[lpi-discuss] LPI, Novell, and SUSE

[ross e. brunson]

On Wed, 2005-07-13 at 21:27 +0200, Anselm Lingnau wrote:
> One of the more glaring omissions with the SUSE distributions is »locate« and 
> family -- it's not as if this was a vital tool, but it's useful (especially 
> for teaching), and I've never seen the point of leaving this out of the 
> default install. 

That's only the case in SLES (the enterprise version) it's present in
the 9.3 and below SUSE Linux tree, in fact I just used it right before
your email came through.

> Also somebody seems to think that »make« is only useful when 
> you're compiling programs, so once the C compiler goes, obviously that can go 
> too ... 

Heh, I can identify with that one, but Red Hat and a lot of others do
the same thing, if you are not putting source code on a user's
workstation, why would they need make and the compiler?

> (Incidentally, how does »zzz_all« handle the case where two packages 
> conflict with each other, say Postfix and Sendmail -- »there can be only 
> one«?)

Yes, you're right, "everything" is misleading, it's really "select all
but throw up a conflict-resolution dialog so you can choose and apply"
method that gives you atomic and very quick control over what gets
installed.

> I don't disagree that it is possible to install »everything«. Unfortunately 
> our situation is the one where the instructor comes to the customer site (a 
> training center in, say, Munich or Hamburg) at 8am on Monday, and the class 
> is supposed to start at 9am. At that point you do want your 8 or so machines 
> already installed for you; it's usually enough of a hassle already getting 
> your own laptop connected, making sure that the beamer works and the 
> whiteboard markers aren't dried out, getting your personal caffeine depot 
> charged, etc. However, more often than not the local admins in charge of the 
> install, being Microsoft jocks, aren't exactly up to speed with the Linux 
> distribution du jour; they get somebody to default-install a machine for them 
> which they then image, and from then on all their Linux training PCs are 
> installed off that image (which to all intents is treated like a bunch of 
> stone tablets freshly down from Mt. Sinai). I suspect that with the new 
> Novell courses, that do specify detailed setups, things will improve once the 
> training provider admins get the hang of that, but I'm not holding my breath.

Wow, talk about an area that we can riff for days/weeks on...  I do a
quick autoyast installation of my workstations, it takes about 40
minutes to get done, and if you get there early enough you can have it
just finishing when they walk in.  You do need an installation server
setup with the package sources, but that's REALLY easy to do with the
"Installation Server" YaST module, and an answer file, but that too can
be made by choosing YaST -> Misc -> Autoinstallation -> Tools -> Create
Reference Profile.  Take that .xml file and refer to it from the command
line when you start the installation.

I boot the system with CD 1 from SLES, choose the Installation menu
choice, hit F3 and choose Http as the source, fill in the server IP and
path address (such as 10.0.0.254 and /sles9) in the dialog and close it,
then on the command line at the GRUB install screen type:

autoyast=http://10.0.0.254/sles9/yast/student.xml

Then hit Enter and it should get an IP address from the server or DHCP
server and hit the package cache, loading the reference file from the
server and the whole install is totally automated.

Beats the hell out of the situation you talk about above, then all your
software updates and new installs can be from the installation server to
their machines, no time at all, no CD's to fool about with.  You could
do a very small or simple reference install, then show them how to add
packages, the package sources are in the Software Section of YaST in the
Change Source of Installation module.

Ross
> 
> Anselm