06.02.08
OpenSUSE Package Mismanagement with Zypper
In today’s DistroWatch Weekly you might find that the feature article is about Novell’s SUSE. Specifically, it’s about Zypper in OpenSUSE. A reader wrote to us to say: “I thought I should give you a heads up on Ladislav’s butt kissing on openSUSE’s Zypper.” From the article:
I tested the utility on the current development versions of openSUSE 11.0 by using it exclusively for synchronising an installed openSUSE system with the distribution’s “Factory” tree in regular intervals.
The timing is the only conspicuous thing. The reader wanted to know “if Novell paid him to write that,” to use his own words. Asked for evidence of this he said: “No, I have no evidence, but I am very curious. My personal experience of Zypper in OpenSUSE 11 has been pretty poor. It broke my installation completely twice (to the extent that I couldn’t boot) and earlier this year they even had trouble keeping the update server(s) running. I now won’t touch the distro for both personal and political reasons.
“It seems like a very odd piece to write about what I find most people consider a mediocre package manager. I feel if they wanted to promote OpenSUSE prior to release then Distrowatch would be the place to do it. But I’m sure its just my conspiracy theories going into overdrive [...] I would add though that OpenSUSE 11 is still beta (or RC now) software so I guess at least some of my experiences with Zypper are to be expected.” █
Aeshna said,
June 2, 2008 at 4:23 pm
This post really disturbs as I agree with your basic points, but there is simply no good reason to be attacking Distrowatch in a way that repulses the non-paranoid among your supporters and will make the fence-sitters think you are a nutcase. Please don’t make accusations without good evidence.
Ladislav isn’t trying to kiss ass. His website just has different goals than yours and they somewhat conflict, but not nearly enough to make him the enemy. In fact, without your accusations, he could have been useful to you, and perhaps in six months or so, you should make a good-will gesture.
Let me even make you an offer, if you are in doubt whether something does more to discredit your stance than to help your stance, email me and I’d be glad to evaluate it for you. The email I left with the comment is a junk email account, but I do read it from time to time and we can certainly set up a regular communication channel. I have the time and desire to help–if your object is to win and not to spew accusations.
Roy Schestowitz said,
June 2, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I was actually the one saying there was no foul play. I presented the reader’s views because of the latter part (technical issues).
Peder said,
June 5, 2008 at 8:51 am
I disagree with Distrowatchs conclusion that “Zypper is the most powerful package management utility available today”. I find it lacks some options that urpm has (like urpmf), but from the documentation it seems it will eventually catch up.
However from my albeit limited tests with oS-11rc1 I think it’s the best packet management SUSE’s ever had (since I don’t like the overhead the text-GUI-based yast imposes and rug has been pretty annoying in its slowness).