The things you should automate for an all user ready system

English Open Chat
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Here is all it manually takes some pain to get a really user ready system. And if you could automate it or ease it more, it would be perfect.

Repositories.
Add some of the most popular external repositories as options to add to the system with an under your own risk warning. Some of them should provide metapackages for things like full codec packs or each repository have its flagship packages/software patterns, if not available in flatpaks, to add all their main reasons to have each repo, like codecs, TeamViewer, Zoom, closed drivers by repo trademark, MegaSync, Google, etc. In the end people add repos cause some software isnt provided by the distro or flatpak hub.

Autocleaning features, applied and customizable with GUI:

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Cleanup_system

Basically all of that in a single click, or separately, with some customization. I have concatenated all those commands in a single one using &&, with my own settings. I copy and paste every now and then to the terminal. Cleanup ready. C’mon, a single click GUI program or clicks for each, with options for each -frequency, numbers, etc- and shortcuts would do. Even a single desktop icon for all would do.

Refresh and update via CLI in a single click. Like a desktop shortcut to sudo zypper refresh && sudo zypper update && flatpak update. A simple gui with progress bars and details would work too, hiding the terminal workings unless you wanna see them. Because Discover gets bugs and hangs often.

SMB configuration made easy:
Just a GUI to choose your share names and folders, users admitted, guest allowed? Yes/No. Permissions. Rw, ro, etc. Browsable? Announce? Domain group? IPs allowed?

I know YasT has advanced this but it lacks stuff as basic as: add a samba user and password. (Smbpasswd -a user), or sudo systemctl start/stop/restart smb nmb services with a click. View error logs. Configure smb port permissions in firewall with a click. (Add smb related names to pertinent firewall zones/categories). With a click or some quick options like current network setting (work/public/external, etc, by default add all that is necessary for home/work LAN sharing) And lately add AppArmor permissions for smb: I had to add all smb related apparmor entries as apparmor complains. This, do it with a click. And generate an apparmor whitelist for all your shares and auto put it in the proper file /etc/apparmor.d/local/usr.sbin.smbd-shares, with a click. All the rest advanced options for a samba share yast or smb.conf got them covered.

Option to automount your other partitions (even Windiws ntfs-3g) on startup, choose read only or read write. From installer. The following partitions have been detected, would you like them to be mounted on startup? Yes, read only or read write? Some configuring YasT tool for that if you wanna change stuff. With a click.

CapsLock fix. Startup bootstrap.sh script as user. Just a KDE autorun if you please, cause by default many linux distros have you type like this: HEllo. THis. LInux. SYstem. HAs a caps lock delay.

Software patterns for the best /most commonly used programs for most different uses. With screenshots. The user picks what or all. Pic, video, sound editors, image viewers, disc burners, music players, video players, third party platforms for games, streaming, social network messaging, etc, top web browsers, top emulators, virtualization, screen recording, screenshots, office suites, file browsers, image management, email, etc.

Do this and Linux will be ready for everyone, and then everyone can focus on bugs.

Meanwhile, getting a Linux system ready for everyone is a pain in the ass.

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There is not, and hopefully never will be, a gnu/linux setup “ready for everyone”. I might very well abhor something you see as a “no brainer”. Setting up a new gnu/linux system is always something of a “pain in the ass”, not because of poor design per se (although there is plenty of that, especially in gnome), but because of ALL THE POSSIBILITIES!

You actually have to think about what you want. But the cool part, with a little patience you can generally make it happen. You want “ready” for everyone, use android. And even in Android, there lots of options under the covers.

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There is no such thing as “all users”. You really need to hone down what kind of users will be using a box. What is best for one is not best for another.

An example: I once set up linux boxes for internet kiosks used by a shelter for troubled teens. I installed basic functionality but wrote a script to wipe the home directory on reboot and restore from a sanely-configured backup.

Another example: setting up Linux on a box for my mom, who is smart and relatively tech-savvy for her age. She was fine installing Ubuntu and manages the system herself and says it is actually easier to manage and maintain than MacOS.

Another example: a company I worked for set up OpenSUSE for a corporate client on their desktops, trained the staff in using it, and provided support at a rate that was cheaper than support offered by SUSE Enterprise Linux. It worked fine for them and the amount of headaches they had was slightly less than our clients running Windows.

I have never encountered the CapsLock delay and I’ve run many different linuces, different distros on different architectures, including some very slow, older boxes. And I type over 100wpm. Is that a bug that only comes up under specific circumstances?

If you want certain features added, you can get involved in projects as a developer. I once was frustrated that the TCP/IP configuration dialogue was broken in Wine and ReactOS, so I went in and fixed it myself, and I fixed it not only for myself but for everyone, and while I was at it, I cleaned the code up making it much leaner. The beauty of Open Source is that sometimes you can even just do an isolated little thing like that, fixing or implementing a specific function, without necessarily taking on ongoing responsibilities.

So instead of posting about what you want someone else to do, how about you get networked into the project you want to see improved, and then do the work yourself?

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As a biologist with no professional training in computer engineering, I don’t know how to code, I don’t understand shell scripting, and I don’t understand much about programming or development other than ./configure make make install.

I’m just a Linux enthusiast with some ideas for fixing the Linux desktop from all my years trying it. I know a thing or two about Linux, can set up a system, do some networking, install software, repositories, configure it as I have to, cause I don’t really like configuring everything manually, it’s more like I have to, in order to use Linux.

And what I mean is not to set all those features as default for everyone, but to provide the way to automate them and simplify them as much as possible, for anyone willing to use them. Like the case of external repositories: I propose to make them available as options, not enable them by default. Or the smb config, provide easy GUI ways to start it up, and have some “firewall presets” for common use, like mixed work or home environments, not enable it by default.

I mean, just ease things, the less you have to directly type into the UNIX console, the easier your system is for a desktop user, since text consoles are not really modern desktop environments, and yet most Linux OSs have to be configured up to the most basic stuff, with consoles.

I understand now that changes have to be done by developer-users themselves. But I tried providing suggestions.

Maybe the CapsLock bug only affects non english keyboards? It’s quite common on the web. Anyway, that was my take on it.

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There seems to be some basic understanding problems.

So you suggest that openSUSE adds hundreds over hundreds of untested external repo definitions? Because that is the minimum amount of external repositories. How about copyright, license, liability for damages, and so on? Seems this is not thought trough really well…

Thats what firewall zones are for…and the YaST firewall module.

Non english keyboard here. Never heard of a CapsLock “bug” before…

With a little bit of self organization (like keeping notes of your settings, keeping the same settings and patterns between different machines, …), it takes not more than half or up to an hour to fire up a fully configured linux system for standard use like file sharing, networking, browsing, gaming, email, office and much more.

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Again, did you really think over this? Jut about a few of them:

  • /tmp is by default on tmpfs, so why bother?
  • purge-kernels is run on boot by default, so why bother?
  • I doubt that RPMs are left stored in the system when not downloading them separately. And in the latter case one possibly did this to use them more then once, so it is the responsibility if the system manager then to remove them.

In my opinion the developers have thought about all these already and have provided default solutions that will fit many of the users without them worrying to much.

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I agree and it is one of the things I most like about opensuse distributions. The default install leaves you with a sanely configured ready to use system. And yast makes tweaking those defaults much easier than tweaking distributions like debian (which is a GREAT system), that don’t even enable the firewall by default.

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Well to this day I dont understand which particular zones must have smb instances added, and which of the three smb instances must be added where, for it to work, so I added them to all those I saw were permissive, probably overkill. A button, option really, that one chooses to click or not, to auto add it to some proper preselected default zones for it to work right out the box if the user says yes, would be fine.

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Yast (as an installer, including the pre-configured defaults) certainly has room for improvement. I don’t remember if smb is automatically in the “home” or “public” zones. If it was, then I removed it as I don’t have any windows devices on the network. You only need smb (whether one, or all three) in the zone(s) you actually use. I think the default zone after install is public, but I always change the default zone, whatever it may be, to “home” simply because my box lives in my home.

The first samba, called appropriately enough “samba”, probably means “Samba Server”, which will allow you to share directories to the network. It probably allows you to share printers as well, but I I have not played around with samba for years and I don’t necessarily trust my own memory. The second, “samba-client”, will allow you to access resources shared by other devices on the network. The third, “samba-dc”: I have NO idea!

It strikes me as a bit excessive, as well a little confusing, to have eleven pre-defined zones. But it certainly doesn’t hurt anything!

If I have one real gripe about the default install, it is that raid checking is scheduled weekly. Seems like overkill! The upstream “default” is once a month. Easy enough to change, but a little tricky if you don’t know systemd well, and I certainly do not.

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About firewall “zones” and their name: Network Scanning [Sane/Lexmark] - #17 by hcvv , post #17.

BTW @afoh , this is in Open Chat, thus not a part of the forums to get serious technical advice.
If you have questions about firewall managing, you better start a topic in the Networking part of the forums with a nice defined question.

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This is from a copy paste of this post I made at reddit.

Basically someone said all Linux shouldnt be that much GUI/point n click based, but that its strength was commands.

So it goes…

ProudNeandertal

And if everyone thought like you, all we would have is Windows and Mac. I’m not running a “noob-friendly” distro. But I managed to swap DEs, connect to my Windows desktop, and carry on routine maintenance with fairly little difficulty. I don’t have a CS degree or programming skills, I’m a regular blue-collar guy. Linux is not that complicated. And there are already plenty of options for grandma-proof distros. We don’t need to make point-n-click the standard.

Me:

Evidently you havent realized how tiresome typing commands frantically and intensively can get when you need advanced features or customization. In Linux Mint I had no need to type commands to get my system up as I like it. In openSUSE I had to, and it’s not like theyre not trying to make it better, they have YasT system configuration, which is graphic, but not as efficient as you might like, which is why I tried with this post to push for it to be more like it intends to be (efficient and graphical), and less complicated, which is within its reach, but after many errors in Tumbleweed I ended going back to Linux Mint, which is as easy as a potato, but my intention was for openSUSE to get better at what it was trying to do, midway between easy graphical and powerful advanced. I dont see much hope for it anyway, with parent company SUSE forcing them to change their brand away from the company name, and seemingly with new updates breaking even YasT (and Leap without much of a future). Cant say I didnt try. Ill save it for when I can make my own distro and remember all these shortcomings and high points of all distros (if ever at all)…

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You’re free to echo your views here - it is open chat after all. However, if you want to make suggestions/requests about distro improvements, then you need to make such communication with the developers directly, and they don’t reside here. Refer to the ‘Release Team’ link in the left hand panel of our forum.

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Pal, just wanted to echo those comments, Im not in openSUSE anymore. As much as I liked the general feel and wanted it to work efficiently it just didnt work for me. Tumbleweed kept crashing, failing, getting stuck dealing with files, updating, new bugs every couple of weeks. And long before that I had a couple of getting stuck issues with Leap, which felt like being stuck. Good luck with the project but I quit.

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I’m not your pal. Close the door on your way out. :wink:

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