I’ve been an Ubuntu power user on my thinkpad T61 for over a year now, but owing to its rather terrible battery management and lack of a hibernate ability, I decided to shift to OpenSUSE 11.1.
So far, my experience has been anything but satisfactory.
The default install seems to have vim, but with no syntax highlighting, irrespective of the fact that
syntax on
is in the vimrc file or I force it in the file I’m editing. And yes, no emacs, no gcc or g++ compiler installed by default.
A beautiful kicker panel, which arbitrarily decides NOT to open up applications seemingly for the want of it. But fine, since I do most of the things from the terminal, I’ll let it slide.
The default openSUSE install lacks a build-essential package, which is oh-so-important for compiling software from source. I had to manually scurry about satisfying dependencies.
A hibernate issue for thinkpads, which I thought would’ve been sorted out on these forums (which werent ultimately), which I had to figure for myself, resumes so slowly on boot that I could reboot openSUSE twice in the time it takes to resume.
An amazing set of tp_smapi drivers for exposing the SMAPI interface for the thinkpad hardware, so amazing that THERE IS NO SMAPI folder on install.
Absolute vagaries while running firefox from the terminal. Yakuake whines about “no display specified”, when I have a grand total of ONE display on my comp. And yes, I have to run firefox from ONLY konsole and nothing else.
Video card drivers(180.27 from nVidia) which display a beautiful mosaic each time I boot up to the graphical login. No amount of modifying xorg, or going through log files seems to indicate anything. The open source nv driver doesnt support hibernate.
A support forum where it takes an average of 70 views before anyone bothers to reply to any query.
Nonexistent keyboard shortcuts barring amarok. Again, no mention of a keyboard shortcut file or anything on the forums or the web. Apparently, most people are happy without shortcuts?
Searching zypper for a package X yields no results but yast2 somehow magically finds them.
Now, I really need reasons to NOT shift to a new distro.
As a ‘power user’ you will understand that it is quite often necessary for us to work on hardware issues. Personally I always make sure development packages are installed at install - whatever distro I’m using.
I use a ThinkPad and enjoy excellent functionality.
If you want to find a Package use:
rpm -qi ‘packagename’
Searching zypper for a package X yields no results but yast2 somehow magically finds them.
Now, I really need reasons to NOT shift to a new distro.
No one’s going to give you reasons not to shift, but you may be able to get help with specific problems if you desire.
zypper is more demanding of correct syntax as far as searching for packages. The graphical yast software manager has better options for searching (by description for example).
A hibernate issue for thinkpads, which I thought would’ve been sorted out on these forums (which werent ultimately), which I had to figure for myself, resumes so slowly on boot that I could reboot openSUSE twice in the time it takes to resume.
Depends on your model. My Z60m works ok for example. Many threads and how to’s on this. You’d be better off starting a new thread for each of the problems you need help with. That way you’re more likely to get specific help from one of the guru’s around here.
Sorry to hear your missery. You probably need some reading regarding opensuse. Remember opensuse is not ubuntu, that makes the difference.
Please read more about opensuse to discover.
Sorry to hear that. However, Linux world is a free world, and you have really lots of choices.
A support forum where it takes an average of 70 views before anyone bothers to reply to any query.
I find this forum quite prompt.
Now, I really need reasons to NOT shift to a new distro.
Did you find a distro that better suits your needs, including addressing the issues that you mention?
I stick to openSUSE, because:
a) openSUSE has lots of compiled RPMs to install (I don’t like compiling from source, because, well, I’m not successful with it);
b) there’s a very good support of wireless devices;
c) KInternet offers quite a comfortable way to set up an Internet connection, and I see no such tool in other distros;
d) Yast2 is a splendid configuration utility, no analog in other distros.
Find that hard to believe. 10.3 included the standard way to generate distro rpm’s in a clean manner. Now openSUSE 11.1 has online build service built packages, so perhaps that’s not included. But OBS is a yet better solution.
Irrespective, YaST software management satisfies dependencies, and software packages ought to document the environment they rely on, making it fairly simple to install required development packages.5) An amazing set of tp_smapi drivers for exposing the SMAPI interface for the thinkpad hardware, so amazing that THERE IS NO SMAPI folder on install.
Absolute vagaries while running firefox from the terminal. Yakuake whines about “no display specified”, when I have a grand total of ONE display on my comp. And yes, I have to run firefox from ONLY konsole and nothing else.
w3m is a text browser. Firefox is a GTK+ X application, so you need to connect to an X server to run it. The DISPLAY variable is correctly set for me “:0” without me having altered my login scripts, either in Konsole, or using an ssh remote login with X support enabled.
Video card drivers(180.27 from nVidia) which display a beautiful mosaic each time I boot up to the graphical login. No amount of modifying xorg, or going through log files seems to indicate anything. The open source nv driver doesnt support hibernate.
nv driver is Xorg product, not openSUSE. If you say Ubuntu version works better, presumably an enhancement request could be made, though it’d be better if Ubuntu integrated mods upstream.
nvidia driver is NVidia proprietary product, how is that an openSUSE problem?
As for forum support and Think pad support, only a subset of users have them, so it’s unreasonable to expect instant responses. As a community distro, suggestsions and help for supporting Thinkpad better, would be appreciated.
Oh look, magically the syntax highlighting works. Whatever will they think of next.
zypper install -t pattern devel_C_C++
Not an issue here.
And once again I’ve installed it on a variety of laptops - and once again not an issue.
Are you paying us? No? snap’
I personally answer when I have the time, the patience and the energy to deal with people like you and trust me, posting whiny things like this does not motivate us to help.
If you’re using KDE4 there is an abundance of configurable hotkeys under Personal Settings > Keyboard and Mouse and then either
Standard Keyboard shortcuts
or
Global Keyboard shortcuts
As for programs whining about x display, if you’re attempting sudo <program> it will give you that, use kdesu (KDE) or gdesu (gnome) instead.
If you’re not trying to run it via sudo then it should just work.
Every problem you listed has a resolution, if you’d searched a bit, or planned a bit.
I’ll bit that if you had saved your xorg.conf file from ubuntu and used it in opensuse, your display would be fine.
As to your experience with zypp, did you really expect zypp the be just like synaptic? As others have shown, it’s not a problem with zypp, but your knowledge.
Hotkeys, also covered by another user. Again, your fault.
If the display is broken, it is impossible to run a gtk application from terminal.
Support on the forum. I’ve seen many many threads on the ubuntu forums get completely missed. Wanna throw rocks? The same problems exist in ubuntu land. It’s part of forums. Some threads get overlooked. Sometimes it tales a while? Why? Cause most of us have a life. Imagine that! This is a community forum, and we answer questions cause we want to. Not because we get paid. If a thread goes “unnoticed” its because we don’t know the answer, or haven’t gotten to it yet.
Give you a reason to stay? Absolutely not. If you want to leave, that is your choice.
I have resolved some of the issues that were plaguing the install.
But I guess Jonathan_R was right : I did fail as a power user. I guess the sudden shift from a familiar environment to another one plus my impatience to get it up and running(I had to stall all my work for this) just built up. But it’s still no excuse.
It is something that I should have done earlier, but I guess now isn’t too late : I am very sorry for that outburst. I should have been more mature for a guy who has been using linux for over a year. Heck, even the absolute beginners dont flame to the extent I did.
Of course, I still do need help on one front. Given how there are still lots of bugs to be ironed out, plus the fact that I have been programming in C/C++ over the last 4 years or so, I want to try working on the linux kernel itself, and try to be part of the solution.
I have the latest stable kernel release downloaded already (for my own experimentation i.e.) and have a few books on the basics, but could any one point me to some place where I can read up on the status of those sections of the kernel which are still quite buggy and havent been resolved yet?
Once again, terribly sorry for the angst. That said, I am a bit freaked out right now : Google generally keeps a cache of these things for 10 years, I hope my flame post doesnt get picked up by some prospective employer years down the line.
I, for one, can understand your angst. openSuse is the best distro I’ve ever run. It is also the most different from any distro I’ve ever run. It took me many days to get up to speed. I am not one to rant on a forum but I said plenty to myself until I got the hang of things. Now, it’s easier than Ubuntu for me.