OT: Novell

[Fairlight]

Y'all catch dis heeyah?  Bill Campbell been jivin' 'bout like:
> 
> Having problems geting the on-line updates working under SuSE 10.1?
> 
> The changes SuSE has made in yast2 and on-line updates are not intuitively
> obvious, and to my mind, a step backwards.  This has been a back burner
> project for me now for a couple of weeks which stopped last time because it
> didn't want to work when running yast2 from a remote system.  It seems to
> want the zen-updater to run in the KDE or Gnome desktop, and isn't happy
> doing it remotely.

No, I have online updates going.  Here's the deal...

1) Registered the system.
2) After that, a new installation source appeared in the list for
installation sources, but it's titled YUM and points to a protected
site--but for updates only.
3) Updates work fine.  What's actually installed is patched now.

HOWEVER...

They desegregated what was traditionally a two-fork process; Since 9.0 all
the way through OpenSuSE 10.1 that I recently worked with, the Online
Update had its own source listing, and Installation Sources was used for
installation of more packages.  This system doesn't even have gcc installed
by default, ok?  That's just sad.  Generally speaking, I'd have already had
all the software I needed/wanted installed post-installation already.  I
can NOT get it to build the catalog from the source, the one time that
diaglog actually presented itself.  The rest of the time it acts like
there're just no additional packages at all.  And I pretty much see it's
because the installation source is pointing to updates.

And yet...there's no docmented URL for getting their precious packages
online, none was added, and it took me an hour on hold -just- in the last
queue before I ran out of time and -had- to bail on the call.

I need to get it so that I don't have to insert CD's (it's a remote
location) to install new packages, nor burn disk space to copy the CD's to
HD.  I need it to work the way it has since time immemorial--where
Installation Source is what it is for getting packages, and Update still
works.  I'll be damned if I'm going to switch CD's or eat disk space to get
this to work the way it's worked just fine for at least three years.

That's the technical issue.  *sigh*  Worst rewrite they could have done to
YaST, and it's -only- in SLES 10, from what I can tell.  Every 9.x was
sane, and I believe even the OpenSuSE 10.1 I worked with was sane in this
regard.

On the "political" issue, Novell snarfing up SuSE and then actually sitting
through an hour of their "radio" show with live DJ's spinning everything
from old Boston to Green Day, interspersed with commentary about their
products that seemingly uses every buzzword of the month to make their
product offerings sound "cool" and the company sound youthful and
rejuvenated--was frankly crass as hell.  Love the comment, "You won't hear
this music on any other tech support line."  Yeah, it's a lot less boring
than 3Com's one classical piece that droned for hours.  However, it's also
indicative to me of how desperate that company is to revamp its image.
Even their web site said something about being an Open Solutions company or
some such crap.  C'mon, this -is- still Novell at the core, complete with
beaurocracy that took 30min of bullshit to cut through just to get myself
listed as an authorised representative for the company that owns the system
I'm working on--and that -I- registered.  I had every number...customer
number, product number, product activation key, email address of the
account used.  They wanted to actually charge for the support at first,
actually.  I said, "Look, they just laid out $384 for the license and
media.  I think that entitles them to a working product, and the assistance
in getting something working that was fine for the last four or five
releases."  Then they finally agreed that it fell under installation
support.  I asked to be put through to a technician.  "No, that can take up
to several hours to process your registration.  And only [customer name]
can do this."  I asked if they wanted them on the phone with us, I'd do it
then.  Unfortunately, the client was unavailable on another call.  I
finally got the guy at Novell to relent when I threatened to use the
customer's cell phone to get him...THEN he seemed to find it in him to do
what he should have done 20min earlier when I had all relevant
information--he added me as a contact.  Stupid prat.  What changed?
Probably that they were about to get outted as an ineffective company to
the actual customer.

I find it utterly pretentious and hypocritical that they sport themselves
as hip and trendy (you should hear the list of touted [on the "radio"
hold stuf] performance benchmarks that meant nothing and I -highly- doubt
SuSE is 2-3 times faster than any other dist in doing some of the things
they claim) while both screwing up the product to maintain an archaic
design concept of proprietary software and at the same time displaying a
beaurocracy of which I've seen less from County and State governments,
honestly.  I've had less annoying experiences with both the DMV and County
Revenue Board.

Yeah, I'm ticked.  Bigtime.  I have zero patience for this kind of crap.
And then it takes an hour on hold to get no live person in the -last- of 3
queues (there was a SECOND customer support queue that did nothing but
route me -again-, and for which I had to hold).  About 30min after I hung
up, I finally got an email, to which I have to respond.

So far, not so warm and fuzzy on the Novell side of things.

Back to the tech side--yes, it's totally non-intuitive compared to what it
used to be.  All because they're locking up their goods, unlike the old
days, pre-draconian-license.  Even then, there were ways to do it without
desegregating the sources for YUM and Software Management.  What's funny is
that while searching for information on this, I read a blurb about how SuSE
has finally released a dist that anyone can install with ease.  Yeah,
install...did they try MANAGING it?

What a charlie foxtrot.

If I had the authority and the power, SLES 10 would vanish from the system
and I'd go OpenSuSE today.  Unfortunately, not an option.  The client has
their reasons, and they're valid.  I have zero choice at this juncture.

Don't get me wrong--it's still better than RH.  But the old SuSE was much
better technically (so far, anyway), and the corporate side is like an
80yr-old geriatric dressed up in hip-hop garb.

Sorry you asked?  :)  

*deep breath*

mark->