Bug 197784

this is a good idea, but Im not sure if this is going to happend, maybe a patch iso for people having problems ?

Indeed the network installation sources SHOULD be updated ( if not already of course)  

Since I sttoped and disabled everything related to zmd just after the install, Im unable to reproduce any of the issues, and Im not willing to test it either.

 

just run YAST Online Update. It will bring it to a useable state.

Yast Online Update is a partial solution. As already said:

- Sometimes the DVD installer is unable to load the catalog and prompt with no software selection available.

- The unexperienced user who installed SuSE 10.1 has to add a patch source, without knowing how to do that and also in a not reliable way, because suseregister could fail.

A proposed solution, often suggested in the #suse@freenode chat (where the Novell/SuSE related people is almost absent) is to install smart installer, but it's just a tricky workaround.

A patch ISO would be OK, but:

- it wouldn't solve the DVD problem.
- probably (I'm not sure) it would require the delta RPM's support in Yast/zen, which is still absent.

I would like to stress the problem, because the installation problems related to the new package manager and suse register are affecting almost all the users which come to the #suse channel.

Other distributions (fedora and ubuntu) released updated installation media for their products. SuSE should too, at least to defend its reputation.

I agree. If new isos are in any way possible it should be very seriously considered providing those.

In forums and on irc there are numerous people with these problems every day. For us it's easy to fix or work around. But if you don't know what you're doing it's not that obvious. 

I fear that this will haunt (open)SUSE not only for the remainder of the release cycle but for a long time to come. All these people with problems will probably never touch SUSE again - and they'll tell everybody they know how bad their experience was. The bad rep that _one_ bad release can get us should not be underestimated.

+5

Is there any technical reason not do to it ?
Would there be a high cost involved in doing it ?
Mirrors will have to sync again, but just drop the old ISOs/repos so they won't need more hosting space (rsyncs will go mad but well, so what).
Is that potential cost higher than the bad reputation ? I would really doubt that.

I mean.. seriously... we see the problems every day on IRC (#suse) and around us... I can understand you want to defend your hard work but... if Alberto and Martin tell you "just run YAST Online Update" doesn't work, you think they're just making this up ?

Could it at least be possible that you really consider doing it and if not, give some good reasons for not doing so ? If that has happened already, the reasons have not been communicated.

NB: added AJ to CC (hope you don't mind ;))

Thanks

PAscal, I fully agree with you, in fact last weekend I stayed most of the time in #suse IRC channel to see what was happening with the users, and everybody has issues with this.

I think nobody can argue a technical reason, but proably many political issues may raise, I kindly invite folks to visit the support channels to see what is going on in the reality, it really sad.

many distros has already done the same thing, debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva..why SUSE can't release SUSE 10.1 rev1 or whatever ?

Im reproducing here my question in http://en.opensuse.org/Meetings/Status_Meeting_2006-08-22

Marcus, no its not simple as running online update. People cant do it, if it fails or crash (or if the suer cancels) or if it corrupts itself all alone the users WILL NOT KNOW HOW TO FIX IT. Get this in your head. It does not work. When I say people I mean "people new to suse". Even some experienced suse users will not know how to deal with the corruptions. They will keep seeing errors about sources not syncing, unable to solve deps until they get pissed and a) install    smart or apt or b) Drop the distro and go try ubuntu.

Now again, I will have to ask: is it that hard? Is it that hard to change something that is crystaline obvious that is a problem, with a crystaline obvious solutions, so we will not make people mad in their first moments experiencing suse?

------------------
Simple question: is it possible to think of an exceptional re-spin ISO with the fixed yast, zmd, libzypp, etc packages after the next major update via YOU (supposedly in time to include back the delta rpm support)?

Ill explain briefly why. After the next major package management update I have the feeling that the package management will be in great shape. It works good already. The problem is people installing 10.1 are not being able to patch their systems so the package management problem is gone. When the newbies see themselves in situations like sources not syncing, corrupted source, failure to solve deps (if someone cancels or kills yast while the helpers were running and they think it crashed) it leads to problems that they cant handle. And this gets very frustrated (I can see in irc and with friends trying 10.1, even those with good linux experience). This is terrible marketing to yast and 10.1 release. If the users dont have to deal with that potentially problematic initial update (it is problematic), then they are more prone to apreciate the other great features of the 10.1 release.

PS: I can see this reducing the bitching about 10.1 release in 87%, so please really think about if it is really "that hard" to make those fixed ISOs. Because last time this issue was discussed it was like "no, its too hard, cant do it". 

in response to comment #2

Marcus, sure. but if YOU doesn't work (no, it seems to not work properly for most people I helped in #suse last weekend ) then we have a chicken && egg issue.

if the updater can't be updated.. there is no possibility to fix th problem.

Also many people can't install it in systems with less than 512 ram cause the installer crashes parsing the catalog...

not enough reasons to fix the ISOS ? 

I'm looking right now into providing such new ISOs.  Don't hold your breath now, I first need evaluate this properly.

andreas: just to give you an idea, (not an scientific measurement) at least more than 50% of the users questions and problems in the IRC channel are related to this issue.(really) . the other percentage is shared between multimedia support, xgl/compiz , desktop flamewars and trolls :-) .(at least in the last 5 days)


 

We'll master new CDs.  I'm waiting for some fixes for the package manager and once those are out, we'll remaster.  So, give us two more weeks, please.

Andreas, could you confirm that you plan to include the upcoming deltarpm support in the remastered isos ?

Thanks Andreas, also, the network installation sources requires updating ASAP.people is having the same problems with the netinstall of course ;(

Can you please take care that there will be respined isos for people who bought the DVD full boxed version? There are a lot of packages missing from the free version DVD.. Thank you

add #14: The ftp source is planned to get updated as well.

add #15: The big retail DVD9 will not get remastered.  Please use our ftp repository.

Maybe you should include some other bugfixes in the remastered ISOs. Bug 200195 sounds like a good candidate.
There might be other "wontfix because it would need remastered ISOs" bugs that could be fixed as well (no, I don't have a list of them - simply ask the YaST team ;-)

Another question: What will the remastered ISOs contain?
a) 10.1 + package manager fixes
b) 10.1 + package manager fixes + all fixes (KDE, Firefox, kernel, ...)
   currently available via YOU

(In reply to comment #17)

> b) 10.1 + package manager fixes + all fixes (KDE, Firefox, kernel, ...)
>    currently available via YOU

I hope "b" is provided by the new isos, that will save more bandwidth, and can be included as a plus in the "public excuses" when isos are released. :-P

Bug 200195 solution should be also included IMHO.

while surfing this came into my eye, at osnews.com :

http://fedoraunity.org/

I admit it would be a great idea if someone could initiate something similar on OpenSUSE community

Ad #17,18: b ist what we plan.

I'll check 200195 now.

Dear Theodoros Nikolakopoulos,

What does that have to do with the original bug?

Isnt it enough the therad hijacking in the lists and in the irc meetings? You really need to start this shit of thread hijacking in bugzilla?

What in the world does that have to do with this damn "bug"? I dont understand what are you trying to do.

Would you please dont post offtopic noise in bugzilla, please?

Thanks a lot

Marcio Ferreira
---
druid

Dear Marcio Ferreira,
I don't think Theodoros posted a complete off-topic post.
In some manner, it is related to the argument of updated iso's, don't you think?
Anyway, if I were you, I definitely apologise for terms like shit or damn or whatever else you wrote...

Please note that Druids ever use their brains before talking/writing (Gandalf told me that ;)

PS: SUSE italian community suseitalia.org is starting a project similar to the one mentioned here...

this is for the signle specific technical issue of 10.1 ISO refreshes.

Bugzilla is only for technical issues. for meta discussions, please go 
to the mailinglists.

near a month has passed and no ISOs yet.. is this really going to be done ? any news?? ping ¡¡

we did release the necessary libzypp update yesterday to the onine update
mirrors.

we will likely wait for some days to wait for any regressions in this update
and then can proceed on course.

Just an update: Our team worked last week on this and hit some problems, we'll continue next week.

so, this is work in progress...

I'm sorry to do another negative observation about this topic, but I think it's becoming ridiculous.

The reason many users asked for new ISO's was to have usable installation media without the main bugs of zmd, zen, libzypp, which requires the user to heavily patch the system usually without success.

This is completely different from what's happening. Novell seems to want to patch zen and friends completely, which is not the point.

With this timing, the respin of ISO's, if delayed again, is becoming useless, due to the close release of OpenSuSE 10.2.

We do want to release something that works - and this respin took us far longer than anticipated.  We're not happy either :-(  I really expect to have an announcement out before next friday.

Media are finished and are on their way to our mirrors.  Announcement will follow once the mirrors have everything.

andreas, thank you.

Im just wonder why the old ISOS weren't retired, I saw two different ISO sets, that Im sure will only cause more confusion....

at the release announcement its stated that the DVD isos were removed and would be available a week after. However at that moment there are Remastered ISOs available and seeded at torrent as well. Are these the old GM isos or the Remastered ones?...

Those are remastered DVDs.

I've only just come across this thread after giving up on SUSE 10.1 several months ago. The broken package management was a complete nightmare, and scrambled my system in a way that my 20+ years of Unix experience was unable to fix. I have however had a good enough experience of SUSE10.0, and faith in the fact this bug appears to now be fixed, that I'm going to try 10.2. However, I did pay good money for the unusable 10.1 box product, and think I and other users here ought to be entitled at the least to a refund against the cost of a 10.2 box.

Dear Mr Mitchell, 
    We are sorry to hear that your experience of SUSE Linux 10.1 was below the high standard you have come to expect from SUSE. As part of our customer satisfaction program we are happy to offer you a free download of openSUSE 10.2 from http://download.opensuse.org

(In reply to comment #33)
>The broken package management was a complete nightmare, and

Well, now is far from perfect, but at least works reasoably fine.

> scrambled my system in a way that my 20+ years of Unix experience was unable to
> fix. 

> the
> fact this bug appears to now be fixed, 

the functional problems has been corrected , yes.

>that I'm going to try 10.2. 

Yes Please, do yourself that favor. ;)

>However, I
> did pay good money for the unusable 10.1 box product, and think I and other
> users here ought to be entitled at the least to a refund against the cost of a
> 10.2 box.

We unfortunately,cannot answer that question. bugzilla is for technical issues only.