“In a fairly short time, Novell has transformed itself from a firm that had next to nothing to do with Linux into one of the Penguin’s most visible and aggressive flag-bearers. For evidence of this metamorphosis, we need look no further than Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, which breaks ground in the client operating system territory that Linux leader Red Hat has so far opted scarcely to tread. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, or SLED, is the most polished Linux client operating system we’ve yet tested, and well-deserving of our Analyst’s Choice designation.”
“In a fairly short time, Novell has transformed itself from a firm that had next to nothing to do with Linux into one of the Penguin’s most visible and aggressive flag-bearers. ”
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/fds/hi/business/market_data/shar…
“In a fairly short time, Novell has transformed itself from a firm that had next to nothing to do with Linux into one of the Penguin’s most visible and aggressive flag-bearers. “
I modded you back up by one point simply because this is the truth – however much some people don’t seem to like it. At the end of the day, improving financial results, confidence and their stock price was what moving to Linux was all about for Novell, and there’s no sign of it happening.
Although SLED is fashionable and flavour of the month, the money that keeps them afloat still comes from Netware users and their Netware market is infinitely bigger than anything they can hope to create with Linux. They need to keep these people happy – but they’re not. They’re even going so far as to not reply to or moderate comments left on some of their sites from customers telling them what to do. A company that cannot listen to, and deletes, criticism from the people who matter most is not a sign of a company that is going anywhere.
You should tell your friends about eclipse. It supports windows, linux and mac osx. It supports a huge amount of languages, much more than visual studio. For example java, c, c++, php, ruby.
SLED uses RPM, therefore, Windows users will not love it.
APT FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve used apt, I’ve used rpm’s… And you know what?
It just doesn’t matter anymore.
SuSE’s RPM system is just as good at resolving dependencies as apt is.
At least I have yet to run into an instance where YaST wanted to upgrade my kernel because I wanted to install a perl module…
Yes, .deb/APT for the win
I wish they’d do a more consumer orientated release. Not going to buy/rent it if it’s completely subscription based.
I wish they’d do a more consumer orientated release. Not going to buy/rent it if it’s completely subscription based.
They did. It’s called SUSE 10.1, and the next version will be called OpenSUSE 10.2.
That’s not quite the same thing. It can be made to resemble it. Though I understand what you’re saying.
SLED uses RPM, therefore, Windows users will not love it.
I doubt that apt, yum, smart or any other package download system that they need to start from the command line will impress windows users. Sure there is synaptic but that is far to complex for non expert users.
Most windows users are not aware of the advantages of a package management system where you download your software from more or less quality controlled repositories. They want to find their software on the internet, download it to their computer, and then double click on it to install. This is at least what we are told by most journalists with Windows experience that try to evaluate Linux.
As for RPM vs APT, you are comparing apples to oranges.
Comparing RPMs to the actual debian packages would be more appropriate as neither have any network capabilites such as those available in APT, YaST, Yum, Smart,… BTW, you can actually use APT to handle RPMs.
I think that the main reason for the good reputation of APT compared that of RPMs in the past have more to do with that only one distro used APT, while RPMs were used by many distros. That meant that if you got hold of a deb, you could be sure that it did fit your debian distro, while if you had an RPM you needed to make sure that it was built for your distro.
This advantage is currently going away as we now have Ubuntu and other distros that use slightly different versions of debian.
All in all, the problem is not in the packaging or downloading system. The problem is different distros chose to package different software and patchset using the same package names, and that the packages install it at slightly different locations.
LSB have improved the situation, but there is still a lot that is not covered by LSB, and that causes the problems if you happen to use a package from another distro, even if the packaging format is the same.
Edited 2006-08-07 21:41
Dead on…almost.
“As for RPM vs APT, you are comparing apples to oranges.
Comparing RPMs to the actual debian packages would be more appropriate as neither have any network capabilites such as those available in APT, YaST, Yum, Smart,… BTW, you can actually use APT to handle RPMs.”
You can feed a URL to an RPM directly to rpm and it will download and install. If a dependency is available within the current working directory on the system, or the directory you’re downloading from, it will pull that in too.
Most windows users are not aware of the advantages of a package management system where you download your software from more or less quality controlled repositories. They want to find their software on the internet, download it to their computer, and then double click on it to install. This is at least what we are told by most journalists with Windows experience that try to evaluate Linux.
As a Windows user, here’s the problem I have have with the ‘quality controlled repositories’ .. it seems that they always have about 8 million apps on hand, except for the one I happen to be looking for at any given time. And if they do have it, it’s often times out of date. Sure, you can dick around with repositories and try other tricks (I here some people involve voodoo and live chickens in this process), but by the time I do all that, I could’ve just as easily downloaded the f**king thing from the app’s website. I mean, you guys make it sound so easy .. “Yeah, just run Synaptic and pick.” But then if I say what if I want such-and-such app, then you say “Oh, well just edit this config file and then go to the command-line and type …” WRONG!!! Sorry, you lose. Either it’s easy or it isn’t.
You guys have the right idea with the whole package management thing, but the excution is flawed. You’ve got all these distros basically re-inventing the wheel by keeping their own repositories. Of course, there’s autopackage, but that’s going completely in the wrong direction. I mean, you’ve got the ODF standard for office documents, so why not have a PMS (Package Management Standard) for packages? It would have all the binaries/sources and such in a single .pms file, along with corresponding XML files (or whatever) that describe the data therein, what the real name and version of the app is (in case distros want to change it), where to find dependencies, and so on. That way, every distro’s package manager could be written around this standard, so you’d have to download only one package and have it work in every distro that supports that standard. I
Is it me, or does this solution just make too much sense?
Yea, and lets have just vanilla milkshakes. I mean they are all milkshakes, why bother having hardees, mcdonalds and others making them. Why bother having different flavors and so forth.
Oh yea, I know because my favorite isn’t your favorite. How cool is linux to offer you your favorite and offer me my favorite. Very….
Yea, and lets have just vanilla milkshakes. I mean they are all milkshakes, why bother having hardees, mcdonalds and others making them. Why bother having different flavors and so forth.
Oh yea, I know because my favorite isn’t your favorite. How cool is linux to offer you your favorite and offer me my favorite. Very….
The old “don’t take away my choice”, when nobody is taking away choice. You people need to come up with new lines and new analogies.
Of course the current situation is perfect for everybody. Don’t say it isn’t. Don’t dissent….until something new comes along and “that was a problem in the past”.
So typical.
And to be realistic about the situation, repackaged software and a different installer isn’t much “choice”. It’s all the same, but packaged up differently enough to be incompatible in subtle ways.
Choice is Linux, xBSD, Windows, OSX. If you want choice, develop a new operating system on top of the linux kernel.
If you want choice, develop a new operating system on top of the linux kernel.
There already are lots of operating systems based on Linux. We call them Linux “distributions”, but they’re really a bunch of different operating systems that happen to use the same kernel.
[QUOTE]
“Yeah, just run Synaptic and pick.” But then if I say what if I want such-and-such app, then you say “Oh, well just edit this config file and then go to the command-line and type …” WRONG!!! Sorry, you lose. Either it’s easy or it isn’t.
[/QUOTE]
Then I say: go to adept, manage repositories, enable the universe/multiverse… or any repo you want… No “manually editing” of /etc/apt/sources.list is needed, what year do you live in?
There is a reason why some repos are disabled by default, it can breake your system, or can be illegal, the same goes for other binaries Mark Shuttleworth has explained it often why binary compatibility isn’t necesary or even wanted: it’s too fricking easy to become binary incompatibility. And well just face it, open source has the advantage of compiling it from source, why bother with the problems proprietary companies face.
Is it me, or would you like to introduce problems proprietary/closed source software developers face to the open source world? No thank you for me there.
Is it me, or would you like to introduce problems proprietary/closed source software developers face to the open source world? No thank you for me there.
Like what, having their installs work 99% of the time? Look, I’m not proposing a binary-only package-management standard here. Obviously, the standard would include rules for both source and binary packages, so that people can have their cake and eat it too. Then, once there’s a standard described for the packages, you could use a CLI package manager, GUI, web-based, or whatever you want.
People understand the importance of standards when it comes to things like document formating, video codecs, etc. Why packages are excluded from this mentality is beyond me.
You said something about binary incompatability. I assume by that you mean that binaries would be incompatable across Linux distros. In that case, I’d say that is a problem all its own. I guess Linux isn’t really Linux afterall, but instead a lot of ‘Linux-like’ operating systems that are incompatable with each other, unless you stick with source-only packages. I know that in the Stallmanites’ utopian society, this is the ideal solution. But in the real world, people also need binary packages, so the system should work equally well for both.
Look, I’m not proposing a binary-only package-management standard here. Obviously, the standard would include rules for both source and binary packages, so that people can have their cake and eat it too.
I’m sorry, but I fail to see what access to source packages has to do with the method used for software distribution and installation. You can have binary-only apt/rpm repositories. It’s also relatively easy for commercial software vendors to set to either provide debs/rpms for the main distros or use one of the many standalone installers for Linux (usually with statically-linked libs, which is what Windows does anyway unless I’m mistaken).
You said something about binary incompatability. I assume by that you mean that binaries would be incompatable across Linux distros. In that case, I’d say that is a problem all its own. I guess Linux isn’t really Linux afterall, but instead a lot of ‘Linux-like’ operating systems that are incompatable with each other, unless you stick with source-only packages. (emphasis mine)
I think you went a bit too easily from supposition to affirmation here. The truth is that Linux binaries are in fact compatible across distros. Incompatibiliy (rarely) arise when binaries require libraries of a certain type, and/or that are in certain places. This will mostly affect older binaries, and statically-linked apps are of course not affected by this at all. It has nothing to do with binary incompatibility.
I know that in the Stallmanites’ utopian society, this is the ideal solution.
I consider such attempts at threadjacking to be both insulting and off-topic. Down you go.
But in the real world, people also need binary packages, so the system should work equally well for both.
It does.
Edited 2006-08-08 05:38
Is it me, or does this solution just make too much sense?
It makes sense, and that’s why you can count on it never happening in NIHS land.
Is that
National Institute of Health Sciences
or
National Intercollegiate Horse Show?
because i’m confused.
For projects producing software which hasn’t made it into repositories yet it would be great if everyone could start using Autopackage, it works surprisingly well in most situations.
http://autopackage.org/
It’s just a shame that it’s not commonly used. Another solution, especially for games, is to make use of an installer like that provided by Loki, go take a look at the http://www.tremulous.net/ installer for a demo. Oh, and then there’s always Google Earth http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html with its nice graphical installer.
It’s just a shame that it’s not commonly used. Another solution, especially for games, is to make use of an installer like that provided by Loki, go take a look at the http://www.tremulous.net/ installer for a demo. Oh, and then there’s always Google Earth http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html with its nice graphical installer.
I thought GE was using the Loki installer?
It may well be but it’s a lot nicer to look at than most other users of it, oh, and it works with modern *nix Desktops, putting icons in the right place.
To comment on the Last Paragraph of your response.
You guys have the right idea with the whole package management thing, but the excution is flawed. You’ve got all these distros basically re-inventing the wheel by keeping their own repositories. Of course, there’s autopackage, but that’s going completely in the wrong direction. I mean, you’ve got the ODF standard for office documents, so why not have a PMS (Package Management Standard) for packages? It would have all the binaries/sources and such in a single .pms file, along with corresponding XML files (or whatever) that describe the data therein, what the real name and version of the app is (in case distros want to change it), where to find dependencies, and so on. That way, every distro’s package manager could be written around this standard, so you’d have to download only one package and have it work in every distro that supports that standard.
Clearly you have not seen PCBSD (Yes I know its not linux, but thats not the specific point here) PBI “technology.” It is almost exactly what you have described here. Essentially in a very very basic way, PBI’s for PCBSD or what .exe’s are for Windows.
If you check out their forums (Not sure if its on the first page, but a search will find you it) there are many in the PCBSD community that want and are pushing for PBI’s to be a standard in the BSD community, and hopefully spread to the Linux one as well.
Edited 2006-08-08 02:57
“As a Windows user, here’s the problem I have have with the ‘quality controlled repositories’ .. it seems that they always have about 8 million apps on hand, except for the one I happen to be looking for at any given time.”
Hm, true:
root@alpha:/home/joe# apt-get install photoshop
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
E: Couldn’t find package photoshop
root@alpha:/home/joe#
Damned!
Sigh, first I’d like you to recomend aptitude instead of apt-get since the former deals with removing dependencies better than the latter.
Second it’s up to the copyright owner of photoshop to create linux binaries. You can’t expect things to be in a repository that are not available.
Sigh, first I’d like you to recomend aptitude instead of apt-get since the former deals with removing dependencies better than the latter.
And how is that going to help him in this context?
Second it’s up to the copyright owner of photoshop to create linux binaries. You can’t expect things to be in a repository that are not available.
The point is that if a third party does release some software and provide a package, you can’t expect them to try and get it available to every third party repository under the sun. A user needs a sane way of popping in a disc and installing it. If that can’t be done, forget it.
All in all, the problem is not in the packaging or downloading system. The problem is different distros chose to package different software and patchset using the same package names, and that the packages install it at slightly different locations.
LSB have improved the situation, but there is still a lot that is not covered by LSB, and that causes the problems if you happen to use a package from another distro, even if the packaging format is the same.
I still think there’s a packaging problem. In fact, I think the conary packaging system http://wiki.rpath.com/wiki/Conary deals with some of the problems with current packaging.
In theory, we should be able to have really fine-grained packaging and be able to grab a package from anywhere and have our package management system find the fine-grained versioned libraries from anywhere, install them, and be done with it (possibly in a distributed manner). This could also free up resources for downstream distributors if upstream developers would provide packages and upload them to a central repository and mirrors.
Of course, this is all organizational issues though and the problem with having all these distros doing their own thing (the same thing), but in an incompatible way.
Too much NIHS in desktop linux land, and another reason why I don’t believe with the current situation it’ll ever be anything more than niche market status.
thats why i find gobolinux interesting.
sure it got this “strange” file-system-as-package-manager thing going, but it can grab and mix source and binary package at the drop of a hat
Compared to ports they both suck.
RPM doesn’t suck as long as you use a good package manager such as YUM (which doesn’t ship with SuSE, ok).
Actually it’s in SUSE Linux 10.1,
kyum-0.7.5-17.i586.rpm
yum-2.4.2-13.i586.rpm
yumex-0.44.1-13.noarch.rpm
yum-utils-0.3.1-14.noarch.rpm
kyum-0.7.5-17.x86_64.rpm
yum-2.4.2-13.x86_64.rpm
SLED 10 – 1yr-subscription $46
SLED 10 – 3yr-subscription $107
SLED 10 – media-kit-1yr-subscription $30
Welcome to real world of business. Why average joe should abondon preinstalled XP (paid $90) and buy another SLED10 for $76(with media)??? I can’t find reasons to do that.
All that linux is more secure BS, won’t fit into financials of penny pincing business, with properly secured XP with free AV, FW and AS softwares available.
Now this is SLED10 for average joe or business enterprize, I will have tough time to convince to my boss to throw out XP and replace SLED10, not a financially wise decision..
SLED 10 – 1yr-subscription $46
SLED 10 – 3yr-subscription $107
SLED 10 – media-kit-1yr-subscription $30
Welcome to real world of business. Why average joe should abondon preinstalled XP (paid $90) and buy another SLED10 for $76(with media)??? I can’t find reasons to do that.
All that linux is more secure BS, won’t fit into financials of penny pincing business, with properly secured XP with free AV, FW and AS softwares available.
Now this is SLED10 for average joe or business enterprize, I will have tough time to convince to my boss to throw out XP and replace SLED10, not a financially wise decision..
You are comparing apples (no, not you mac users 😉 ) with oranges. Comparing pre installed vs normal retail.
You can get SLED10 preinstalled as well and i dont think you will pay around $50 for it. This software is not ment for Joe, but for companies that want support.
Edited 2006-08-07 21:27
This software is not ment for Joe, but for companies that want support.
hence the Enterpise part in the name
This software is not ment for Joe, but for companies that want support.
Which is why he was talking about a business.
He’s right though. Why bother paying the same, or possibly more over a period of time, for SLED as Windows XP? As I’ve stated many times over many, many months now, distributors are going to have to find new ways of making money rather than selling software licenses in all but name. Although it gets many people excited, SLED isn’t going to amount to a hill of beans in terms of usage.
Edited 2006-08-08 08:34
All that linux is more secure BS, won’t fit into financials of penny pincing business, with properly secured XP with free AV, FW and AS softwares available.
How much does it cost your average business, especially your average small business, to deal with maintaining Windows boxes and keeping the AV, FW, and AS software managerie working and up-to-date? A $107 copy of SLED10 pays for itself if it saves a $30/hr employee just one hour every year. At our office, I’ve seen $100/hr contractors wasting hours dealing with Windows networking brain-damage, and its a very ugly sight indeed.
>SLED 10 – 1yr-subscription $46
>SLED 10 – 3yr-subscription $107
>SLED 10 – media-kit-1yr-subscription $30
Microsoft Windows XP Professional X64 Edition Single Pack – OEM – $139.99 (Newegg)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2 3-Pack – OEM – $409.99 (Newegg)
So Rakamaka : Who are you kidding here? Expect MS Vista to hit the shelves at no less than XP Pro currently retails for and SLED 10 all of a sudden seems like a bargain.
Remember that XP is an old product, and when Vista finally ships it is lacking almost all of the features that were previously announced (and later left out).
I am entirely OS agnostic and have been running OpenSuse 10.1 as my only laptop/desktop system for three months, and there is absolutely zero chance that Microsoft will have me shell out a single dollar for Vista in the next 3-5 years.
The single, one thing missing from switching our entire (R&D) company over to Linux on the desktop is a proper developer environment (All my guys, regardless of Linux/MS preferrence claim that VS 2005 has no equal in the Linux world. Really too bad).
Nice, now I have to replace my preinstalled XP desktop with preinstalled SLED10?? and how much it cost me? probably $400 minumum? and where do I get it? at BB, CC, Frys…..?
and after paying $400 for preinstalled SLED, Joe is not sure about playing media files, wireless, scaners, camera…
or Joe should spend $1000 for preinstalled SLED + linux compatible peripherals???
On behalf of everyone reading your “comments”, who the hell is Joe? Please let him post his own comments.
O right…you’re just being an ass.
He’s talking about me, a Joe User who never used anything else than Windows. Only PC-BSD is listening to people like me who don’t want to bother typing a line of code, using YaST or Synaptic. Just do it the simple way: Download your application, double-click setup.exe and that’s it. Why do you want to reinvent the wheel? People like me don’t like changes. Windows and a good anti-virus is the way to go for me. I have nothing against you guys using Linux, but it’s still too complicated for me. I don’t like to read docs either.
1. I have no problems with giving SUSE props, but was the cheap shot at RedHat (that didn’t really make any sense) necessary?
2. Maybe it’s just me but I sense a disturbance in the force everytime I read an article about Linux whose page ends in .asp
Give ordinary people OpenSUSE 10.1 instead of SLED 10.
I mean the 8 GB edition. But they’ll need to create re-spins (like the ones available for Fedora)
Why OpenSUSE and why re-spins?
Simple. OpenSUSE has a lot more to offer to home users, especially with the addition of apt and the apt repositories (of course people coming from Windows will need to learn)
Re-spins because, by SUSE developers own admission, OpenSUSE 10.1 was released with serious bugs.
I just have to comment on the respin idea. I think SL 10.1. should really be re-released. The new package manager family (libzypp/ZMD/ZEN/RUG/YAST) is still really buggy and slow.
Should opensuse release respin isos?
-Yes they should
Why?
– because the package handling in goldmaster isos is totally broken. ZEN crashes. RUG can’t read data from YAST. Yast is slow and buggy. Zen-updater doesn’t work. Downloading/using delta-rpms (patches) doesn’t work either. Online update during installation is also somewhat buggy. It works on most cases, but not every time.
Ok, will we get respin isos?
– NO
Why?
– “there will be no new ISOs with fixed package manager. People should use the online update during installation or YOU (if the OS is already installed) – this has been tested and it works. ”
Big thanks to Novell!
Basically they said that, the new toys don’t work and we wont get new isos.
To solve the problems one must update all broken packages with broken package handler???
“Basically they said that, the new toys don’t work and we wont get new isos.
To solve the problems one must update all broken packages with broken package handler???”
Exactly! Plus “boot and repair your installed system from CD” is broken. That used to be one of the finest SUSE features, one no other OS had.
“”This software is not ment for Joe, but for companies that want support.”
hence the Enterpise part in the name”
On this note, remember that businesses typically have support costs, so you would need to compare the yearly support costs of Windows to SLED’s subscription costs to have a valid comparison.
For home users, openSUSE would be more fitting, and compared to the ‘$90’ of WinXP, you can get openSUSE free. Thus the price comparisons aren’t justifiable.
[offtopic]And for all the people using the ‘apples to oranges’ I have to point out that apples and oranges are actually quite comparable: ttp://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume1/v1i3/air-1-3-apple s.html[/offtopic]
Novell SUSE is just plain good.
If I hadn’t also decided to try Ubuntu. I used Gentoo faithfully and loyally for about two years until recently when I finally said “this is enough”. I needed a desktop system that just worked as I simply don’t have the time anymore to constantly keep my system from falling apart. And yes, simple upgrades would make for some serious upgrades across the board w/ Gentoo…the quality just seems to be declining in some areas.
Anyhow, I installed openSuSE for a relative who had just bought a nice graphics card and wanted to try XGL. They loved it but I was left w/ the same old SuSE taste in my mouth after using it; it’s sloooooooooow. YaST is just slow…and I’m picky – I just don’t like the QT look and feel when using Gnome. I’ve never liked RPM and always wondered, why bother?
Recently I upgraded the hardware on my Toshiba Satellite laptop and thought, what the hell, let’s see what all the Ubuntu hype is about. My jaw hit the floor when I discovered how well it worked w/ *all* of my hardware, including my PCMCIA wifi card…it just *works*! My special keys *just work*!! I couldn’t get this experience w/ SuSE on the same machine…the wifi never quite worked right and was a pain to setup. The post-install steps for SuSE were *far* more tedious and troublesome and less impressive once they did work…and the performance wasn’t nearly as good as I’m seeing w/ Ubuntu.
Having said that, SuSE would probably be my desktop distro if Ubuntu didn’t exist…it’s not *bad*…just not as good.
I have a “meh”/hate relationship with Synaptic. About 50% of the time I’ve gotten it to work the way it’s supposed to. There are things about it that I think are interesting, but I don’t think the whole is the sum of the parts.
I run U/Xubuntu on my PowerBook Pismo. I love ‘buntu. I respect Canonical’s stand about defaulting to only “pure” OSS in the standard repositories.
What I don’t frikkin like is going in and enabling all the multiverse repositories (and this is not something that’s obvious to a noob; I had to ask, people HAVE to ask all the time in the ‘buntu forums about where to go to do this.) And I *still* can’t find a program I know is out there and is *supposed* to be in the repository. Like Opera.
Now, here’s what I like about the Windows/Mac go to the site, download and make with the double clicky method of install:
If software is withdrawn by the “vendor” or forced to go away by the RIAA? I still have a copy on my harddrive that I can ether/sneakernet to another machine.
Or, if, for some reason I need to uninstall and reinstall a program (perhaps going back to an older version of the program because the newest doesn’t work) or maybe something’s screwed up so much that I need to wipe the machine and start all over. Guess what, I don’t need to re-download all the software (and say I need older versions no longer avalible on-line?). I still have all the versions saved in my downloads folder.
Or, say I really need to reinstall a program I downloaded but my ISP has gone down? I go to my “downloads” folder and make with the double clicky.
Say a friend of mine has need of several programs I’ve downloaded but they get the internet via a 56k drip and don’t want wait a very long time to download and install. I burn the downloaded install files to a disk and take it over.
Using only Synaptic, if a download of Opera 9.01 borks up my machine, I don’t really have an obvious easy way of going back to Opera 9. (Do I even have a stand alone .deb of Opera 9? Is there a way to get the older version via synaptic?)
Also, synaptic installs stuff and I have almost NO IDEA WHERE. (Not everything has always ended up in /usr/bin.)
Here at work (XP Pro) and home (OS X except for the ‘buntu machine) I know where the programs I’ve installed are because I. Put. Them. There.
Opera is in my applications folder. How do I know this? Because I dragged the frelling thing there.
Here at work Opera is in my d:/programs/opera and m:/programs/opera folders. How do I know? Because I created those folders and that’s where I told the OS to put Opera there upon install.
On my Xubuntu laptop Opera is probably in /usr/bin, but I’m not certain because the OS never deigned to ask me where I want to install the program, nor did it bother to let me know where it finally put it.
Is there a way to get the older version via synaptic?
Yes there is. Select the package, then go to Package –> Force Version (or hit Ctrl-E). Of course, you need access to a repository with the previous version.
That said, why not just download and install the Ubuntu .deb directly from Opera’s website? There are “standalone” debs for versions 8.52, 8.54, 9.0 and 9.01.
http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?step=2&opsys=Linux%20i3…
You’re welcome.
Actually, baring one case I’ve always had to go to the Opera site and download the .deb file because Synaptic couldn’t find the damn thing. I have all my Opera .deb files.
Anyhow, that once instance of installing Opera via Synaptic was all it took for me to *not* like it for anything except updates to things like the behind the scenes system files and the kernel — stuff I’m not going to touch any way.
I installed it and an icon did not get put in my Applications menu and … then I had to go find Opera, which was a PITA because for some reason the program did not get installed in /usr/bin.
What do you need to know where it’s been installed for?
For the opera stuff, they have a new commercial repo, but it’s not in the standard dapper drake since it’s quite new, it contains opera:
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu dapper-commercial main
For the opera stuff, they have a new commercial repo, but it’s not in the standard dapper drake since it’s quite new, it contains opera:
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu dapper-commercial main
And if you go to the Ubuntu forums, you will find several threads asking *why* Opera wasn’t showing up in Synaptic, even though the poster had read the instructions and clicked all the correct repositories.
Then we discovered the repositiory contains only the x86 version of Opera. (I downloaded and installed my copy by hand. [See note below])
But I think you can imagine how confusing and frustrating this was for newcomers who were DOING EXACTLY WHAT THEY HAD BEEN TOLD TO DO and not getting the results they had been told they would get.
Really, why can’t we have a go out, download it, make with the double clicky install across the board?
—
As an aside, when I downloaded Opera 9 on Xubuntu, by force of habit I made with the double clicky. An. Installer. Opened. (It even told me the names of two libraries I was missing and needed.) I almost fell over from shock. Gnome has never done this for me. It must be unique to Thunar.
Because of this (despite a few other rough edges in the file manager) Team Thunar has my undying love.
Somebody else already addressed some of your points earlier on this thread but his answer was too RPM specific and since you´re talking about Ubuntu and its derivatives here, I would like to add to his answer (even though I don´t use Ubuntu, but I think that it applies nonetheless).
First, you expressed a concern about keeping the files on your harddrive so that you can reinstall everything from scratch without having to download everything again. Well, Debian allows one to do it (I´m using this term loosely here as I think that it will apply to Ubuntu and most Debian-based distros). All that you have to do is to save the content of /var/apt/cache. Everything that Synaptic/apt/aptitude download is put in there with its dependencies included.
You also said you really need to know where is a given program. You can do that fairly easy by typing which opera (as on your example) on the console. The result will give you its path on the system as long as its is on $PATH (as it should be for an application). If you need more information than that, you can always query the package manager about it:
$ dpkg -l | grep -i opera
$ dpkg -L opera-whatever-version-here-gave-on-previous-step
Probably the GUI utilities for package management will provide a way to query this. I know for instance that KPackage does it, which leads me to another of your issues.
I don´t use GNOME that much and has been a while since the last time that I played with XFCE, but as far as KDE is concerned, if you have KPackage installed, Konqueror automatically associate Debian packages MIME-Type to it, so that all that you have to do it is give a single click on the package. If you´re running on a non priviledged account, it´s going to popup the dialog box asking for your root password (here I think that Ubuntu won´t ask anything) and then present you the options to verify and then install the package if you wish so.
Edited 2006-08-08 18:38
Why would you want to know where it was installed? And if you do, what is wrong with ‘locate’? Or failing that you can search for synaptic FAQS and find easily (second page I looked at) things like this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto#head-c8d5807914fa3c4…
take a note of section 9.
Oh, and what is it that has stopped you from keeping a folder of all the downloaded .debs if you’re really worried about having to reinstall at a later date.
Why would you want to know where it was installed? And if you do, what is wrong with ‘locate’?
First off, use of ‘locate’ is nowhere near user transparent.
I wasn’t even aware of it until Asyiu (nice guy at the Ubuntuforums) showed me how to use it when stupid Synaptic couldn’t find Opera. (Turns out my upgrade from 5.10 to 6.06 had gotten massively corrupt which was why Synaptic couldn’t find Opera, even though I could navigate to /usr/bin and look at the file.)
‘locate’ showed me every cotton pickin’ instance of “opera” in my file system. Including “Operate” and “Operation”.
I know enough about *nixes to parse that very long list in the terminal and figure out where the actual program is, and where my linked libraries are and what I should/should not touch.
But if a complete noob suddenly had all that scroll up? They’d be completely lost and frustrated trying to find where the actual program is so they can kill it for a reinstall.
But in my XP workstation and in OS X, I don’t need to hit the search tools to find a program I installed. The programs (a) are where I put them and (b) reside in folders whose name provides a huge clue about the contents, eg “programs” and “applications”.
And that, once again, is why I really prefer the download, double click, put the program in the programs folder by hand way of installing programs.
I like “automagic” when it comes to things like security updates and libraries and kernel upgrades. I don’t like it when it comes to the applications I use day-in day-out to get the basics of work and play done.
there is no need to know where the executable(s) are installed. However, if you really want to know, you shoudl use ‘which’ for instance.
roeland@tisnix:~> which opera
/usr/bin/opera
and now that you know where the file is, you could find out what package is installed that delivers this file:
rpm –query –whatprovides `which opera`
would give you which version is installed. with rpm you can delete, reinstall etc.
anyways, if you only can click here and there, you should be user only and not root anyways.
there is no need to know where the executable(s) are installed. However, if you really want to know, you shoudl use ‘which’ for instance.
roeland@tisnix:~> which opera
/usr/bin/opera
and now that you know where the file is, you could find out what package is installed that delivers this file:
rpm –query –whatprovides `which opera`
would give you which version is installed. with rpm you can delete, reinstall etc.
anyways, if you only can click here and there, you should be user only and not root anyways.
I always seem to get different file sizes whenever I try to download SLED from Novell. A torrent would be nice.
“Basically they said that, the new toys don’t work and we wont get new isos.
To solve the problems one must update all broken packages with broken package handler???”
If you’re not using SuSe for corporate stuff, you might just want to bite the bullet, install Smart (available from Packman’s Links2Linux website) and use that instead of ZMD. It might not be very pretty, but at least it works well.
Apt-get/Synaptic/whatever are a fairly good method of installing software, especially because it makes centralised update/patch management easy, thus wasting less of the user’s time hunting for patches.
Sure, it takes time to adapt, but not too much.
On the other hand what kadymae said about offline installing and keeping the installers on one’s hdd not to download software again and again after wiping the system clean is spot on.
What he says about withdrawn software is also right: the installer of the last version of dvddecrypter released is safely on my hdd and it’s gonna stay there, no matter what the MPAA a**hats think; same goes for MS Private folder.
Oh and btw, I’m also still using nero 6.0.15a, as I think Nero 7 is awfully bloated