SuSE Package Management (was Re: SENDMAIL - HELP - SUSE)

[Dave Hull]

Quoting Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins at tarcanfel.org>:

> Yes, there's a pseudo-graphics mode, but you have to step through all the
> menus, there's no way to say "yast2 install <package>" (docs claim you can,
> but it doesn't work).  Also no way to save excluded packages.

Is it possible to run yast from the cli and have it update everything available,
the way one can with up2date -uf on Red Hat?

> SuSE tends to keep it's server-targeted distro's two or three versions behind
> it's desktop (though both can contain the same packages).

We've got a few people here who have been running SLES9 and/or the Novell Linux
Desktop beta. They seem to like it, but they are not running production systems
like we are in my department.

> I wouldn't recommend it for a server, but right now I don't know what I
> _would_ recommend.

We've had very good results with Red Hat EL AS 3, but our subscriptions are less
than 60 days from expiration so we wanted to look at SLES before we renewed our
RH subscriptions.

We're running a couple instances of Oracle DB and their Application Server on a
few Red Hat servers. But Novell and Oracle are now claiming that SuSE is the
fastest platform available for running Oracle, largely due to SLES use of the
2.6 kernel that contains "significant" IO enhancements.

I'm sure this will be a non-issue (not that it really is an issue) when RH
starts using the 2.6 kernel in the EL AS line.

--
Dave Hull
http://insipid.com