openSUSE 11.1 YaST preview – What’s the next step?
With the latest builds of YaST, I would have to say it is far from “Yet another Setup Tool”. I consider it “The ultimate Setup Tool”. That’s right, I think YaST which ships with openSUSE is the most complete, and comprehensive configuration / management tool. Furthermore in openSUSE 11.1 YaST is being shipped with many enhancemnts in the printer, software repositories, partitioner and more.
In this writing I’ll just show you some screenshots of the newly redesigned yast module gui’s. However later I will show more detail on how to use several of them including the newly revamped printer, partitioner one etc.
So lets start off with the printer module.
Software Repository module
Partitioner module
So there you have some quick previews of the revamped modules. Now.. onto the real wonder.. that being “What’s Next?”.
I think YaST as a standard setup tool across multiple distributions would be the “right step” for the normal home user. To put it in Windows terms, it’s like Control Panel on crack. Zonker talks about splitting YaST from openSUSE for it to be forked to other distributions in this posting of his.
Sorry this isn’t a more in depth review of the individual modules, like I said earlier, that’ll come later (as long as time permits).
So here’s a poll.. just wondering if you think YaST should be ported or not:
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I voted no. Although I like YaST, I just think Mandriva and PCLinux OS (among others) have powerful “Control Panels” making it pointless to replace them with YaST. I think distros should remain varied, and cater to different users with different preferences in computing.
I also voted no.
coz Yast is not as good as APT ,i thought.
epecially when u wanna remove or install some package,the speed is much lower than APT. saying in another way,APT package management system should be ported to other distro.
And I heard Redhat is approach porting APT to Redhat.
i voted no! yast is yet on GPL, and if others didn’t ported it to theyre distro means that they DON’T WHANT or they are NOT ABLE to do that…
port yast to others distro means the death of suse
JosipBroz,
YaST wouldn’t have to be “required”, but be ported over as an option. It doesn’t have to be the default option, but an option none the less.
Tunpishuang,
I would imagine with the porting of YaST to other distributions, they would mold it to worth with multiple backends. Although, I think zypper is more featureful then apt.
Andrea,
I should have mentioned that if they DID this move, they would have to seperate it from openSUSE and GPL it. I disagree that porting yast would be the death of SUSE. I think it would bring more attention to SUSE and possibly thought of the “Game Changers” that are coming up with these tools and others start porting them.
Yast is a nice config-tool. But there are other distributions with some of their tools being more user-friendly. A really bad thing about yast for every newbie is its name (something like “systemsettings” would fit better), and there is overlap with desktop-environment-systemsettings.
I voted pro, because more people would improve yast.
Bernd,
I am going to go on a whim here and say that you use KDE. I think the implementation of YaST in GNOME is made so it’s more of a single systemsettings type area, as KDE the system settings and yast configurations are quite split.
That’s an interesting point you make about the name though. People that don’t use SUSE, don’t know what a “yast” is.. or what its function is.
I voted no too. YaST is under GPL. If someone else wants it on other distributions, let him do the job. It should not be openSUSE problem.
Regards,
A.
I understand the no’s posted above, and disagree (Responses below)
YaST is a major reason I use OpenSUSE. Try using your favorite system tool without X, or even via a simple SSH session (with no X redirection). I can log in to my systems from SSH (on my iPhone, Windows, OSX, Linux, whatever) run yast in a `screen` session and rapidly configure/patch/whatever the system, from wherever I am. I challenge you to find any other single console system tool with that range of capability. Sure, with apt and vi I can accomplish the same thing, but not nearly as fast; and when time=money that matters.
JosipBroz: Why not have the option to use YaST on other platforms? Linux is about choice, why limit it? Further, the contention is not to replace your favorite, but just provide the choice to use it.
tunpishuang: YaST is not a simple package manager like `apt`. Yes there is a package manager component, but it also does hardware configurations, system configurations, service configurations, software package management, security/user management, and the list goes on. It is the “one-stop shop” for system admin.
I would LOVE YaST on RHEL! That would make life much easier, since YaST beats the config-* stuff hands down!
Yast okay, but only if it is possible to merge it into the kde4 systemsettings with an extra tab “yast” to fit in the look and feel with KDE4… but Sax2 no thanks, dont like that tool…
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If Yast was available for Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora/Centos, then it would make those distros more usable, especially when they don’t work “out of the box” (as they often do not on my hardware). Sax2, IMHO, has always been superior to anything else around for screen setup.
Cheers
I voted “who cares” but actually see I agree with people which said “no” or “yes”: I don’t care because I love YaST and use opensuse, of others want to use it I don’t think this changes the status-quo for suse users. Obviously, if they like to use it their’e welcome to do the work..
Commenting usually isnt my thing, but ive spent an hour on the site, so thanks for the info
I’m a long time Suse user and yast is one of the main reasons why. I just can’t support Novell any longer over their Microsoft deals and infiltrating Mono into the system. I’m trying out other distributions and I will have to pick one this summer to move all our systems over to. Having yast available would be great but either way I have to move.
Yast has the chance to grow into something like Apache or Samba with a much larger audience on multiple distributions with a lot more contributions coming in. With the growing dislike for Novell now would be a good time to break away and not get mired in the mess.
I vote yes! Yast and KDE rock!