What do I need to know about OpenSuse?

[aceO07]

I'm just installed OpenSuse 10.3 onto my computer, using VMware on XP. I've been using Ubuntu 7.10 and for the most part very comfortable with it. I love apt-get! I've been using it for Rails development.

The server where the software will reside is OpenSuse. This isn't a fact that I can change easily and will not unless it's very difficult for me to adapt to OpenSuse. I would continue to develop in Ubuntu, but some important bits of software doesn't seem to work in OpenSuse. Mainly GhostScript and ImageMagick. So I've installed OpenSuse to take a closer look and find out what's different. Also it will make it so that when I have to move the software over, it will be smoother as I would have already had experience in OpenSuse.

The most important thing to know is how do I install software onto OpenSuse? I know I can manually compile, but is the an alternative to apt-get for OpenSuse?

Also, how do I get rid of the default KDE menu system?

 

[SleepWalkerX]

There are a few really.

One of OpenSUSE's command line package managers is zypper. Its probably the most recommended now.

I personally became really comfortable with smart. Its actually a third party package manager. It has a really nice graphical frontend. I think you have to install it seperately though (but its officially in the repository).

You could always use yast to install packages too. In the command line it would be yast -i <package>. Or you could run the gui through yast2 -i <package>.

Not sure how to change the start menu in KDE 3. I know in KDE 4 its as easy as adding a new panel.

 

[aceO07]

Thanks. I figured out the kde menu, it's theme. Thank goodness.

Yup, I've been using yast to install new software. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem as polished as Ubuntu. Their repository of apps doesn't seem that up to date. I need to install Ghostscript 8.6+ onto OpenSuse 10.3, but making it is giving me errors. (I'll open a new thread for this.)

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Originally posted by: aceO07
Thanks. I figured out the kde menu, it's theme. Thank goodness.

Yup, I've been using yast to install new software. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem as polished as Ubuntu. Their repository of apps doesn't seem that up to date. I need to install Ghostscript 8.6+ onto OpenSuse 10.3, but making it is giving me errors. (I'll open a new thread for this.)

Well, then use SMART to install your shit, it works in pretty much every OS and it does .deb as well as slackpacks and RPM', it's a really cool piece of software.

Once you've got that installed, add the recommended repos, you'll find them all on the OpenSuSE wiki.

smart -a ghostscript will add ghostscript without errors.

One word of caution though, if you venture into the experimental branches you might just wind up with an unusable machine, don't DO that if you're not a beta tester.

Current is fine to go with though, in ten years i haven't had an issue except having to use the vesa driver for a month.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: aceO07
Thanks. I figured out the kde menu, it's theme. Thank goodness.

Yup, I've been using yast to install new software. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem as polished as Ubuntu. Their repository of apps doesn't seem that up to date. I need to install Ghostscript 8.6+ onto OpenSuse 10.3, but making it is giving me errors. (I'll open a new thread for this.)

edit: hmm its kinda weird how ghostscript hasn't been updated in forever.

Apparently the latest openSUSE beta has ghostscript 8.62. Version 11 is supposed to be very slick. If you'd rather not install the latest beta of opensuse then just recompile the latest version of ghostscript. Its not too difficult.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Originally posted by: aceO07
Thanks. I figured out the kde menu, it's theme. Thank goodness.

Yup, I've been using yast to install new software. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem as polished as Ubuntu. Their repository of apps doesn't seem that up to date. I need to install Ghostscript 8.6+ onto OpenSuse 10.3, but making it is giving me errors. (I'll open a new thread for this.)

edit: hmm its kinda weird how ghostscript hasn't been updated in forever.

Apparently the latest openSUSE beta has ghostscript 8.62. Version 11 is supposed to be very slick. If you'd rather not install the latest beta of opensuse then just recompile the latest version of ghostscript. Its not too difficult.

I have compiled the lastest version of gs. Though I'm most likely not allowed to use beta OpenSuse, I'm going to give 11beta a try. If that fixes my problem then I'd doing something wrong, or they've added something else that I'm missing.

I'm going to close this thread, since I already have another thread here specifically about ghostscript.