing.
  • The notifier box. Nobody needs or ever has needed this. For example, most humans is aware that a hard drive has been plugged in, because said human just plugged it in. We do not need a massive, gormless box say “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO YOU CRETIN?”, because we already know what we want to do. It is just patronising.

Beyond that, YaST is hopeless, Dolphin (the kind of thing the which other OS’s have had right since hmmm Windows 3.1? DOS-shell?) *still *has that refresh bug, and the “oh woah there, dependency failure, I think I’ll just quit absolutely every kind of update, is that ok?” behaviour is not OK. Other distros, much smaller and less maintained distros, get this right. Why can’t SUSE?

But most importantly, get rid of the bouncing icon. It is enraging. I’ll check back in another five years.

Rant over :slight_smile:

Actually I’ve got a couple more things, about the forums.

  • Why do we have to do a random question to post on the forum?! Other forums don’t need that… are you saying your security is that bad?
  • When trying to retrieve login details, on answering the secret question, you have to put the answer in twice. errr, why. I can understand on setting
    a password you want to double check it, but on PROVIDING a password? Twice?! Explain, please!

Second rant over.

#2

Aside from your vague reference to YaST,
Nothing you describe is really specific to openSUSE, they are all Desktop “features.”

You don’t like that bouncing widget? Sounds? Whatever else that is part of the human interface?
Don’t complain about it, do something about it.

Use another Desktop.
openSUSE supports adding additional Desktops without adding repos. If you can’t figure out how to do this through YaST Software Management, there are Forum posts from others who have needed similar assistance. Or, ask your own question.

Those who don’t want the visual and audio bling choose another Desktop… like XFCE or LXQt.

And, same thing about Dolphin.
Don’t like it? Use something else, there are many other File Managers which can be installed in seconds. Install them all at once and check them all out until you find something you like.
Dolphin is speific to KDE, so if you install another Desktop, you’ll get a different File Manager, for example LXQt will install PCManFM.

Don’t know what you might find lacking about YaST,
I haven’t yet seen anything in any other distro (or MSWindows) that can compare with it, generally speaking anything you do using YaST will mean anyone less than expert will avoid all kinds of common problems.

As for these Forums and security,
Captchas are a way of life, but are required only if you aren’t logged in, for anonymous use.
If you create an account, <verify> your account and likely close and then re-open your browser, you should be able to do anything in these Forums without further authentication (like captchas and extra questions).

TSU

#3

Or you could choose another in your desktop settings. In KDE4, for instance, you can choose no icon, passive icon, blinking icon and bouncing icon.

Frankly, no offense intended, but if you’re not willing to at least look at the settings you can change, then I dare say openSUSE is not for you. Too many options to choose from. You’d probably do better with a desktop that is exactly how you think it should be, out-of-the-box.

FWIW, I also disliked the bouncing icon, and disabled it years ago. See you in 5, then. :wink:

#4

Hmm I have never seen bouncing icons since I used Slackware with KDE3. How do you enable that even? :slight_smile: (I did use KDE4 on openSUSE and never seen the bouncing cursors)
I would recommend trying to install XFCE instead of KDE (or choosing it during install).

#5

You can disable them.

You can disable it.

You can disable it.

Everything you complained about you could have disabled with a few waves of the mouse from the settings.

#6

openSUSE is stuck in the past… because?

Of a “blip” noise, bouncing cursor, and notifier box.
And that is all openSUSE has contributed to Linux?

No distro is perfect, not even openSUSE :wink:
But… come on…
I missed a rant about the wallpaper openSUSE chooses

#7

On 2017-05-25, kalinity <kalinity@no-mx.forums.microfocus.com> wrote:
>
> Every few years I check in with opensuse, but I never keep it as an OS
> for long… :confused:

That probably means you never really get sufficiently acquainted with it properly. For example. have you tried openSUSE
GNOME?

> Firstly there are some broken things I’ll outline later. But the main
> reason is the design: it is just so dated. People are good with
> computers now, especially those who use Linux, so we are not impressed
> any more by bouncing icons or redundant dialog boxes.

Don’t blame openSUSE. Those desktop features (it seems you’re using KDE) are there because you chose to install KDE as
your desktop (many of which can be turned off). If you want something different, try a different desktop - openSUSE
offers a variety of choices.

> We want clean designs that do not patronise the user. Here are my favourite things to
> hate about openSUSE

If you think KDE patronises the user, have you tried using an Apple or Windows computer (e.g. “You are attempting to
execute an executable file - do you want permission from Nanny to do so?”)?

> - The “blip” noise on changing volume, and the massive “LOOK I"M
> CHANGING VOLUME” icon that obscures the screen while doing it. Yes, I
> am aware you are changing volume, for several reasons. For example, I
> myself put my finger out and pressed the “change volume” button. What
> I am listening to has changed volume. The volume tray icon has
> changed. So please don’t BLIP and make the screen unusable for two
> seconds.

My Android phone does that too when I try changing my alarm volume. Really annoying. I wouldn’t call my phone stuck in
the past though.

> - The bouncing “opening program” cursor. Firstly, it is just a
> shameless copy of mac’s bouncing icons (from over ten years ago). And
> secondly, it doesn’t look good because the framerate is too low. It’s
> like something the work-experience guy did back in 2007, yet everyone
> forgets to delete! It’s just embarrassing.

I think the icon theme can be changed in System settings.

> - The notifier box. Nobody needs or ever has needed this. For
> example, most humans is aware that a hard drive has been plugged in,
> because said human just plugged it in. We do not need a massive,
> gormless box say “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO YOU CRETIN?”, because we
> already know what we want to do. It is just patronising.

Perhaps you want removal storage to be automatically mounted? Again this can done in KDE under System Settings (I think
under `Removable Devices’).

> Beyond that, YaST is hopeless,

That’s a matter of opinion. If you can find me a single GUI tool that offers a package manager, virtual machine manager,
daemon manager, security manager, boot manager, partition manager, etc… which involves no text configuration file
editing and works under every single graphical manager (including Qt/GTK/ncurses) then YaST might at least have some
competition. In the meantime, YaST is the envy of many non-openSUSE GNU/Linux distributions. Sure YaST has deficiencies
but only in the way it doesn’t really cater for GNU/Linux newcomers, who aren’t the focus of openSUSE project anyway.

> Dolphin (the kind of thing the which
> other OS’s have had right since hmmm Windows 3.1? DOS-shell?) -still
> -has that refresh bug, and the “oh woah there, dependency failure, I
> think I’ll just quit absolutely every kind of update, is that ok?”
> behaviour is not OK.

I personally don’t encounter this problem with Dolphin.

> Other distros, much smaller and less maintained distros, get this right. Why can’t SUSE?

Please name them. My experience with other GNU/Linux distributions is that openSUSE provides the most polished bug-free
KDE environment (particularly for KDE5).

> But most importantly, get rid of the bouncing icon. It is enraging. I’ll
> check back in another five years.

But where I really do agree that openSUSE and other GNU/Linux distributions are stuck in the past is their slow uptake
on touchscreen features. I understand there has been some progress in GNOME on that one, but it’s still a long way
behind Android.

#8

On 05/25/2017 08:26 AM, kalinity wrote:
>
> Every few years I check in with opensuse, but I never keep it as an OS
> for long… :confused:
>
> Firstly there are some broken things I’ll outline later. But the main
> reason is the design: it is just so dated.

Thus sayeth kalinity!

> People are good with
> computers now, especially those who use Linux, so we are not impressed
> any more by bouncing icons or redundant dialog boxes. We want clean
> designs that do not patronise the user. Here are my favourite things to
> hate about openSUSE

  1. Bouncing icons - aka Launch Feedback, uh… set it to whatever you want??
    Desktop Settings → Personalization → Application → Launch Feedback

  2. Volume - Uh… why are you using an archaic ancient deprecated incredibly
    dense and old school hack like clicking on it when you can just use your scroll
    wheel?

(that was a humor rant making fun of your rant)

  1. Notifications - Up to you. The notification makes me aware of when the
    device and all its subdevices are ready and give me selections that I can do on
    each of them.

  2. YaST is hopeless? Do you have something better in mind? Please, if you know
    of something better, let us all know. A challenge.tum

  3. Dolphin - I have no idea what the issue is. Refresh bug? Dependency failue?

  4. Bouncing icons - Which apparently really really really really really really
    really really really really really bothers you… turn it off. I won’t tell
    anyone… I promise.

I have no comments on your security issue with confirming passwords and such…
to me it’s pretty industry standard.

Have a feeling this needs to go to the soapbox.

#9

Rather than nitpicking the single points being made in this thread, I’ll try to simply make some (hopefully major) general points resulting from the openSUSE Conference which ended yesterday:

  • From the point of view of distribution quality, SUSE and openSUSE are the initiators of openQA – and, Red Hat and KDE have also begun using it . . .

<http://open.qa/> <https://openqa.opensuse.org/>

  • A simple bare bones Leap 42.2 does not behave as described by the comments being made in this thread.

Yes, if the Leap 42.2 installation is an upgrade to an existing system or, changes have been made on the advice of knowledgeable people or personal experience then, yes, the effects being mentioned in this thread may very well appear.

  • The KDE community (applications such as Dolphin and many more) are improving.

If KDE applications such as “Krita” are examined (it also runs on MS Windows) then, one’s perception of the usage penetration and implementation quality may very well change.
Another KDE application which may very well be ranked as being a superb “killer-app” is “digiKam”.
The KDE Plasma desktop in it’s latest form (OK, you possibly need to use openSUSE Tumbleweed but, let’s not get picky here), is usable and very good – even with Leap 42.2 . . .

  • One hears that, the GNOME desktop shipped with openSUSE is also in the “very good” class.

(I’m a KDE user and therefore can not make an absolutely qualified statement here.)

  • openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release.
  • Presentations made at the 2017 openSUSE Conference indicated that, openSUSE Leap will also migrate to a rolling release model (which will presumably roll slower than the Tumbleweed pace.
#10

Leap will never be a Rolling RELEASE

but, to develop that release, it is now using a Rolling development model

or in very plain english

no more Alpha 1, Alpha2, Beta 1, Beta 2, RC1 releases before the final Leap release

we’re developing Leap in a Rolling style, like we do Tumbleweed, because we know it works, but at the end we’ll still freeze it and Release it in the way users want from their Regular Releases.