OpenSuse Package Manager

English Applications
#1

Hello there, the OpenSuse forum.
This is my very first foray into OpenSuse. I’ve installed the Gnome edition yesterday, and like it very much, except for the package manager. Here is what happened.
The laptop I use has the Nvidia 7400go card, and so I tried installing the proprietary driver, as suggested at openSUSE 11.4 | SUSE Linux | Beginner’s guide to multimedia codecs MP3 DVD 3D nvidia ati wireless netbook. It worked, but to my astonishment, the package manager also installed about 500MB of stuff completely unrelated to Nvidia. It took a while, and I’ve taken notes of some of the packages while watching it downloading away, so here are some of the packages:


nspluginwrapper
myspell-russian
myspell-german
libreoffice-help-ru
flash-player
java_1_6_0-sun
libreoffice-thesarus-de

Please note that the only language I selected during the installation was US English. Where did Russian and German come from?
Quite a bit puzzled, I opened the package manager and tried removing java-1_6_0. It was version 6u23 with lots of known vulnerabilities, besides, I’ve no use for java. It worked, but instead of just removing sun-java, the package manager downloaded and installed java_1_6_0-openjdk, and removing the latter downloaded and installed java_1.5, and so on.

Is there any way to get rid of java in OpenSuse?

Today, I decided to install Skype, and after downloading the installation file for Suse and clicking, the package manager started downloading stuff, presumably dependencies. It took for ever, and now, I have GnuCash and Inkscape installed, but Skype doesn’t launch. Trying to launch skype from a terminal window produces the following error:

skype: error while loading shared libraries: libpng12.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Can someone please tell me what is going on. Is there any way to choose what’s being installed?
Surely, I’ve done something wrong, being new and green.

#2

The other files installed with the Nvidia drivers are packages and aplications needed after a clean install. It is normal.

open the main menu and go to System->Administration->Install/Remove Software. This is YAST the software manager and installer. there you can search for the packages you want to install or remove. that also include the libpng12 missing for Skype.

#3

I am not sure how to get rid of Java completely.

I also do not understand why YaST suggests and installs for example language packages that do not match your language - but: I am quite sure that all those packages were not installed because of the NVidia-packages, but were an upgrade of packages already installed; you obviously have not done the obligatory systemwide update after the initial install. I can see that by flash-player being installed, this happens because of a package called ‘pullin-flash-player’, which does exactly what the name says - pulling in the Flash-Player as soon as the package manager is started for the first time.

I always recommend to do an update with only the oss, non-oss and update-repositories activated right after the initial install before installing anything else.

As for Skype: install the package ‘libpng12-0’. The package from the Skype-Team is badly packaged, so it does not search properly for all needed dependencies.

#4

Thank you for the quick replies. I have found the Install/Remove Software utility and removed some of the russian and german language packages. Oddly enough, trying to remove bundle-lang-gnome-ru resulted in the installation of bundle-lang-gnome-ar. Is that Arabic? Java is still there, holding strong, apparently unremovable! I’ve also found libpng12, and Skype works now, but what’s with GnuCash and Inkscape? Why did they go installed?

I didn’t know there were obligatory updates in OpenSuse, but if there are, why doesn’t the Package Manager prompts for them first thing out of the gate?

#5

as to GnuCash and Inkscape, they could be bundled as part of the Gnome desktop. These can be easily removed.

openSuse come with Russian and German help files and spelling, even if your system language is English (so is mine). But removing that is easy using Yast.

#6

Thanks very much for your input. All in all, I am quite happy with the system. There are a few more issues to look into, but they are unrelated to the package manager.
PS: I’ve been watching htop running for the past hour or so, and /usr/lib/packagekitd is going wild, spiking the CPU every few seconds. Is that normal?

#7

I suppose (!) that is the updater-applet looking for updates every now and then. You could deactivate it and install updates manually (for example via YaST or ‘zypper up’ in the terminal).

#8

True. I never liked it. and the new applet is no better in my opinion. I uninstalled it completely, and check for updates manually.

#9

Now I see this thread.

1)Try to install package manager

su

# zypper addrepo -f http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_11.4/

# zypper refresh
  1. About skype
    Install this library
su

# zypper install libpng12.so.0-32bit
#10

On 2011-03-17 03:06, mikewhatever wrote:

> Hello there, the OpenSuse forum.

welcome!

> Code:
> --------------------
>
> nspluginwrapper
> myspell-russian
> myspell-german
> libreoffice-help-ru
> flash-player
> java_1_6_0-sun
> libreoffice-thesarus-de
>
> --------------------
>
>
> Please note that the only language I selected during the installation
> was US English. Where did Russian and German come from?

I heard of that bug on previous versions. I think there is a wrong
dependency somewhere. Try to remove those languages, see if it complains
about something wanting them.

You could also report in Bugzilla, but search first.

Did you install from the live CD, perchance? I think the CD has that
bug/feature.

> Quite a bit puzzled, I opened the package manager and tried removing
> java-1_6_0. It was version 6u23 ‘with lots of known vulnerabilities’
> (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/17/java_security_threat/),
> besides, I’ve no use for java. It worked, but instead of just removing
> sun-java, the package manager downloaded and installed
> java_1_6_0-openjdk, and removing the latter downloaded and installed
> java_1.5, and so on.

X’-)

I know. It is because of dependencies.

> Is there any way to get rid of java in OpenSuse?

No, as you have applications installed that want it. You have LibreOffice?
It needs Java.

By the way, there are two YaST package managers in suse, the qt version and
the gtk version. They work differently.

In a terminal as root (su -) you can type:

yast2 --qt online_update

or

yast2 --qt sw_single

to start the “qt” variant. It is possible you do not have it installed, but
I find its features more to my liking. You do not need to install the
entire kde for it to work, just some libraries.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

#11

On 2011-03-17 04:06, mikewhatever wrote:
> I didn’t know there were obligatory updates in OpenSuse, but if there
> are, why doesn’t the Package Manager prompts for them first thing out of
> the gate?

It just did! :stuck_out_tongue:

It run at the first chance it had. With your helpful if unintentional
intervention :slight_smile:

In the QT variant, there is a tab that serves to preview the entire list of
what it is going to do.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

#12

Thanks again everyone for your helpful replies. I’ve really enjoyed playing with OpenSuse so far, especially since everything pretty much just works.

#13

On 03/16/2011 10:36 PM, gropiuskalle wrote:
>
> I suppose (!) that is the updater-applet looking for updates every now
> and then. You could deactivate it and install updates manually (for
> example via YaST or ‘zypper up’ in the terminal).
>
>
Or if you don’t want to uninstall it, you can configure it to check less
often. I have it check just once a day. You can even do once a week if
you wish. Just right-click the app icon and choose configure.