Re: SuSE kernel source retrieval frustrations

From: john henning (nospam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 08/17/03 

Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2003 07:25:01 GMT

> Kevin Nathan wrote:
>>I think that is a *very* clear explanation
Stan Moore wrote:
> I thought it was Good Thing(TM) :)

Thanks Kevin, thanks Stan, but actually, no, it turns out that it had
nothing to do with any choices made by the user.

   [Human factors side note: In "The Design of Everyday Things", I seem
    to recall reading that it is not uncommon for the user to blame
    himself. In this case, I really stretched to try to figure out
    how it could have been my fault.]

It wasn't the user's fault. It was just plain WRONG for YaST2 to offer
me the sources from my install CDs; they aren't there. Here's the
proof: search for "source" at:

http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/i386/packages_personal/index.html
http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/i386/packages_professional/index.html

[Now of course, I *had* tried searching my CDs even before posting here,
but thought perhaps the package was contained inside of some container
and not visible.]

So, SuSE doesn't package the sources on the 3-CD edition. That's
fine... or would be... if only YaST2 had given useful feedback,
and then if it had been successful in downloading them. I don't know
why it won't give useful feedback, and why it won't download them.

As to the article
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/supplementary/X/XFree86/nvidia-installer-HOWTO.html
it is also wrong, or, at least, highly incomplete when it says:

> II. SuSE Linux Desktop (SLD)
> SuSE Linux 8.2 with update kernel or self-compiled kernel
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1) Kernel sources must be installed and configured. Usually this means
> installing the 'kernel-source' RPM with YaST2

So, do YaST2 engineers read this newsgroup? If so, I again invite you
to consider how crucial it is to the user to get the system past the
first installation - and that the installation may require kernel
sources in order to be minimally useful. In my case, both nvidia and
Cisco vpn demanded sources.

Bottom line summary (trying to put the keywords nearby so they get
googled):

PROBLEM:
    - vpn install demands SuSE 8.2 kernel sources
    - nvidia install demands SuSE 8.2 kernel sources
    - YaST2 fails to install them
SOLUTION:
      ftp> op ftp.leo.org
            (username "ftp")
      ftp> cd pub/suse/i386/update/8.2/rpm/i586
      ftp> bin
      ftp> ls kernel-source-*
      ftp> get kernel-source-2.4.20.SuSE-100.i586.rpm
                                         ^^^
                replace 100 with current update level,
                matching whatever update you've already
                downloaded via YaST2
      ftp> bye
      # rpm -i kernel-source-2.4.20.SuSE-100.i586.rpm
      # rpm -qa | grep kernel
      kernel-source-2.4.20.SuSE-100

Hope this helps the next person googling this topic
     -john

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