New to OpenSUSE (coming from Manjaro Gnome). I have a few questions and couldn’t find an offical start guide that covers all of it:
How to install apps not in Yast?
I believe the short answer is Flatpak.
1.1 I already know Yast is the GUI to install apps, but confusingly, there is also “Software”, which I recognize as Gnome Software. Does this still use Yast or Zypper to see what is already installed, to install and to remove? It is a friendly interface, but does it list all apps from the same repository as Yast or Zypper?
1.2 If I install Flatpak through Software or Yast/Zypper, I suppose I still need to add the Flathub repository to it. But then what: Is there a single place/app/system that will show me all installed applications, Flatpak or otherwise?
1.3 Is there a single command to ensure all applications are updated, regardless the package type? Or do I need to manage the updates of Flatpak apps myself?
1.4 Strangely, when in Yast searching for Flatpak and installing it (with its auto-selected dependencies), Yast shows a progress bar for 1 split second and then just closes. I tried multiple times… Is this a bug? This is a fresh install…!
1.5 It seems even after installing, (Zypper commandline does confirm Flatpak is installed, even though it seems Yast crashes when I want to install it), I cannot search for flatpaks in Yast… does this mean there is no integration of flathub/flatpaks, like I am used to in Manjaro?
2 System update
I am a bit suprised the documentation says I should logout to update the system.
So I cannot simply run zypper dup ? I used Ubuntu and then Manjaro, this would be the first time I would be required to logout, login as root, then update. Why not do everything you can do without reboot and if reboot is needed, inform the user, like just about any other OS?
I suppose this also means there is no way to perform an update of the OS, applications (incl Flatpak) through the GUI, like for example Manjaro does offer with Pacman?
To my suprise, I could uninstall the default Gnome filemanager. I could not do this in Manjaro, it would uninstall Gnome! Really happy, it seems by installing Nemo (and some of its addons), I do not need to perform any other configuration, Nemo is used by default, for example when another app needs to open a file. No question here
Is there a guide how to setup hibernation (sleep to RAM so that the laptop can turn off completely) with a BTRFS swap subvolume? The installer offered to create a separate partition, but I always used a subvolume instead. Makes more sense. If not, I will try the Manjaro guide on their forum see how far I get.
New to OpenSUSE (coming from Manjaro Gnome). I have a few questions and couldn’t find an offical start guide that covers all of it:
How to install apps not in Yast?
I believe the short answer is Flatpak.
1.1 I already know Yast is the GUI to install apps, but confusingly, there is also “Software”, which I recognize as Gnome Software. Does this still use Yast or Zypper to see what is already installed, to install and to remove? It is a friendly interface, but does it list all apps from the same repository as Yast or Zypper?
1.2 If I install Flatpak through Software or Yast/Zypper, I suppose I still need to add the Flathub repository to it. But then what: Is there a single place/app/system that will show me all installed applications, Flatpak or otherwise?
1.3 Is there a single command to ensure all applications are updated, regardless the package type? Or do I need to manage the updates of Flatpak apps myself?
1.4 Strangely, when in Yast searching for Flatpak and installing it (with its auto-selected dependencies), Yast shows a progress bar for 1 split second and then just closes. I tried multiple times… Is this a bug? This is a fresh install…!
1.5 It seems even after installing, (Zypper commandline does confirm Flatpak is installed, even though it seems Yast crashes when I want to install it), I cannot search for flatpaks in Yast… does this mean there is no integration of flathub/flatpaks, like I am used to in Manjaro?
2 System update
I am a bit suprised the documentation says I should logout to update the system.
So I cannot simply run zypper dup ? I used Ubuntu and then Manjaro, this would be the first time I would be required to logout, login as root, then update. Why not do everything you can do without reboot and if reboot is needed, inform the user, like just about any other OS?
I suppose this also means there is no way to perform an update of the OS, applications (incl Flatpak) through the GUI, like for example Manjaro does offer with Pacman?
To my suprise, I could uninstall the default Gnome filemanager. I could not do this in Manjaro, it would uninstall Gnome! Really happy, it seems by installing Nemo (and some of its addons), I do not need to perform any other configuration, Nemo is used by default, for example when another app needs to open a file. No question here
Is there a guide how to setup hibernation (sleep to RAM so that the laptop can turn off completely) with a BTRFS swap subvolume? The installer offered to create a separate partition, but I always used a subvolume instead. Makes more sense. If not, I will try the Manjaro guide on their forum see how far I get.
5
Whenever password is needed in the GUI, for example to open Yast, the password popup is always out of focus, I have to click the little window, before I can enter my password. This is pretty annoying, I am used to simply start typing, without having to click a different window or get focus to the text input. Is this a bug? Or is this configurable?
It depends on the delivery format of these applications.
You can. Several times my current GUI session was terminated in the middle of update killing zypper. I do not claim that it is a feature, but this is real life experience.
Before I switched to pinning Tumbleweed snapshots, I used GNOME Software on GNOME and KDE Update applet on KDE. It works mostly, but if update needs interactive resolution, both frontends lack it and update is terminated. This is the primary reason zypper is preferred. GNOME Software does not support EULA, so some packages are simply not installable with it. Otherwise both are just a frontend to PackageKit wich calls zypper backend, so they are using exactly the same repositories as zypper, exactly the same dependency resolution engine as zypper. On KDE you should also be able to use Discover (I believe, this is the correct name).
I suspect now I will need a lot of popcorn
Please, start new topics for your questions 4 and 5 with suitable title. Regarding 5 - there is no generic “GUI”. There is specific desktop environment you are using and this question is meaningless without it.
To install apps that are not in the default repositories you can use flatpak, appimage or event snap, some programs like blender or godot can be downloaded directly from their website.
1.1 Yast is only for system software, the ones you install using zypper, depending of the DE you use you will have Gnome software, Discover for KDE … these tend to support system package, flatpak etc … for KDE Discover is also here to update widget or icons pack…
1.2 When you install flatpak you will have to add the flathub repository yes, it’s pretty trivial to do openSUSE Flathub Setup | Flathub
There is not really a single place to list all installed application except gnome software in your case you can use a app dedicated to manage only flatpak packages if you find one to install, in any cases flatpak CLI with “flatpak list” will show all app installed.
1.3 There is not a single command to update everything in one shot, usually I do a “zypper dup” when it’s done I restart my computer and then “flatpak update”, if you really want to use a GUI Gnome software should handle both.
1.4 I’m not sure, I rarely use YAST to be honest
1.5 Like said before there is no flatpak integration inside of yast, in CLI to search a package you can do “flatpak search mpv”
Concerning “zypper dup” I always use my computer while updating, been more than one year and I didn’t have breakage but it is possible that the graphical interface or terminal crash while updating so I do my update inside a screen.
The documentation simply show the safer way to update, the good news if you have a breaking update is you can rollback your system to the latest working snapshot you have ( snapshots are created automatically when updating ).
When you upgrade desktop, a screen suspension can fails and may not be able to restore the graphical session. So if you got your computer unattended, you may use a text sessión to make the upgrade. I never do that in years (but nowadays I use Tumbleweed instead).
I think you mean how install apps not in the repositories (no YaST or zypper). So the answer is the same in any Linux distro. Flatpak, Appimage or even Snap, and some applications can be distributed as binary code with our without installer.
I’m not sure what you mean with this. I use packagekit (the applet) by simplicity, but when a dependency fails I use zypper up or YaST online update. I don’t use Gnome.
Hello. Please always ask one thing per thread. As this thread is now, multiple people will answer to different questions through time and the result will be several discussions at the same time. Difficult to unravel for everybody.
Also, you now have a very general thread title that does not explain your real subject. Thus you may miss people that simply will not open such a thread because of lack of interest. But they could be there when the subject is clear.
