The Installation: Building on a great base

openSUSE’s installation has long been regarded as one of the best in the Linux world. Never before has that compliment been more accurate than in openSUSE 11.1. We started by building on the great base built in openSUSE 11.0 this past summer: a sleek new look, and a simpler installation process.

New Partitioner

The updated new installer features an updated look, as seen above, but there is one very big improvement, and most users won’t even see it. It’s the new hard drive partitioner. Luckily, in most cases, the installer can recognize what needs to be done to a user’s hard disk to enable them to use openSUSE, often while keeping their previous operating system and files intact. However, many times advanced users wish to make their own custom partition table, and the improved partitioner helps them do just that.

This partitioner was the subject of usability testing, and was designed to accommodate the needs of our users.

You can also get a quick guide to the installation of openSUSE 11.1 in our Installation Walkthrough.

Help driver development with Smolt

Upon logging into your openSUSE desktop, you’ll be asked to send some hardware information to the Smolt Project. Smolt is a combined effort of Linux distributions and projects including the Fedora Project and openSUSE. Together, collecting the types of hardware in computers running Linux helps put pressure on hardware manufacturers to support Linux better, which is better for everyone.

Getting a rough estimate of the number of users for different types of hardware is also helpful to the developers of device drivers for Linux, which gives them a better idea of what drivers they should help work on to help the most amount of users. It’s one click, it helps you, it helps openSUSE, and it helps the entire Linux community!

Continual improvements to managing software

Recommended Software

openSUSE 11.1 features even more improvements to installing, removing, and maintaining software. In addition to openSUSE’s famous 1-Click Install feature, openSUSE now features a new way to discover new software.

The software manager now recommends or suggests software for your computer depending on what is already installed. These packages aren’t required by another applications, but instead extends their functionality or compliments them. It’s a fun way to discover new things you can do with your computer! Simply select the software, click Install, and the rest is taken care of.

The new KDE updater

KDE users now have a new method of keeping their computer up-to-date. Introducing the new openSUSE Updater for KDE, based on PackageKit. This new updater brings openSUSE into a cross-distro standard with PackageKit, plus enables new functionality within the updater.

The new updater still uses the openSUSE software management system, libzypp, so users still get the speed and other advantages of using our modern, state-of-the-art software management system. Advanced, modern tools wrapped up in one easy to use updating application for KDE.

GNOME users will continue to use their PackageKit-based updating application.

Ready for openSUSE 11.1?

This is just the start of what’s available in openSUSE 11.1! openSUSE 11.1 ships December 18th, 2008 for both download and boxed editions, so stay tuned for more Sneak Peeks and all other news about openSUSE 11.1!

The judges have also settled on a name for the mascot, which will be called Yastie.

We had a lot of great submissions, and it wasn’t easy picking the best idea out of the bunch. We received a number of high-quality submissions, and it’s clear that a lot of thought and hard work went into each submission. Thanks to everyone who participated, it shows just how important YaST is to the community.

As we mentioned in the contest guidelines, we were looking for an idea for the mascot, and not necessarily the final artwork. We want to make sure that the YaST Mascot fits with other openSUSE artwork and branding. Our own Jakub Steiner (jimmac) is going to work on the final artwork, and we’ll be showing that very soon.

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

More information with the rules in the wiki page.

The team had a number of ideas and projects to tackle, but had to prioritize and tackle the most interesting and viable ones first.

Installation in IPv6 Environment

IPv6 is now in much better shape with YaST. The installation in an IPv6 project has been completed to a point where installing openSUSE over an IPv6 network is possible. The code is already checked in. See this post on YaST on IPv6 for more info.

SOA for YaST

The next project was to define a service-oriented architecture for YaST, ideally REST based. The goal is that for any other system to use YaST functionality should be as easy as doing a smple HTTP request, even using curl from the command line and refactor modules toward this architecture.

This affects a couple of other research areas, namely:

• Make YaST Independent of YCP
• Using CIM from YaST modules (not required)
• YaST DBus Service
• YaST PackageKit Service
• YaST Web User Interface (side effect possibility)

For this project, we split a big team of people to cover each one of the areas of research.

At the end we came up with a REST based API proposal for the NTP configuration. Our plan is to prototype a complete vertical area first. A simple prototype for a client Web application to change the time using the Web service was developed for testing purposes.

Another team focused on implementing the service itself based on our APIs. This produced a Django prototype which performs the tasks, and also PolicyKit integration for the Web requests.

Another team tried a different approach for PolicyKit integration at the SCR (System Configuration Repository) level which could bring some role-based management to YaST today, while the other approaches are more focused on a Web service interface.

The team got interesting results, like the timezone dialog, which had widgets disabled because it was running as a user, but after setting up PolicyKit, it allowed the user to change that setting.

At least the last project will probably make its code into YaST very soon to provide role-based management for some specific usecases. The code of the Web services research will probably be the base to experiment with different approaches, but we are not sure if that will be part of the different implementation.

YaST Interface for Webpin

The YaST interface for Webpin was also was completed, and it is very cool for our community users. It basically allows you to search for packages that you don’t have in your repositories directly from YaST, using the Webpin Web service from Benjamin Weber.

We are now discussing how to integrate YaST and Webpin more.

YaST module using mod_ui directly

The mod_ui project was about trying the concept of the modular user interface for first time. You may remember when Stefan Hundhammer made the multi-desktop-terminal-whatever library libyui independant of YaST.

So the YaST teams wanted to try if it would be possible to write a YaST module with it, and at the same time they say, lets use registration, which needs a UI “rethink” anyway. We are not yet sure if this module will replace the current registration, there are some things that need to be figured out, but at least we will take the UI concepts. See the post for more details.

Getting Involved with YaST

The workshop is over, but there’s still plenty to do with YaST. If you’re interested in contributing to YaST or learning more about how to write YaST modules, see the tutorial on the wiki, and join the YaST team on IRC on irc.opensuse.org in the #yast channel and subscribe to yast-devel on the openSUSE mailing lists.

Next week the YaST team will be meeting in Nuremberg, Monday through Friday, to hack on YaST and work on some of the projects on the YaST Research page.

The improvements in YaST for 11.0 have been amazing, but there’s always room for improvement and innovation. Some of the ideas on the table now include:

• Porting YaST to other distros.
• Integration with PolicyKit.
• A Web interface for YaST.
• Make YaST more IPv6 compatible.
• Improve YaST documentation.

And there’s a lot more where that came from. If you’d like to get involved with the Hackshop, but don’t happen to be in Nuremberg, there’s a few ways you can participate. If you’re interested in taking part in the workshop remotely, please join in on #yast on Freenode and follow the discussion on yast-devel. We have limited space at the meeting facilities, but may be able to accommodate a few interested developers who would like to help improve YaST.

We’ll have a full report after the Hackfest, and would welcome suggestions and discussion on the yast-devel mailing list.

Join us on #openSUSE-Factory from 09:00 to 18:00 CEST. We’ll be going through the Bugzilla and reviewing YaST bugs to see which bugs are still valid, gathering information about existing bugs, and generally paring down the bug count to help developers focus on the most crucial problems.

Anyone can participate — you don’t have to be a developer or power user to join in, just point your browser at the openSUSE Bugzilla, log in (be sure to create an account if you don’t have one already) and start searching for bugs against YaST. Help verify bugs that are in Bugzilla, and help close bugs that have already been fixed.

Our goal for Friday is to get the YaST bug count in Bugzilla down and clear the field for YaST developers to concentrate on real bugs that need to be smashed for the openSUSE 11.0 release. You can see the current open bugs here.

Why do we do Bug Smashing days? We want to do a couple of things. First, we want to help to train new contributors who haven’t done bug reporting and triage before. By holding a Bug Smashing Day we can be ready to answer questions and provide support for new bug smashers in real time.

Second, we want to focus our attention on a specific application or feature. In this case, we want to focus on YaST and help clean up the bug database so the YaST team can concentrate on the real problems.

What do you need to participate? Just a Bugzilla account, a system with a relevant release of openSUSE, and be signed in to #openSUSE-Factory.

Can’t participate in the Bug Smashing days? No problem. We encourage Bugzilla cleanup all year round! See the page on submitting bug reports, and join us on #opensuse-factory on Freenode.

Have questions about Bug Smashing? See the Bug Reporting FAQ. If your question still isn’t answered, send a note to Christoph Thiel or Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier.

A PDF of the results is now available.

As part of their openSUSE series over the next coming weeks, Novell Open Audio is taking a look at the YaST Improvements and 1-Click-Install in openSUSE 10.3. It features interviews with Thomas Göttlicher, Martin Lasarsch and Adrian Schröter. They talk about the YaST speed improvements, openSUSE updater improvements, and of course 1-click-install.

The tools allow anyone to take the openSUSE distribution, add additional software (packaged as RPMs) and create

• modified installation media for the distribution
• complete installation media for the additional software, including an installation workflow
• combined installation media for the distribution and the additional software
• any executable image supported by KIWI, like liveCD, bootable USB stick, Xen image etc.

So, it’s much better if we choose an example how the things work together. Let’s assume we want to have a nice way to deliver our great software ACME. We have a bunch of rpm packages in a directory on the disk. What we can do:

• create an installation media (including ISOs) to be used as add-on product for openSUSE 10.3
• add ACME packages to the openSUSE 10.3 distribution, removing all non-ACME related stuff from 10.3, adapting the patterns to preselect ACME
• create a liveCD based on openSUSE 10.3 that will automatically start ACME
• create a Xen image to be directly deployable on our farm of Xen-enabled hosts

To do this, there are in principle three YaST tools we can use:

1. the easiest way is to use the über-tool, called YaST product creator
2. create just the add-on product using YaST add-on creator
3. create KIWI-based executable image using YaST image creator

YaST Add-on Creator

This tool allows a user to create an installation media (repository) from a bunch of RPMs:

• build Add-Ons, to be available for specific Base Products
• provide hardware drivers or own software
• customize installation workflow of the Base Product with own YaST configuration screens

First, a user has to select a name for the add-on product, the base product required for this add-on, and a path to the directory containing the packages.

Asking a few more questions, the tool gathers all data needed for generating the installation media, possibly creating an ISO image to be burned out.

The module is able to create a new add-on product from scratch or modify already existing one. It also supports a commandline interface for scriptable changes of add-on products, see output of ‘yast2 add-on-creator help’ for supported options.

YaST Image Creator

This tool is a YaST user interface for the KIWI imaging tool. Again, there is just a few simple steps needed for creating an image.

A user chooses the repositories to use, the kind of the resulting image and where to store the image.

Then, a user just needs to adapt the KIWI parameters to suit the needs and just click „Finish“ to generate the image:

As a note from Jiří Suchomel, the primary developer, there is a enhanced version in the works to deliver e.g. management of the profiles and more. When ready, the version should be available via BuildService.

YaST2 Product Creator

The primary purpose of this tool is to create a new, completely installable distributions based on existing one. Specifically, it can:

• include latest software from Online Update source
• merge own Add-On into the base product
• build customized product
• create installation medias (network, DVD)

As you can see, the tool provides also way to invoke the add-on creator tool („Create New“ button)…

… as well as generating a resulting image using KIWI …

How to try it out

As mentioned above, the tools are already available on the openSUSE 10.3. However, it might make sense to check out the newest version, which can be found in the buildservice at

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/jsuchome

The packages you need are:
yast2-add-on-creator

yast2-product-creator

As always, feedback is always appreciated, either using opensuse-factory mailing list or bugzilla.

The article was written by the YaST team – thanks to Stanislav Visnovsky as main author.

Lukas announced that the YaST team is opening up their development further:

During the YaST workshop last week, the developers have decided to use the current #yast channel on irc.freenode.net as our official one. In a few days, you will be able to find most of internal YaST developers there – and we hope, more and more external as well

So how to talk with YaST developers online? Simply click on the link above, or:

• Install some IRC client and run it…
• Use these settings:
  • /server irc.freenode.net
  • /join #yast

We still don’t have any “YaST IRC Client” Not yet!

Besides the #yast channel, there are more that are used by the openSUSE project, for details check the openSUSE wiki.
Have a nice day && a lot of fun!

Lukas and Andreas