Various questions & annotations to decide whether to switch from Fedora to openSUSE

English Applications
1

Hi everybody,

glad to join the community. I recently tried openSUSE and was impressed by its usability. I consider using it as my primary system (Fun-/Gentoo is great, but needed too much time, some problems with Fedora recently, which I have been using happily since Redhat 6), but I have a bunch of comments & questions, which I would truly appreciate you to briefly clarify respectively annotate. I apologise if I overlooked something, which is documented elsewhere, but I’m very busy with exams these days and made sure the answers at least weren’t obviously available to me.

Improvements and questions regarding openSUSE 11.3:
-When registering for the forum I couldn’t use a secure password. For example 5YaQ@|OLzqOGf\6B5V&>kml2&hv=J~{ was rejected.
-When installing, one will likely click too fast on the first “next” button and thus skip the first interface because the screen content is not fully loaded yet
-It would be great (and better than Fedora) if you could choose which encryption algorithm is used if the disk is fully encrypted (additional options Twofish, Serpent like in Ubuntu if I remember correctly)
-very small default /boot (used 500MB, Fedora 13 default, instead), have to set up whole LVM myself if I want to change it, almost instantly ran into problems with the default 70MB I tested before

-Btrfs works great already! But why can I select encryption? Any ideas when encryption will be possible with Btrfs and when it will be ready for productive systems?

I couldn’t find some files which are highly important to me or I found them in distant places (old 11.x repos, 1-click-installation on some unknown webpage) - this is also the reason why I posted in this forum. What are the best ways to get the following software:
##High priority
-Antivir without need for Dazuko (if installed manually it doesn’t need it), any possibility to put AVG, Avast and Bitdefender into the repos as well (Antivir has absolute priority, of course)?
-Basket for KDE4 (such a great app)
-Truecrypt (have to manually install?!, Index of /repositories/home:/illuusio/openSUSE_11.2_Update ?)
-VirtualBox PUEL instead of OSE (need USB support)
-Qalculate, R (made me a happy guy by providing Scilab!)
-autodafe, cxxtest (important!)
-kde-partitionmanager
-streamripper (just console, not kstreamripper)
-unhide, gtkhash, Snort (chkrootkit, rkhunter & lynis are in - nice!), Dansguardian
##Lower priority but still interesting:
-random stuff: blahtexml, emacs-gnuplot, emacs-proofgeneral, incollector
-BlenderCAD
-how to get miscellaneous package e.g. for octave-forge-financial
-D-Compiler wie LDC od. DMD
-Firefox addons like NoScript
-Gnomenu
-Skype
-You would really make my life easy if I could install Android SDK, JavaFX SDK & OpenCL SDK from repos… This would make you stand out from any other distribution I know of.

Why do I get so many dependecy errors (e.g. for stuff on dkukawka’s repo)? Thought the RPM dependency hell was over… Actually, with Fedora it is. Any suggestions?
If dependency error occur in YaST and I click on cancel please don’t select the package anyways

There have been several threads/howtos (e.g. Wacom Bamboo Fun on OpenSuse 11 Linux | thedevils.net & Wacom Bamboo fun - Got to be a simple way to set this up) about how to get a Wacom tablet (Bamboo Fun) to work, but I get dependency errors and messages that packages became obsolote and there is no official howto available, even though it is linked to. Could someone with a working tablet add it, please?

-Something like sandbox -X for Fedora would be highly useful (sandboxing the browser or other untrusted/endangered apps)

-Can openSUSE keep up with Fedora in terms of security?
-Is openSUSE also suitable for experts? Are all the GUIs and beginner tips just helpful for inexperienced users and comfortable additions or will they at some point constrain experienced users?

-Show what’s done (terminal) more often than plain loading bars since they contain more information (did the system crash? what’s happening right now?) or even better make it optional to switch to this view

-YaST Control Center can be opened multiple times => make singleton?

-Which community repos to add? Any conflicts between widely used repos I should know about? Can I automate importing GPG keys because otherwise I have to sit in front of my computer and hit import for quite a while?

How can I block certain incoming and outgoing ICMPs easily in SUSE?

For the future: We currently use OVFs to virtualise development environments (e.g. for Nokia devices) in VirtualBox. Can those images also be easily used in Xen? Does anybody have any experience with high performance multimedia applications in Xen (e.g. playing Crysis 2 on a virtualised Windows 7 in the near future)?

Generally:
What is the best way to migrate from LaTeX to Docbook? What are the best editors?
Can I assume that Matlab and Mathematica run fine under openSUSE?
Is LuckyBackup better than Unison?

Any subtle arguments I possibly overlooked when choosing between Fedora and openSUSE? Which one of both is best suited for a computer science & microbiology student, who doesn’t want to spend time on his OS, but who does highly specialised stuff in certain fields?

Plain stupid & freaky stuff:
Wouldn’t it be best to place the kickoff application launcher on the bottom right, because this point is reached fastest? Due to cultural constraints this would be rather unusual, but I wonder nevertheless…
Optionally other security components like RSBAC, SELinux, grsecurity (never gonna happen, but it would be cool)

If some problems should remain: I can e.g. program C/C++ with Qt, Java and several other languages. What is the best way to fix issues if they should remain after all? Who are the guys to talk to and to give suggestions to regarding openSUSE and SLES? (No time to wander through IRCs and mailing lists.)

Thank you in advance.

Best regards,
Shunyata3rd

2

Any subtle arguments I possibly overlooked when choosing between Fedora and openSUSE? Which one of both is best suited for a computer science & microbiology student, who doesn’t want to spend time on his OS, but who does highly specialised stuff in certain fields?

Matlab (not sure of versions and add-ins) does work on openSUSE. I know a Math consultant to a local university here who says he was using Matlab with openSUSE but his primary trouble comes in that keeping up with all the intertwined modules that are each under different licenses is a job unto itself so he has just switched to octave which comes complete with all the modules and no licensing restrictions. To listen to him, there is no difference in throughput.

3

Hi techwiz,

thanks for your reply. I can’t use Octave, because it differs to some extent from Matlab and since I need to cooperate with several chairs for CV it is safer to use Matlab itself. So it good to know it works. I’ll probably join the guys at some point to make Matlab obsolete, though.

The motive behind my app questions is as follows: Of course I quickly e.g. found a repo (Index of /repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Community/openSUSE_11.3/x86_64) providing basket and qalculate, but the thing is that I had to manually add it, when I added all community repos Suse knew of this one wasn’t included. Is this a bug? [Obviously, some other guys had problems with it as well, cmp. http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-help-here/applications/387525-qalculate-gtk-package-suse-11-a.html]

Other decisions I just don’t understand as well: Antivir. If I install it with Dazuko I need to disable AppArmor, which is my first line of defense against zero-days. Why would I want to sacrifice this for something as useless as on-access scanning? Is there really no Antivir in the repos, which doesn’t require this?

I don’t expect the community to answer every question in detail, but it would be very nice if you could tell me how to get the other software via repo or who to talk to in order to get it packaged [the Oracle repo probably works for VirtualBox PUEL, right?], how to block ICMP, how to get the tablet working and how to sandbox software.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Shunyata3rd

4

Why can’t I edit my post? I just wanted to add that nearly all software I requested can be found in some repo:
Index of /repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/base/openSUSE_11.3
Index of /repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Community/openSUSE_11.3/x86_64
Index of /virtualbox/rpm/opensuse/11.3/x86_64/
and I could probably live with having to use CPPUnit instead of cxxtest, but I don’t get why I have to add every single repo on download.opensuse.org. This is probably extremely easy, but how can I add all at once? Also: I got an error regarding VirtualBox from its own dedicated repo saying that it couldn’t compile the kernelmod probably since it has no kernel source. Since I’m running this virtualised already, I don’t even want to fiddle around with it. Can anybody confirm that VirtualBox with USB support runs fine?

Furthermore, I still need D compilers (they will be available in Fedora 14 and are already available as RPMs (thanks, Jon Mercier!), so keep up with it), a good fuzzing tool (like autodafe) and the other stuff. Why do I e.g. have to download Skype from their page? Does this have legal reasons? Repos are the big advantage of OSS. I want everything in one big repo since this saves a HUGE bunch of time. To which extent is this possible? To totally drift into utopia: Could Fedora and SLES one day share repos? Is the UnitedLinux idea really dead? [OK, this was actually formed against RHEL, but cooperating strategies are better as we know since Axelrod :wink: ]

5

I’m not sure why Skype ain’t available… I guess one of the reasons is since it ain’t opensource, it can’t be put on any of the OSS repos… The people at 3rd party repos like Packman might not have added the rpms for skype yet… May be we should request them to do so…

Yes many of the softwares you have requested should be available in one of the OBS repos… You can search for them here software.opensuse.org: Download openSUSE 11.3

For adding the repos you can use the command line tool zypper (equivalent of apt-get/yum)… There are commands for adding repos, exporting repos to a file and then again importing them back later and lots of other neat stuff you can do…

I have not utilized the security portion of openSUSE much as I just run it on a dumb old laptop with hardly any concern about security… :smiley:

I appreciate your enthusiasm but I think it would be easier for everyone if you could split up your questions into multiple threads/posts according to their category or something rather than making such a lengthy post - users might not usually be interested in reading such lengthy posts…

6

On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:36:02 GMT, Shunyata3rd
<Shunyata3rd@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
>Hi everybody,
>
>glad to join the community. I recently tried openSUSE and was impressed
>by its usability. I consider using it as my primary system (Fun-/Gentoo
>is great, but needed too much time, some problems with Fedora recently,
>which I have been using happily since Redhat 6), but I have a bunch of
>comments & questions, which I would truly appreciate you to briefly
>clarify respectively annotate. I apologise if I overlooked something,
>which is documented elsewhere, but I’m very busy with exams these days
>and made sure the answers at least weren’t obviously available to me.

Fine. You have a lot of questions, i can and will address some if it.
>
>Improvements and questions regarding openSUSE 11.3:
>-When registering for the forum I couldn’t use a secure password. For
>example 5YaQ@|OLzqOGf\6B5V&&gt;kml2&hv=J~{ was rejected.
I suspect that at least some of “@|&gt;~” are not legal in oS passwords.

>-When installing, one will likely click too fast on the first “next”
>button and thus skip the first interface because the screen content is
>not fully loaded yet

>-It would be great (and better than Fedora) if you could choose which
>encryption algorithm is used if the disk is fully encrypted (additional
>options Twofish, Serpent like in Ubuntu if I remember correctly)

>-very small default /boot (used 500MB, Fedora 13 default, instead),
>have to set up whole LVM myself if I want to change it, almost instantly
>ran into problems with the default 70MB I tested before
I do not normally do a seperate /boot in oS. If i did 16 MiB should
be enough.
>
>-Btrfs works great already! But why can I select encryption? Any ideas
>when encryption will be possible with Btrfs and when it will be ready
>for productive systems?
>
>I couldn’t find some files which are highly important to me or I found
>them in distant places (old 11.x repos, 1-click-installation on some
>unknown webpage) - this is also the reason why I posted in this forum.
>What are the best ways to get the following software:

>##High priority
>-Antivir without need for Dazuko (if installed manually it doesn’t need
>it), any possibility to put AVG, Avast and Bitdefender into the repos as
>well (Antivir has absolute priority, of course)?
Not understanding this “need” at all. No MS native virus can infect
Linux, asnd thus cannot be passed on by Linux. If you are running a
server for MS machines, i could see use of a email scanner then.
Application viruses may not be stopped by AVG or Avast or similar.

>-Basket for KDE4 (such a great app)

>-Truecrypt (have to manually install?!, ‘Index of
>/repositories/home:/illuusio/openSUSE_11.2_Update’
>(http://tinyurl.com/2apyqhy) ?)

>-VirtualBox PUEL instead of OSE (need USB support)
Most oS folk use the Sun Packages, as they work better.

>-Qalculate, R (made me a happy guy by providing Scilab!)
Scilab is available for oS

>-autodafe, cxxtest (important!)

>-kde-partitionmanager
Called kparted in oS

>-streamripper (just console, not kstreamripper)
Should come with it

>-unhide, gtkhash, Snort (chkrootkit, rkhunter & lynis are in - nice!),
>Dansguardian
I know snort and rkhunter are available for oS

>##Lower priority but still interesting:
>-random stuff: blahtexml, emacs-gnuplot, emacs-proofgeneral,
>incollector

>-BlenderCAD

>-how to get miscellaneous package e.g. for octave-forge-financial
May have to look outside oS repositories. Hang for a while, you might
get some pleasant surprises in what people here will do for you when
asked nicely.

>-D-Compiler wie LDC od. DMD

>-Firefox addons like NoScript
Works fine in oS, i use it. Really just a firefox issue.

>-Gnomenu
Known to be available.

>-Skype
It has successful users but the install may be arduous.

>-You would really make my life easy if I could install Android SDK,
>JavaFX SDK & OpenCL SDK from repos… This would make you stand out from
>any other distribution I know of.
Don’t know of any reason they cannot be installed, mostly a matter of
finding out how.
>
>Why do I get so many dependecy errors (e.g. for stuff on dkukawka’s
>repo)? Thought the RPM dependency hell was over… Actually, with Fedora
>it is. Any suggestions?
Personally, i do not experience dependancy hell in oS any more. It
seems to be driven by alien packages that are not well developed.

>If dependency error occur in YaST and I click on cancel please don’t
>select the package anyways
I don’t remember seeing that happen. Which version of oS are
experimenting with? Which Desktop (KDE, Gnome, xfce, tvwm, other) are
you using?
>
>There have been several threads/howtos (e.g. ‘Wacom Bamboo Fun on
>OpenSuse 11 Linux | thedevils.net’ (http://thedevils.net/node/3) &
>‘Wacom Bamboo fun - Got to be a simple way to set this up’
>(http://tinyurl.com/2cfl6qw)) about how to get a Wacom tablet (Bamboo
>Fun) to work, but I get dependency errors and messages that packages
>became obsolote and there is no official howto available, even though it
>is linked to. Could someone with a working tablet add it, please?

>
>-Something like sandbox -X for Fedora would be highly useful
>(sandboxing the browser or other untrusted/endangered apps)

>
>-Can openSUSE keep up with Fedora in terms of security?
It easily paces Fedora. Just the same there are diffrences in
approach between the two.

>-Is openSUSE also suitable for experts? Are all the GUIs and beginner
>tips just helpful for inexperienced users and comfortable additions or
>will they at some point constrain experienced users?
Not sure what you are asking here, i have turned off most of the
hinting, it is just a setting after all.
>
>-Show what’s done (terminal) more often than plain loading bars since
>they contain more information (did the system crash? what’s happening
>right now?) or even better make it optional to switch to this view
Not sure what you are asking here, on oS it is standard
troubleshooting to start a gui application from cli for the error
messages that become evident. I don’t remember seeing “progress bars”
in many cli applications either, where are you seeing them?
>
>-YaST Control Center can be opened multiple times => make singleton?
Could, as for would, who knows. Maybe just a setting anyway.
>
>-Which community repos to add? Any conflicts between widely used repos
>I should know about? Can I automate importing GPG keys because otherwise
>I have to sit in front of my computer and hit import for quite a while?
There can be, it depends on how you mix them.
>
>How can I block certain incoming and outgoing ICMPs easily in SUSE?

>
>For the future: We currently use OVFs to virtualise development
>environments (e.g. for Nokia devices) in VirtualBox. Can those images
>also be easily used in Xen?
Not from what i have read.

>Does anybody have any experience with high
>performance multimedia applications in Xen (e.g. playing Crysis 2 on a
>virtualised Windows 7 in the near future)?

>
>Generally:
>What is the best way to migrate from LaTeX to Docbook? What are the
>best editors?
I suppose you can do that if you want to, but why? How about going to
scribd instead?

>Can I assume that Matlab and Mathematica run fine under openSUSE?
Not sure about Matlab, Mathmatica in known to be available, though
maybe not for the latest versions (11.2 or 11.3)

>Is LuckyBackup better than Unison?

>
>Any subtle arguments I possibly overlooked when choosing between Fedora
>and openSUSE? Which one of both is best suited for a computer science &
>microbiology student, who doesn’t want to spend time on his OS, but who
>does highly specialised stuff in certain fields?
So far as my experience goes that bit of administration that you will
do after setup is easier in openSuse. It is the reason i moved. gEDA
is a little bit better on Fedora so i am considering dual boot again.

>
>Plain stupid & freaky stuff:
>Wouldn’t it be best to place the kickoff application launcher on the
>bottom right, because this point is reached fastest?
Mine is in the upper left corner, cause that is where i want it. You
should be able to choose from a dozen different positions in KDE in
configure desktop.

>Due to cultural
>constraints this would be rather unusual, but I wonder nevertheless…
>Optionally other security components like RSBAC, SELinux, grsecurity
>(never gonna happen, but it would be cool)
SELinux is fully supported in oS.
>
>If some problems should remain: I can e.g. program C/C++ with Qt, Java
>and several other languages. What is the best way to fix issues if they
>should remain after all? Who are the guys to talk to and to give
>suggestions to regarding openSUSE and SLES? (No time to wander through
>IRCs and mailing lists.)

OpenSuse and SLES/SLED are seperate products like Fedora and RHEL in a
very similar way. OS and SLED/SLES newsgroups/forums are seperated.
>
>Thank you in advance.
>
>
>Best regards,
>Shunyata3rd

7

There are a couple of search engines for rpms on openSUSE that you should look at:

Note that Search has search options, where its default configuration filters OUT user’s home projects, where sometimes one can find an obscure application already packaged on a user’s home project (thanks to the build service). Hence may need to change the options to get more ‘hits’ .

Note also that openSUSE-11.2 will give you a better flavour as to what is available instead of 11.3. Since 11.3 has been ‘out’ on the street for only 10 days, the packaged applications for it still lag 11.2 and the 11.3 repos are still being populated.

8

For Skype in SUSE 11.3 try this repository:
home:broumbroum23
URL: Index of /repositories/home:/broumbroum23/openSUSE_11.3
Category: YUM

For many very good legal and commercial reasons SKYPE is not OpenSource;
a) they use closed cryptographic algorithms (for your safety of communications, compare Blackberry email handsets)
b) they are a commercial for-profit organisation
c) Legal tie ins with severe non-disclosure agreements to staff.
d) company and software is a sell-able equity product. It has been and may again be a traded equity stock between different owners.

Nevertheless I have only been able to get it working by repository give above , not by downloads from Skype web site.