It looks like packman is a 3rd party repo sponsored and funded by openSUSE. They are still soliciting donations on the website.
Many top advisors to this forum are recommending moving your system off packman to openSUSE repos only. One reason is that packman can sometimes be behind in getting updates. This can prevent updating your system. I think also that sometimes packman updates can conflict with openSUSE causing run time problems.
Why are openSUSE senior advisors recommending users to get off packman yet are supporting it?
Does the openSUSE openh264 fully supply all the packages now supplied by packman?
Between non-oss repos and h264 are all the packman packages available but maybe older?
Iâd like to hear the opinions of others on this issue. I started to consider moving my packages off packman but then began reconsidering.
Where did you get this false information from? Packman is neither sponsored, nor funded or connected to openSUSE. 3rd party repo means 3rd party, not provided by openSUSE.
Maybe have a read on the packman website who the sponsors are. And what packman is. Unfortunately the packman website has different content for different languages. The german site is the one with the most explanations.
The biggest mistake one can make is the complete vendor switch to packman.
It is uneccesary and creates a lot of conflicts. Everytime, anytime and permanently.
You can have a basic search here in the forum and you will see, that packman is one of the main source of issues. And many users which use packman can not even solve basic package conflicts and need to seek help in the forum.
IF you really need codecs or software which is only available from packman, ONLY install these packages. Do NOT perform the full vendor switch which was suggested some time ago. Fortunately the wiki is now adapted since some time to explain how to only install the codecs and no longer recommends full vendor switch.
Further to what @hui says, the first thing to check is what doesnât work, make a note of the issue. Once have a list of things that donât work. Then suggest you create a post of the application being used and what doesnât work, examples are needed.
I use google chrome, everything works fine, for playing videos, I use the flatpak version of VLC. If I need to transcode I use the flatpak version of handbrake.
Hmm. Strange. Why is everyone picking on Packman so much here? There are lots of programmes that arenât available in the openSUSE repositories, or are only available with limited functionality. Without Packman, openSUSE is practically useless if you want to do anything more than just browse the internet and send emails. Much of what other distributions offer is either unavailable in openSUSE due to licensing issues or has limited functionality.
Iâve never understood why other distributions offer these things and openSUSE doesnât. Apparently, different rules apply to openSUSE. Or perhaps they have stricter lawyers. No idea.
Other projects donât have a corporate backer to take to court, that might have money. Same reason most of this same stuff is built in RPMfusion for Fedora. SUSE and Red Hat have money.
Canonical has done itâs own thing with Ubuntu, I donât know all the ins and outs, but some of it is negotiated license deals, others, I suspect, is just rolling the dice, and hoping to fly under the radar.
Like it or not, SUSE, as a For-Profit corporation, has legal exposure for things that openSUSE does.
Debian/Arch/others, basically arenât worth suing, because thereâs nothing to recover in court, because theyâve not really got any money.
From (an AI helper of brave search engine) I am sorry to admit,
Packman is a third-party repository for openSUSE that provides restricted and encumbered packages not included in the default repositories, such as multimedia codecs and software
I know the arguments. Theyâre always the same. Thereâs no point in discussing this.
My reply was actually aimed at something else.
Without Packman, openSUSE wasnât â and isnât â really usable.
So, as someone in a âposition of responsibilityâ, you should stop demonising it. Unless, of course, youâve had enough of your duties at openSUSE.
It is incorrect to say that it is not quite up to date.
Rather, it is not available in openSUSE. Or it has limitations in openSUSE.
If you can live with that, you donât need it
I do quite well without packman and have for years.
My usecase might be different than yours.
But you seem to enjoy speaking in absolutes, and making statements for everybody that uses the output of the openSUSE project, so I guess, enjoy yourself?
Misunderstandings? Language barriers? Nobody is âinsinuatingâ that you are making âinsinuationsâ here.
That is âspeaking in absolutesâ; a correct statement would be, for instance:
âIF you need h265 decoding, without Packman, openSUSE wasnât â and isnât â really usable unless you buy and install the Fluendo codec-packâ.
So, if you donât need h265 as most general users, openSUSE is perfectly usable for general purpose use without Packman.
Cisco is paying for us to freely decode h264 and openh264 can be included in the âofficialâ repos. If anybody needs still patent-encumbered SW, openSUSE cannot provide it, full stop.
Strictly speaking, you should even check that you can legally use Packman in your jurisdiction, nothing material for home use but potentially very relevant on corporate premises.
In the very past, I also used to use Packman. I also experienced some issues back then.
Today, I stick with openSUSE pool AND https://download.videolan.org/SuSE/ since my essential need is VLC. That way I can use VLC properly (and watch all my videos) and donât experience the mess (like with Packman in the past).
Back then on Leap 15.x I moved from Packman to Videolan âsomehowâ. I was NOT without glitches and issues. It took some time till it worked. Then, at the end it was OK.
For Leap 16 I did a clean and fresh install: with Videolan (VLC and codecs), WITHOUT any(!) Packman (there is more at Packman than codecsâŚ).
Sorry, I cannot assist explicitly. But for me personally I can say that I am quite fine now with Videolan (just for VLC and codecs). I have a clean system and no dependency issues.
That said I admit that there might be people with other needs. I donât knowâŚ
I also have the videolan repo but sometimes you also run into dependency issues. Currently you can not remove libSvtAv1Enc3 when you have installed vlc codecs or ffmpeg 8 from the vlc repo, at least I can not on my tumbleweed installation without being asked to remove the vlc-codecs and move ffmpeg 8 to the version from openSUSE.