On 2014-03-24 12:36, smcgrother wrote:
> Alright. So after weighing the pros and cons I went with zypper dup.
> There were a couple of conflicts, but the choice seemed clear. All else
> went smoothly, and YAST WORKS! Nothing else seems to be broken either.
> You guys are all fantastic -thanks so much.
Welcome 
> So in the interests of teaching a man to fish, what should I do in the
> future if I want to install something that is in a repository other than
> the ones I have enabled?
> (a) Is there a way to install it without the repo? (What would the
> command be?)
Yes, rpm, but it gets complicated.
> (b) should I keep searching for it until i find a non-repo version?
No, that’s worse.
> (c) should I enable the repo only for as long as I need to install the
> tool I need?
Sometimes this can be advisable. Not always. See note (1) below.
> (d) something else I have not considered?
If you need something that is not in the default or official repos, you
have to search for it on some other repo. Which ones to add is the
problem. In general, avoid repos labeled as “home” if possible.
Absolutely avoid repos for a different release. Try to keep your repo
list to a minimum: with each repo you add, you increase the risk of
conflicts.
Some repos are documented in the wiki, like those to update KDE or GNome
desktops, so read those wiki pages first.
If you use repos to replace core components of the system, specially
libraries used by many other components, the risk increases. This is
what probably happened to you; you replaced either components of yast,
or libraries used by yast (QT?), so that it stopped working, which is
unlucky.
Using a repo to update or add an application (or a few) is typically
quite safe for the rest of the system.
> WRT the quoted text - do you anticipate that I need some stuff from the
> packman repo? Does that command install from that repo but leave the
> repo disabled in yast (as previous posters have had me configure it)?
If you want multimedia, like watching videos, you do need packman, no
way around that.
> Thanks again
> You guys are bloody marvelous.
Welcome 
Note (1).
An example. Years ago, to watch movie DVDs we needed the decss code. We
got this from the videolan repo. Now, this repo conflicts with packman
(it is one or the other), so the advise was to add the video lan repo,
install the decss package, then disable videolan. Now we don’t need to
do that because we have a separate repo that provides only that package,
so no need for tricks.
Now, as a further clarification, or rather to mud your brain a bit more
(kidding), it is possible to have videolan and packman at the same
time - but you have to be careful what to install from each one. You can
not, say, install vlc from one and the vlc codecs from the other.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)