Re: Repository 'openSUSE-10.3-Updates' is invalid

Kevin Miller wrote:
I was thinking email notifications of updates/patches. So what cron job
are you running to let you know there are patches available for download
and installation? Or is it just the automatic update kicking in?

Automatic update.

I would not call that semi-automatic.

All I gotta do is click on 'install'. Pretty automatic after that.

That I would not call 'automatic'. I would not even call that
semi-automatic. As far as I can tell, you decide on each package.

I suppose if I left my system on 24/7 it wouldn't matter. They could
download at midnight. I don't leave it on all the time though. If I'm
using it there are times I don't want to compete for the bandwidth.
When I want to update it's nice to have an efficient mechanism for doing
so.

Then it is strange that you do not use it. What crontab can do, you can
do as well. I think it strange if you are bothered by something that
should be running in the background.

No, _YOU_ said that you know that it is possible. That implies that
_YOU_ know how to solve it.

That's a non-sequitur houghi. Knowing something is possible in no way
implies one knows how it's done.

In this case it DOES imply some knowledge.

I know planes fly but you wouldn't want to ride in one I designed! I
say I know it can be better because apt does it better. SUSE 10.0 did
it better. As Chris has pointed out, 8.something or another did it
better. The installation, update and quality of the .rpms has gone
down hill in several cases. That implies it was better in the past.
It doesn't imply *I* know what they were doing differently.

And do you have ANY idea as to why this is? Probably not. And that is
where you can mingle in the discussion. There is a reason that this is
happening. Perhaps that reasonm is completely uninteresting for you and
you might want them to drop it.

OTOH if they hear nothing and get no feedback, they know that they are
on the right track and will continue that way.

To me speed is absolutely irrelevant as I already pointed out. Other
things are much mre important to me. Things that were not there in 8 or
in others.

Research SPF - it uses text entries in DNS to list authorized email
servers. Something similar could possibly be done by having an
equivalent to an A record, or TXT record. The system could do a 'zone
transfer' to pull down the whole list of software and do a diff against
a locally stored list perhaps, or a line by line query maybe. That is,
my system has a list of installed packages and it just does a lookup of
the current revision. If the master file has a serial number like DNS
it could look at that and see whether or not any new updates have even
been released. In an instant one could compare the revision level of
the repos to what I've already downloaded.

Great idea. So what did the developers make of this idea?

I just know on my Debian system I enter 'apt-get update' an 15 to 20
seconds later the list is updated. Refreshing the repos on 10.3 takes
several minutes. 10.0 was slower than Debian, but still leaps and
bounds ahead of 10.3.

Again, might well be possible but _I_ do have not problem with it. And
there is, again, no reason to keep repeating that here. Tell that to the
developers on either Bugzilla or the mailinglist. Ask them perhaps first
if they are working on it already and where you can find information on
what they are doing.

And no, you do not have to be a hacker or even able to write code to
give feedback on Bugzilla.

As a matter of fact, last night I reported the timidity problem on
Bugzilla.

Great. What is the bugnumber? Just curious.

And while you don't have to be a hacker or coder to do so, it
was a convoluted process. Had to create an ID. OK, no biggie. Entered
a username, and password, then logged in. Got to some bugzilla page
that said I had to validate my new account. EVERY other account I've
ever created via the web emailed me a 'reply to this to activate your
acount' message. But not the Novell/SUSE bugzilla system. I had to go
track down the right web page, and request that the system email me an
invitation to activate the account. That is totally convoluted. Why
don't people participate more? Maybe because of the roadblocks they
encounter. I can't blame them for saying 'screw it' half way through.

To me that procedure was so long ago, I do not rememebr anymore. What I
can rememebr it was not that different from what I have done on other
sites.

I did, but that is irrelevant. Bugzilla is the tool.

In some cases. Timidity for example. But what about my problem with
audacity segfaulting if alsa is running? Nobody else seems to have that
trouble, and there's nothing in the logs. So I should enter a bug that
the developers can't reproduce and that I can't document?

Yes. Perhaps they can reproduce it or have a way of getting reports. The
worst that can happen is that they say: sorry we can not reproduce it,
we will close it as WORKSFORME.

I have reported bugs that were closed because they found nothing wrong.
I have reported enhancements that took 2 versions to be implemented
(because it was not realy importand) and I have reported things that
were implemented and resolved almost right away.

What do you loose by reporting the bug?



Nor do I have the development background to seriously contribute to
it.

Sure you have. You use openSUSE and that is qualification enough. If
only developers would ask for things or even test the software, you
would get something completely different.

I presume that the development teams participates in the 'greater SUSE
community' to some degree, i.e., they keep their ears to the ground to
get a sense of how things are working out. But maybe they don't.

Sure they do. They look at what that community brings into Bugzilla. If
it isn't in Bugzalla it isn't a problem. Then there are many, many
openSUSE mailinglists that they will read.

Bugzilla is hardly the haunt of normal users. It's a geek tool and
if you're basing the experience of the average joe on what's in it,
you're only scratching the tip of the iceberg. As for mailing lists,
"Many many" is the operative word, and spare time is a rare commodity.
Here's a quote from http://en.opensuse.org/Communicate: "Please note
that the support mailing list is very active and can send you over 100
emails per day!" Sorry. I'm just not up to wading through 100 more
emails a day.


Maybe they have their own little list server or forums and don't care
what the experience is like for us mere mortals. That would explain a
lot.

That is just stupid and almost trolling and you know it. If you, as mere
mortal, would just step down your ivory tower and just look for a few
moments on the openSUSE mailinglists what is going on, join an IRC
meeting (perhaps just lurking) and what not, you would know that you are
absolutely and completely misinformed.

Ivory tower? Hardly. More like a broke hitchhiker on the information
superhighway.

I've always liked SUSE. For the most part it's what I want. There are
enough things goofy in 10.3 however that make me inclined to try other
distros. Maybe they do it better.

Great. That is what choice is about

So far I'm not wild about Debian (except for apt - it works a treat).
But maybe Ubuntu will work, I dunno. They seem to be listening to
consumer feedback at any rate, judging from their widespread adoption.

And again I am asking you what customer feedback have you given to
openSUSE that they have ignored? And no, telling the people here is not
giving customer feedback.

Maybe if they made it easier to give feedback more folks would. Most of
us want to use our computers, not build them.

Bugzilla has other advantages. You can see how far they are with
solving the problems and enhancements.

Yes, that is an advantage of using it.


If you say that you do not like what they are doing, that is fine with
me. However if you say (or imply) that they do nothing then I know that
you are lying and can't even bother to do do any investigation yourself.
No problem with that either, except for the part where you insult hard
working people.

The former. I'm saying that they did better in the past and I don't
like what they've done lately. I stayed on 10.0 until it was out of
support because of the pain they introduced with red carpet stuff. I
know they work hard - I never said they do nothing. And I don't lie. I
may make mistakes. But that's different.


Have you even tried looking up what the development team is doing? And
no, I am not going to point you in the right direction. I want to see
wether you are seriously interested or just do the easy thing and blame
everything on other people and keep telling that the grapes are to sour.

My computer is just a tool. When I go out in my woodshop, I expect my
tools to perform a particular task. I don't re-engineer my tablesaw or
router, or whatever. In the past I've bought cheap tools. I don't
hesitate to say they were junk. I just replace them with better tools
the next time. I expect a certain level of quality in the software I
use. If it's not there I'll say so. But it's just software. I'm not
going to make it my life's crusade to fix it. My hats of to those that
do, but I have other interests...

...Kevin


houghi
--
From the day the male foetus' hands grow long enough to grasp at their 'third
leg', until the man in question is dead and buried, the penis is a constant
source of amusement and amazement to those of the male gender.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A219061
.

Relevant Pages

  • Rescheduling missed updates with WSUS 3.0
    ... I'm confused about the Automatic Update client when using WSUS. ... Reschedule Automatic Updates scheduled installations ... If the status is set to Enabled, a missed installation will occur the ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: FC6 through the rear view mirror
    ... trouble with the installation than and other Fedoras. ... Once sound was enabled use of sound was ephemeral. ... Fedoras on this machine so I can't really blame the machine. ... package maintainers use bugzilla as a guide for things that need to be ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Need MVP interpretation of BITSAdmin log for failed update download
    ... > I checked the status of Automatic update and BITS using services.msc They ... > In fact no installation took place. ... >> their backup program after installing KB842773. ... >> quote on the end, thus, there is just 2 of them. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
  • Re: Windows Upate
    ... that was on 30/06/2006 (installation) however I have a lot ... or Automatic Update, double click it. ... Ronpaul53 wrote: ... Restart the system when done. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
  • Re: Need MVP interpretation of BITSAdmin log for failed update download
    ... I checked the status of Automatic update and BITS using services.msc They ... In fact no installation took place. ... > IF you're not experiencing issues with your backup program that this ... > in the proper state to be able to update. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)