Adventures in SuSE (7.3 Pro)

Post #29,273 by scoenye 2/21/02 2:44:21 PM Reply	Adventures in SuSE (7.3 Pro) I guess this could go under "Reviews", but given the specificity, I decided to post it here. If anyone disagrees, please feel free to move it. I got SuSE 7.3 Pro as a New Year present and finally got around to installing it. Given that this package already has had raving reviews in the press and here, I'm going to restrict my comments to the "darker" side of the distro. However, this is not to be construed as an attempt to "bust" SuSE. Just shedding some light where needed. SuSE 7.3 Pro installs like a charm when everything is left to the US centric defaults. I'll make the assumption that doing it in German would work equally well. However, everyone in between may have a few problems... The keyboard settings for console and X do not stick when set through the YaST2 configuration tool. I had to edit the config files by hand to get my A's and Q's in order. A somewhat related problem is that euro support, for those that need it, is not 100% across all locales. I got it working first time doing a Dutch setup, but had to hack the locale definition file manually when I choose a Belgian setup. (This may sound like splitting hairs, but the keyboard layouts are not identical.) There is another setting that becomes unglued as well. YaST will nuke the symlink to the default Java installation everytime it is invoked, unless you tell it not to by setting an obscured option in the main config file (/etc/rc.config, CREATE_JAVALINK=no). This turned out to be a known problem, but when you run into it (unexpectedly) the first time, the reflex is to check the Java installation first. Nice if your day counts 25 hours, but a PITA otherwise... But the one that really bit me is a bug in the PPP ip-up/ip-down script. The script starts the ipchains packet filter, not the iptables filters. As SuSE 7.3 is kernel 2.4 based, this doesn't work very well... (which makes it really hard to understand how this escaped QC). It took me two evenings to trace because I originally thought it was a problem in my FW configuration. Really nasty this one... (I later found out this is a known issue as well, but when you can't get a link up, it's hard to ask Google!) And for a final gripe: the boot configuration is very cluttered. All other distros I've worked with only have start/stop links in the /etc/rc[0-6].d directories for services that are actually affected by a switch to a given run level. SuSE, OTOH, has start/stop links to every script in /etc/init.d in every run level directory. The decision to go on is then made based on settings read from the main /etc/rc.config file. This makes is impossible to get an at-a-glance overview of what exactly is going on for a given run level. SuSE's excuse is that their approach allows a more efficient switch between levels, but how often are run levels switched in practice? IMHO, not enough to make the saved time outweigh the time lost to figure out what is [not]/should [not] be running if something doesn't work as expected.
Post #29,276 by bepatient 2/21/02 3:02:54 PM Reply	Belgian setup??? Ok...where are you man? If you're in Belgium we have to start discussing more important things...like beer! You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #29,284 by folkert 2/21/02 4:24:20 PM Reply	Re: Belgian setup??? Seconded... that and Waffles too... amongst other thing!! `greg, curley95@attbi.com -- REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!` In 2002, everyone will discover that everyone else is using linux. Linux: Good, fast AND cheap. Failure is not an option: It comes bundled with Windows. ** "Two rules to success in life: 1. Don't tell people everything you know." - Sassan Tat
Post #29,396 by scoenye 2/22/02 1:32:33 PM Reply	That's where I am... Beer's in the cellar. And those waffles below might just be on the way this weekend :)
Post #29,402 by bepatient 2/22/02 1:47:54 PM Reply	Lived awhile... ...in Waterloo...not quite in view of the Lion. Spent much time evaluating the differences between Primus, Stella Artois, Duvel, Chimay, Abbaye de Leffe and the couple hundred or so other beers I sampled while there. I have about 80 beer glasses collected during that time...captured soldiers ;-) You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #29,423 by drewk 2/22/02 3:33:28 PM Reply	Speaking of beer ... The Winking Lizard is a bar & grill chain in Ohio. (Don't know where else they may be.) They have a "World Tour" every year, where you sign up to try to drink one of each of their extensive selection of beers in a year. I just came back from lunch there, and they had on the placemats congratulations to the first person to ever do the full tour at four different locations in one year. I counted their menu. 96 beers. Times four locations is 384. In one year. More than 7 a week, every week, for a year. Now, I've had weekends that more than covered that, but to maintain that pace for a year ... [shudder]. We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link\|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html\|Thomas Friedman]
Post #29,428 by Silverlock 2/22/02 4:31:05 PM Reply	Musta been the Dillinger Quintuplets. With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.
Post #29,431 by imric 2/22/02 4:45:12 PM Reply	Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia! Imric's Tips for Living Paranoia Is a Survival Trait Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised... Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
Post #29,304 by boxley 2/21/02 6:55:53 PM Reply	/etc/rc.config is very OSF1/decish, "I'm selling a hammer," he says. "They can beat nails with it, or their dog." Richard Eaton spy software innovator
Post #29,367 by SpiceWare 2/22/02 10:49:56 AM Reply	Konsole fonts are crappy if you use antialiased fonts When I first set up SuSE 7.3 the terminal session looked fine. I eventually found the antialias setting and turned it on. That caused Konsole's fonts to overlap and become difficult to read. If DARRELL was output somewhere in the terminal, the curve of the D was gone with the A overlapping where the curve should have. Lowercase m's became n's, and so on. I did a deja search and found that adding -noxft to the konsole command clears up the problem. (right-click the Konsole icon and go into the properties). Darrell Spice, Jr. [link\|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/\|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
Post #29,472 by static 2/23/02 1:25:08 AM Reply	Init dirs. I rummaged briefly in a friend's SUSE install out of curiosity. I really didn't like the way the init stuff was laid out. What specifically annoyed was the fact that all the init scripts themselves were in /etc/init.d, which is where the rc[1-6].d directories were hanging off, as well as files like rc.local and rc.sysinit. It was messy. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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