Comments on: openSUSE Weekly News, Issue 5

By: Dow

Dow — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:56:55 +0000

I agree some notice on news.opensuse.org or on the top page of the main portal, or even on the download page would have been a big reassurance. Being down that long threw off automatic updates on all the community repositories on all the machines I manage. Every single machine is a tuned mix of main and community repository based software. Very few mirrors had all the software available from what I found. I think the project has probably learned a lesson here in failover planning so I hope this never happens again. However, this is where the rubber meets the road on business versus hobby support. Do I really need to bite the bullet a pay for SLED’s support, or can OpenSuSE fit my needs properly? I’ve used SuSE and OpenSuSE for many years in the business setting with great dependability, however, it is only in the past few years that the distro is recycled so quickly and is much more dependent on online repositories. I’d really like a five year security support plan for all OpenSuSE software, and rock solid dependability on the online repositories. However, I think only SLED will ever have that policy. But, I love the constant mix of updated software every six months to a year that you just don’t get with SLED. So, I’ll stick with OpenSuSE and set up my own mirror for syncing. I still haven’t found any distro to compare with OpenSuSE for my needs.
Best wishes,
Dow

By: Ande J

Ande J — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:57:10 +0000

Hi, I did actually have to install during the time the servers were down. Why? Because my hardware broke… Ironic I guess but back to the issue, the installation worked fine without any of the online repositories so I don’t get the point made above that this would not work. Ok the update step failed and I had to wait a couple of days to get my system back to the way I’m used to having it but it was no major problem. And as I’m not paying a penny on running a really good OS I can live with this. I have no idea how much effort it would be, but if I were to run an enterprise and its survival would rely on externally hosted update sites, I’d make sure I’d have my own mirror…

Best Regards,

Andre

By: Doug Glenn

Doug Glenn — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:27:51 +0000

Being a cheerleader will not exonerate the issue of being down, and the lack of communication. 72 hours down in web space is an eternity for any online entity. The issue is Novells support and communication, not the community. Chill? It didn’t bother me personally. From a technical and business standpoint it was a disaster, and any attempt to portray it as anything less is sad. There was also the poor disaster recovery planning and lack of failover. Call it harsh, but when one of the premier FOSS sites goes offline and stays offline for days it is an issue and a black eye on those involved. If you don’t hold those reponsible for the failures feet to the fire, it could very well happen again. That would be more tragic.

Put your self into the shoes of a total newbie and their frustration. The loss of confidence in the system. Movement elsewhere. All of which could have been relieved by timely communication. That is why simply saying “there is a problem” and leaving it at that is insufficient, both from a business and customer support standpoint. This is an old type of geek arrogance that doesn’t play well in the real world. Go ahead and tell me to chill, go ahead and bash the messenger. Then read about a good example of how it should have been handled: http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=567

Questions now? The point here, is this is supposed to be a “professional” site. It should be run that way, and communication should be kept open, no matter how embarrassing it may seem initially. If there had been some sort of notice saying, “Equipment on order, we will be starting up some of the systems in X hours”, followed up by “X systems are now up, but the following still have issues, X time is still needed”. If this had occurred, then I would have said nothing. But the silence was all we got after the initial announcement. And did any of you attempt an installation during this time period? If you had, then you would have seen and experienced the problem a newbie would have encountered. You can’t do an install anymore WITHOUT the site being online successfully (no error messages). This is another problem that should be addressed with the distro.

Do you honestly believe the upper muckity mucks at Novell are going to give a rats behind unless someone acts pissy about it? I don’t. I’ve dealt with Novell since 1992 and Suse since 1997. Credit goes where credit is due, and so does the mud. I buy the distribution myself, not simply download it. How the hell else are they going to make money to keep going? So I will bitch if I want to. I’ve paid for the right. I am willing to bet those asking me to ‘chill’ haven’t. Freeloaders don’t have much right to complain. Ponder that as well.

BTW, the comment on 30,000 children starving is a total read herring or non-sequitor (sp?) and is only an attempt to draw attention off the actual issue.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:18:47 +0000

Who cares if it went down for 72 hours, really. 30,000 children are dieing each day from starvation around the world. And you get your knickers in a twist over problems that couldn’t be helped that took it down for 72 hours. Oh my. Imagine all the things you could of done for 72 hours. Instead of sitting their wetting yourself. Novell and Opensuse let no body down. Because most people are intelligent to know that these things happen with technology, and will always happen. Doug, no one needs to come clean, for god sake, you aren’t paying them for their service, they are giving it to you free, get off your high horse and apologize for being a twat

By: Beineri

Beineri — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:56:57 +0000

No, Friday.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:25:38 +0000

It´s 20:30 hours and still nothing :-{

By: AlbertoP

AlbertoP — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:16:35 +0000

Today :-)

By: Xniver

Xniver — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:07:37 +0000

When alpha 1 will be out?

By: SneWs

SneWs — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:35:44 +0000

What? Get out more, come on people. It’s cold out here, much better off in here infront of the computer writing my own wonderful world ;)

By: anothersatisfiedcustomer

anothersatisfiedcustomer — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:30:41 +0000

seriously, some people need to get out more. There are mirror servers dotted throughout the world hosting the ftp server contents. If you need to download something so desperately that you cannot wait, use one of these. I happen to use the UK mirror hosted by http://www.mirrorservice.org in preference to the main opensuse ones because they are far quicker for me to download from living in UK.