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The YaST2 Package Manager
One of the most anticipated new features in the upcoming SuSE 8.1
release would appear to be the YaST2 package
manager. YaST2 is a completely rewritten interface to the (as always,
RPM-based) package management system with a number of new features. The
interface itself, as seen in the
screen shots looks nice. The folks at SuSE seem to have put some
serious thought into making package management easier.
One new capability is "taboo packages," the ability to block certain packages from ever being installed on a system. If a user wants, for example, to keep that other desktop (for whatever definition of "other") off of a system, making it taboo will keep it from ever being installed. Without this capability, it is easy to find that library packages slip in via dependencies even if they had been originally excluded. Dependency handling in general appears (from the screenshots) to have received a fair amount of thought. Dependency problems can turn system management into an unpleasant task, especially when complicated conflict scenarios arise. YaST2 appears to have the ability to display conflict problems and to allow users to resolve them as they best see fit - including that all important "I know what I'm doing, just do it" option. YaST2 has not been made available separately, so it will be necessary to wait for the 8.1 distribution to try it out. That release looks on track to happen before the end of September in Europe; those of us on the western side of the Atlantic will likely have to wait a little longer. (Log in to post comments)
Nice job, LWN Posted Sep 20, 2002 3:38 UTC (Fri) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] It is very nice to see the distributions page receiving some extra editorial support beyond an all-neutral repetition of distributions' own press releases. It doesn't seem very fitting to say that for the very edition that does not feature ris at the bottom of the page (she has certainly done a much appreciated job - will she continue?); nevertheless, this week's page came as a small pleasant surprise.I am stating this in this somewhat unfitting place (Yast2) because (a) there wasn't a better one, and (b) as a SuSE user, I found this particular editorial quite useful (hopefully the same may be said by Debian, RH, Mandrake, ... users for their respective pieces over time) Looking forward to the subscription option, V.
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