This is my first SuSE install in about 4 years and a lot has changed. I really love how far this OS has come. I cut my teeth in Linux on RedHat and SuSE 5.x versions in the late 90’s and its always been one of my favorite distributions.
After a few years of running ubuntu, I am trying to re-familiarize myself with non-debian based distributions. So far, I really only have two things I’m struggling with"
Using zypper at the cli, what is the package I need to install to have a “press tab to complete, or tab twice for all results based on what I’ve typed” function for repository indexes? Sometimes I don’t always know the full package name I need and this was a very handy feature in aptitude to help me identify the right packages.
what would be the OpenSuSE equivalent of the medibuntu repositories (where I can get w32 or w64 codecs, libdvdcss2 and all those goodies (insert obligatory ‘I understand the issues around this software’)
Thanks in advance for your help with these two items. I look forward to hopefully becoming an active part of OpenSuSE’s community as I re-familiarize myself with it.
Thanks for the assistance with the community repo. That fixed me right up. I’m still struggling a bit with the bash-completion. I did a zypper search for bash and installed the only thing that really looked like it fit by description, but no dice.
I read a couple of blogs via googling that had a zypper.sh file linked, but I diff’ed them against the one that Opensuse 11.2 installs and they are identical.
So I’ve gotten tab to complete working for command switches (e.g. install, search etc etc.) but anything following the context switch cannot tab to complete. E.G. if I were going to type amar, then hit tab to complete amarok.
If you happen to remember what this package is, or if you have any other advice, I’d really appreciate it. I do between 50 and 75% of my OS navigation at the CLI typically and this would be huge to have!
Filename completion should be on by default. Was this just a question or is it not working on your system?
Search the forum for ‘zypper cheat’ and you will find some links to so called zypper cheat sheets. They give a pretty good overview of zypper’s possibilities and usage.
Welcome back and re-enjoy !!
Edit: just did a ‘man bash’ and hit the ‘/’ and searched for “completion”. Quite a lot there. Filename completion is on by default. Maybe try in a new user account, or see what ‘su -’ does.
Thanks for the tips on the cheat sheets. Those will come in very handy!
I’ve just given them a look over but I think however, the exact functionality I’m looking for zypper just doesn’t have.
Just to clarify because I think I may not have explained myself well, bash tab-to-completion is working on my system for filesystem tasks. What I was looking for was tab to completion for zypper index searches (e.g. having the tab button essentially do a zypper se switch on whatever I’ve given the command line up to that point.) It would require some logic on zyppers behalf to parse out and query the repository package indexes for the partial package name I’ve supplied once I hit tab. I know Redhats Yum package manager cannot do this either so it may be something exclusive to aptitude.
Its not a show stopper by any means, just definitely something that the debian/aptitude package management system has spoiled me on over the years now that I’ll have to adjust to I think.
If zypper should have tab-to-complete index searches, then its definitely not working on a newly installed and fully patched 11.2 system. I’ll continue to tinker around with it to see if I find it.
toupeiro wrote:
> So I’ve gotten tab to complete working for command switches (e.g.
> install, search etc etc.) but anything following the context switch
> cannot tab to complete. E.G. if I were going to type amar, then hit tab
> to complete amarok.
if there is a tab-completion for package names inside the enabled
repos (like default bash has for local commands) i’m not aware of it…
but it sure sounds cool! are you saying apt has that? then we should
too (maybe we do, and no one here knows about it)…
all the results are everything I can possibly install available to me in my enabled repos on an ubuntu system of mine. so to recap: <tab> once completes the line the same way bash would in a filesystem setting. <tab> twice shows me everything that could match what I’ve typed so far.
Yes, I know bash is working wonderfully on its own. The problem is when amar preceded by the zypper command to do installations. Tab-to-complete at a standard bash prompt is working fine. In other words, if I already have amarok installed, I can do what you are asking me to. If I do not have amarok installed, I cannot, and if I want to use zypper to install it, and maybe a few addons, I cannot use double-tab to add them to the zypper command string.
If it can do it, maybe its by way of some other addon to zypper.
do this:
sudo zypper in amar
and hit tab twice, and let me know what happens.
here’s what I get after I hit tab twice on a zypper install line with amar:
Tested it on a Ubuntu 8 LTS server and tab to autocomplete didn’t work here neither with apt-get nor with aptitude, so maybe it’s a feature in newer versions.
In zypper I usually work around it like this:
sudo zypper search ama
Than I look in the list and enter the correct package name by hand. It works but an autocomplete function would be convenient indeed.
Nothing happens, and this is correct. Zypper is the command. What you want to know is how to use zypper to search. Thats easy enough. Try this Zypper/Usage/11.2 - openSUSE
yeah, I can’t say for sure with server edition on LTS. I have 2 x64 bit 9.10 desktop versions, and I know its been in the desktop version for quite some time.
The text above was cut and pasted from said ubuntu workstation using tabs where indicated…
Yes… I know that zypper se can search. My question was simply asking if zypper had tab-to-complete functionality for searching. For doing a lot of CLI work, tabbing is much faster than entering the same command again with a different switch, especially if I want to string installs together because I can tab-complete each package on the same line . Its not that big of a deal really that it doesn’t have it, since it does have a way to search, I was just looking for the tab functionality if it was there and not overly obvious.
You are right, this functionality would definitely make sense. I don’t think it is implemented yes, but maybe some zypper developer is reading this topic and picks it up.
Otherwise you can always send them some kind of feature request.
I took palladium’s advice and did a feature request for it on that openFATE site he linked. We’ll see what happens!
trust me, once you have it it spoils you horribly. Its a very efficient CLI function to have for package management.
Overall, I’m really enjoying working in SuSE again. It’s really amazing to see how much its changed since I was last using it.
Does anyone notice if SuSE gets faster mono turnaround with the Novell/Microsoft agreements still standing, or any other technical benefits due to that relationship?
Novell seems to put a lot of effort in Mono, and advertises the ability to run .NET applications as a big feature for SLES11.
Most (if not all) Novell build Mono apps are made for Gnome though and since most openSUSE users tend to run KDE, which is the default desktop for openSUSE now I don’t hear much about it from my perspective.
I think the Evolution Exchange connector still sucks big time, but the YaST option to join a domain is very convenient (heck it is even faster than Microsofts own implementation on Windows).
Most “technical” advantages come from the claim that both Novell and Microsoft will support SLES on HyperV and support Windows as a guest on a SLES based Xen server. This is a SLES thing though, and not really significant for openSUSE.
Personally I think from the community’s point of view, java would still be the better option over mono.
VERY cool…maybe some old Debian/RH/SuSE guy/gal will tickle
openFATE, and it will happen…[you don’t happen to be a hacker who
could figure out how to pull apt’s open source for that engine over
here??]
