I see people talking about various repositories, nvidia, factory and so on. As a complete newbie to openSUSE how do I go about finding these?
You could start by reading up on some basic concepts on openSUSE: Concepts - openSUSE
My recommendation to complete newbie’s to openSUSE is to ignore all that talk that you refereed to, and DEFINITELY read that concepts link above, and only pay attention to the repositories you are wondering about when one is at least an average to above average user. Until then stick with the following 4 repositories:
- OSS - the main “official” open source (free software as per free software foundation definition of free) repository for openSUSE
- NON-OSS - the “official” non-opensource (free as in free beer, but not free as per free software foundation definition free) repository for openSUSE
- Update - the “official” repository with updates to OSS and Non-OSS for openSUSE
- Packman - the largest 3rd party repository of openSUSE packaged rpms, with non-crippled media players, codecs, games, and many other packaged applications
If you MUST get an application off of a 5th repository, then add the repository, install the application, and then remove the repository. This will save you (as a newbie) many messages/warnings that are EASY for an advanced user to sort, but totally confusing for new users. Later when you learn more (and become an average or advanced user) you can add more repositories.
There are two excellent rpm search engines for openSUSE here:
- Search - with appropriate options/settings will search users repositories and official openSUSE repositories (but won’t search Packman)
- Webpin - will search Packman repository (but not member’s repositories).
where you can type in the name of an application and see if it has been packaged for openSUSE.
I recommend you do NOT use the 1 click install. Instead simply add a repository (with your desired application), install the application, and remove the repository.
This can be as simple as (say I want to install the application h264enc from user ‘microchips’ repository):
zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/microchip8/openSUSE_11.3/ microchip
zypper install h264enc
zypper rr microchip
or you can do the above via YaST > Software > Software Repositories and YaST > Software > Software management.
Note that syntax is:
zypper ar URL arbitrary-repository-name #where 'ar' means add repository
zypper install application
zypper rr arbitrary-repository-name #where 'rr' means remove repository
If you are still curious, here are a couple of URLs with some repository lists (and info):
- official and semi-official repositories - note I recommend you stay away (as a newbie) from the semi-official
- Unofficial 3rd party repositories
Good luck !!
oldcpu, thank you for the detailed reply.
Be assured that I am not new to Linux, just openSUSE. Messages tend not to scare me; I just read them and if required Google. I am finding information about this distro quite hard to find as the wiki seems to be mostly empty or maybe that’s just the topics I’m looking for 
It could be you ran into the fact that our wiki team did a massive wiki update just when 11.3 was being released, and about 95% of the old wiki content is no longer available. Hopefully this will eventually be sorted. The timing was … how do I say this politely? … the timing was ‘unfortunate’. 
Webpin - will search Packman repository (but not member’s repositories).
Do you mean ‘home:’-repositories? Actually it does, see for example →here, only it does not work for the 11.3 yet. As far as I remember those sources always take a little while after each new SuSE-version until they’re “ported” to webpin.
My mistake.
Are they like Ubuntu’s PPAs?
For example, there is an openoffice ppa that will install the latest openoffice.
[edit]
Sorry if comparing to Ubuntu offends anybody 
but it’s what I have mostly gotten used to
[/edit]
Yeah unfortunate. Ah well, it just means I’ll be doing more rummaging around and asking more daft questions on the forums 
oldcpu, I think it would be useful from time to time to point people to the old wiki, which is still available under “http://old-en.opensuse.org/”, for example, the Tablet PC page, which hasn’t been transferred yet, is still here: TabletPCs - openSUSE
I don’t use Ubuntu so I can not answer that. But if you do go with the repositories (for apps such as OpenOffice) the version you install from a repository OTHER than OSS or Update will NOT have been tested as much as the ‘official’ version with openSUSE and it may just break things. Its risky. Its cutting edge. And hence I don’t do it.
but having passed that warning, take a look at:
Index of /repositories
and note some of those are repositories, and some are top level directories for other directories with repositories, such as:
Index of /repositories/home:
… typically a users directory will have inside something like the directories:
[DIR] Parent Directory -
[DIR] Fedora_12/ 21-Jul-2010 10:41 -
[DIR] Fedora_13/ 21-Jul-2010 10:42 -
[DIR] SLE_10/ 21-Jul-2010 10:41 -
[DIR] SLE_11/ 21-Jul-2010 10:42 -
[DIR] SLE_11_SP1/ 21-Jul-2010 10:40 -
[DIR] openSUSE_11.1/ 21-Jul-2010 10:40 -
[DIR] openSUSE_11.2/ 21-Jul-2010 10:40 -
[DIR] openSUSE_11.3/ 21-Jul-2010 10:40 -
where each of those are different repositories for different openSUSE, and SLE and Fedora versions.
And typically a repository (such as openSUSE-11.3) will have inside (using Microchip’s as an example):
[DIR] Parent Directory -
] home:microchip8.repo 21-Jul-2010 10:40 284 Mirrors Metalink
[DIR] i586/ 15-Jul-2010 21:17 -
[DIR] i686/ 17-Jul-2010 07:23 -
[DIR] noarch/ 21-Jul-2010 10:40 -
[DIR] repodata/ 21-Jul-2010 10:40 -
[DIR] src/ 21-Jul-2010 10:40 -
[DIR] x86_64/ 17-Jul-2010 07:23 -
so in this example the actual repository is:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/microchip8/openSUSE_11.3/
clear as mud ?
That sounds kind of like PPAs which are kind of semi-official.
I’m not likely to use them, I’m just trying to understand the repo structure which seems to be more complex than Ubuntu’s or maybe that’s just less familiar…
Yes openSUSE’s build service called OBS, is analogous to Ubuntu Launchpad’s PPAs… You upload the source packages and write the spec files to build the RPMs in case of openSUSE… A similar thing happens in the PPAs as well…
richard-g wrote:
> I am finding information about this distro quite hard to find as
> the wiki seems to be mostly empty or maybe that’s just the topics
> I’m looking for
yep, as oldcpu explained the Wiki Team kinda accidently tried to drive
a stake into the heart…
here is an OLD post which tried to give a new person a leg up on
openSUSE: http://tinyurl.com/3a5rong
some items in that posting is now well hidden by the recent forum
redesign, and some VERY well hidden by the wiki redo…but any of
those in my old post which led to the first form below, just change it
to the second and the info should still exist:
http://en.opensuse.org/[something]
http://old-en.opensuse.org/[something]
however, LOTs of technical details with the way (for example) X11
now works has changed…so, any graphics problems you must track down
the new 11.3 info in (for example)
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Configuring_graphics_cards
which will not be the same as you find in old-en.open…
you arrive at an unfortunate time–please ask all questions
necessary…oh, do not miss http://en.opensuse.org/Concepts which does
a pretty good job highlighting the major differences from other distros…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
I’m sorry if this gets posted twice. I didn’t see my post after “Post Quick Reply” and have been having some problems posting.
Are all repositories of the form “download.opensuse.org/repositories/…”, OBS.
For example, if a new version of Office comes out, it will be in download.opensuse.org/repositories/OpenOffice.org:/, and not in download.opensuse.org/update. Correct?
Thank you.
Newbie Questions:
Is Yast the GUI for Zypper? It seems a little confusing to me to have 2 different package mgrs when they both accomplish the same. I’m guessing that the Yast GUI is for windoze trogs like me.
Upon adding a repository, can it just be commented out rather than removed? i.e. is there a sources list where I can add / comment out repositories at my convenience?
Thanks in advance!
references:
http://opensuse-community.org/Pkgmgmt101
http://opensuse-community.org/Repositories/11.3
P.S.
What does it mean when I can find Cinelerra here:
http://packages.opensuse-community.org/
But not here?
http://software.opensuse.org/search
You can disable the repo in Yast by un-checking the ENABLED option for that repo
Hi
One thing YaST runs is SuSEconfig, zypper doesn’t so sometimes after
the zypper command it pays to run it as well…
Cinelerra is packaged by a third party (packman) as it’s content
requires proprietary codecs etc that aren’t built by openSUSE for legal
reasons
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.34-12-default
up 6 days 11:52, 2 users, load average: 0.03, 0.10, 0.09
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 256.44
On 2010-08-01 15:36, richard-g wrote:
> . I am finding
> information about this distro quite hard to find as the wiki seems to be
> mostly empty or maybe that’s just the topics I’m looking for
The wiki is being migrated; instead, have a look at the old one, old-en.opensuse.org, if my memory
is correct.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
On 2010-08-10 04:06, HealingMindNOS wrote:
> Newbie Questions:
>
> Is Yast the GUI for Zypper? It seems a little confusing to me to have 2
> different package mgrs when they both accomplish the same. I’m guessing
> that the Yast GUI is for windoze trogs like me.
Not really. Zypper is a new independent development, and all three (yes, 3) use the same libraries
underneath.
I say three because the yast package manager has two versions: qt (kde) and gtk (gnome). They are
really different. Plus there is also a text mode yast, but this one is the same as the qt in text, I
think.
Not to forget the new kid in town, “web-yast”, a yast to be used via a web browser. Unfinished.
>:-)
> Upon adding a repository, can it just be commented out rather than
> removed? i.e. is there a sources list where I can add / comment out
> repositories at my convenience?
Disabled. Via CLI (zypper) or GUI (YaST). There is a file somewhere, I think.
> P.S.
>
> What does it mean when I can find Cinelerra here:
> http://packages.opensuse-community.org/
>
> But not here?
> http://software.opensuse.org/search
Different licenses
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
On 2010-08-10 01:04, opensuseforumorg42 wrote:
>
> I’m sorry if this gets posted twice. I didn’t see my post after “Post
> Quick Reply” and have been having some problems posting.
>
> Are all repositories of the form
> “download.opensuse.org/repositories/…”, OBS.
>
> For example, if a new version of Office comes out, it will be in
> download.opensuse.org/repositories/OpenOffice.org:/, and not in
> download.opensuse.org/update. Correct?
Yes.
The “update” repo contains official updates only, and it is different from other repos. Also, these
updates are only for the oss and non-oss repos. The three of them are the only “official” repos.
The normal policy for the “updates” repo is that it contains only security updates, some big bug
corrections, and that there are never version upgrades for a package (with some exceptions). Rather,
the patch is backported.
However, the buildservice repositories do package upgrades. They are not official, but… some
almost they are, like the openoffice one. It is done by the same chaps, after all, and actually, if
you find a bug in the main version they will ask you to upgrade to that version.
And there are also “home” repositories. These are not intended for use by any one - no, wrong
wording… They could be experiments by their owner, you have to ask for each one.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))