SLED & specific packages

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop SLED Applications
1

I’m looking at purchasing up to 10 SLED licenses & perhaps 1 SLES; however, after reading a lot of these forum threads, I’m concerned with SLEDs lack of ability to install the most basic of functions (i.e., VLC).

There are two businesses for which I am advocating SLED (dependent on answers to my question), both are artistic/production-based and require industry standard formats with which they can interact (mp3 for audio, etc.).

What, specifically, are missing from the SLED/SLES repositories that are included in the openSUSE repositories? I am looking at several production software packages we would need/like to be installed on each system:

[LIST=1]
[]VLC;
[]MP3 player/editor;
[]Komodo Pro;
[]Balsamiq Mockups;
[]Calligra Office (we much prefer this to Libre/OpenOffice);
[]Thunderbird;
[]Wine;
[]32-bit runtime libraries (like openSUSE)
[]Sigil epub editor;
[]RedNoteBook;
[]Bitnami;
[]and a few more I cannot think of at the moment.
[/LIST]

Many of these have heavy requirements that must be installed in order to function. Will SLED/SLES be able to handle those requirements through zypper/YaST? Or, would I have to manually manage package dependencies, a la 1995?

The business owners feel more comfortable with a subscription-based support rather than a completely open source-based install; I cannot blame them; and yet, their needs must be met in order for me to proceed. That is why we are looking at SLED instead of openSUSE.

Thank you in advance.

~Steve

2

You have probably seen my response in the other, semi-related thread. If
not, start there to see if that helps.

\> There are two businesses for which I am advocating SLED (dependent on[color=blue]

answers to my question), both are artistic/production-based and require
industry standard formats with which they can interact (mp3 for audio,
etc.).[/color]

Great… as do most humans today, I use my system for these same purposes.
VLC seems to do a great job playing MP3s. I seem to recall that I’ve
used ffmpeg for conversion among format, including to MP3, from my
preferred format (flac). This is all on openSUSE, which in theory lacks
the same multimedia support of SLED b/c it does not benefit as much from
the licensing partnership with other companies. I am pretty sure ffmpeg
is available as part of SLED, but the install media would be the ultimate
way to verify that.
[color=blue]

What, specifically, are missing from the SLED/SLES repositories that
are included in the openSUSE repositories? I am looking at several
production software packages we would need/like to be installed on each
system:[/color]
[color=blue]

  • VLC;[/color]

Love it.
[color=blue]

  • MP3 player/editor;[/color]

VLC to play… not as sure for editing, if editing means adding tracks or
sound effects, but that’s not my area.
[color=blue]

  • Komodo Pro;
  • Balsamiq Mockups;
  • Calligra Office (we much prefer this to Libre/OpenOffice);
  • Thunderbird;[/color]

Pretty sure it’s an RPM. I use Thunderbird for forums (like now), e-mail,
and RSS feeds.
[color=blue]

  • Wine;[/color]

Built in… mono is also thee for the .net stuff.
[color=blue]

  • 32-bit runtime libraries (like openSUSE)[/color]

Of course.
[color=blue]

Many of these have heavy requirements that must be installed in order
to function. Will SLED/SLES be able to handle those requirements
through zypper/YaST? Or, would I have to manually manage package
dependencies, a la 1995?[/color]

If your concern is just with avoiding “dependency hell” then even if SLED
does not ship something you can often still get packages installed as
easily by pointing to other reputable install sources, including the
openSUSE Build Service (OBS) which hosts packages for SLE, openSUSE,
RH/Fedora, and even some Debian-based distros, or PackMan repositories.
all are RPM-based and regular zypper/Yast-compatible repositories. Even
if you had to resort to compile something yourself and build an RPM
(preferably in OBS since it will do a lot for you and make everything
available to all of your systems) you could still have the dependencies
managed (as much as possible) by the zypper/Yast system.
[color=blue]

The business owners feel more comfortable with a subscription-based
support rather than a completely open source-based install; I cannot
blame them; and yet, their needs must be met in order for me to proceed.
That is why we are looking at SLED instead of openSUSE.[/color]

Makes sense.

Good luck.

3

@ab

Thank you, again, for the response. My biggest concern is paying for support and not having these available, as support. I can hack together most anything, having used Linux since right after its release. But, if I am purchasing SLED/SLES and have to break their packages, will they still support the system? I’m guessing most likely not, as that would open a huge Pandora’s box for their support department.

As I read more into SLED/SLES this seems a lot more restricting than even Windows. Rather than hacks or by breaking SLED/SLES-specific packages provided by Novell(SUSE), I’m trying to find out if the above requirements would be officially provided, or if there are ways to enact them without breaking warranty, so to speak.

4

On 08/23/2013 12:54 PM, susecmail wrote:[color=blue]

@ab

Thank you, again, for the response. My biggest concern is paying for
support and not having these available, as support. I can hack together
most anything, having used Linux since right after its release. But, if
I am purchasing SLED/SLES and have to break their packages, will they
still support the system? I’m guessing most likely not, as that would
open a huge Pandora’s box for their support department.[/color]

If you modify the shipping packages then, yes, you’re on your own. For
the most part, though, I do not think you’ll need to modify the shipping
bits, but it’ll all depend on the actually-needed use cases. The software
that is shipped should just work as it usually does… nicely and
completely. The stuff that does not ship I would think you can add
without jeopardizing a warranty. I would bet SUSE would have a hard time
with a statement of, “You can only install our software, ever, at all, or
it will void a warranty.” since “software” comes from all sorts of sources
in browsers and Firefox is still supported.
[color=blue]

As I read more into SLED/SLES this seems a lot more restricting than
even Windows. Rather than hacks or by breaking SLED/SLES-specific
packages provided by Novell(SUSE), I’m trying to find out if the above
requirements would be officially provided, or if there are ways to enact
them without breaking warranty, so to speak.[/color]

I do not know how many of those packages are shipped by SUSE, but if any
of them are not and you find them elsewhere and install them properly (not
overwriting shipping stuff, which shouldn’t be necessary) then they should
work and support should be maintained. If a problem comes up I’d expect
for there to be a need to show something related to the third-party stuff
causing the problem in order to deny support for something else on the
same machine, and while that’s reasonable, it’s also something that I have
seldom experienced when doing normal things on a desktop/laptop (vs. when
I’m breaking the rules out of curiosity or experimentation).

Good luck.

5

Hi
Further to ab’s comments you can all was go the Fluendo route for
multimedia (and paid support) as well as crossover-office (and paid
support) to supplement the install.

I run both without support on SLE, the only application I use is
handbrake and libdvdcss for multimedia conversion if required. I don’t
use VLC as totem works fine for my needs or the fulendo dvd player.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.3 (x86_64) Kernel 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
up 1 day 19:35, 4 users, load average: 0.08, 0.08, 0.11
CPU AMD E2-1800@1.70GHz | GPU Radeon HD 7340

6

At this point I see HW in question, for multimedia support:

  • sled does not have vaapi, and i could not make it work from additional repos (did not give up yet), for ATI GPU; it works on openSUSE, probably why Malcolm has openSUSE in the signature for that configuration
  • NVIDIA has vdpau, i think that’s supported with Malcolm’s multimedia pack, so totem will play just about anything with hw acceleration

it is a matter of taste in the end; i don’t see how support can help you with the desktop use case, maybe for server…; i stick with SLED and not with openSUSE since i like the old gnome interface and not the new gnome interface…maybe a dual boot for the video acceleration will just do.

[QUOTE=malcolmlewis;15483]Hi
Further to ab’s comments you can all was go the Fluendo route for
multimedia (and paid support) as well as crossover-office (and paid
support) to supplement the install.

I run both without support on SLE, the only application I use is
handbrake and libdvdcss for multimedia conversion if required. I don’t
use VLC as totem works fine for my needs or the fulendo dvd player.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.3 (x86_64) Kernel 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
up 1 day 19:35, 4 users, load average: 0.08, 0.08, 0.11
CPU AMD E2-1800@1.70GHz | GPU Radeon HD 7340[/QUOTE]

7

[QUOTE=hmihaii;15502]At this point I see HW in question, for multimedia support:

  • sled does not have vaapi, and i could not make it work from additional repos (did not give up yet), for ATI GPU; it works on openSUSE, probably why Malcolm has openSUSE in the signature for that configuration
  • NVIDIA has vdpau, i think that’s supported with Malcolm’s multimedia pack, so totem will play just about anything with hw acceleration

it is a matter of taste in the end; i don’t see how support can help you with the desktop use case, maybe for server…; i stick with SLED and not with openSUSE since i like the old gnome interface and not the new gnome interface…maybe a dual boot for the video acceleration will just do.[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, I cannot offer a dual-boot to non-technical people; and, they shouldn’t have to in order to get functionality that should exist on their computer.

It’s not a matter of “support” per se (although, in a way it is, I guess); if the companies pay for support, most likely those companies will not want to invalidate that support by using non-standard (i.e., non-supported) depositories.

Thank you for the links on Fluendo; I didn’t know that existed. I have Intel graphics, which I’ve noticed in the forums can prove problematic for SLED/SLES.

Unfortunately, it looks as if it is going to have to be Windows for their office environments. I cannot provide a permanent support path, which is what the business owners require; there are enough Windows techs out there that can offer them any kind of support. I was hoping the Novell support, a long with a rock-solid OS, would be the answer; this would obviate the need for support (unlike Windows which creates a “support environment”, IMHO).

Do Novell employees ever answer these forum posts? I’ve been waiting for a sales call for a couple days now and was hoping to speak to them. This is likely to be a significant investment for two small businesses (in the thousands) and I would REALLY like to get them off Windows (which has caused hundreds of hours of downtime due to viruses & other issues).

8

Employees sometimes pass through the forums, but about as often as you’d
expect any old person to wander through (most do not, and the forums are
only officially staffed by volunteers who are not employees).

The sales folks should contact you semi-quickly… if you have not heard
from them try again, or maybe another option to meet your needs is to work
through a partner. While official vendor support won’t come from the
partner, they can give your customer access to the software as well as
support before working with SUSE. Benefits there sometimes come in the
form of more-personal relationships, better knowledge of the environment
(because you work with the same folks each time vs. whomever answer the
support phone at SUSE), a willingness to support un-shipped things, the
ability to leverage a partner’s set of SRs (so you’re not paying per SR),
etc. Many of the Knowledge Partners (myself included) work for
Novell/SUSE/NetIQ partners and can provide that on a for-pay basis. Of
course, you can always ask for help here as well and get support for free.
Just trying to think outside the box since, in the end, I think both the
customer and you will be happier if you can drop the burdens that come
with inferior software and stick with SLE.

Good luck.

9

i expect Novell to support only the packages they include in SLED/S. if you use packages from side repos, either for existing packages or not-existing packages, you can’t receive support for them (but you should still receive support for the included packages). a definite answer to this only Novell could provide.

now, for multimedia support, you can build yourself VLC/multimedia pack/others or use paid solutions. SLED is for business, but i don’t see why it couldn’t be adapted for multimedia out of the box to cover a broader audience (maybe Novell will get it in SP4, if they want a bigger share of the rather small linux market).it is not about licenses/copyrights, linux is free, SLED is linux, you have to pay for support (if you want/need to).

10

Hi
I run SLED on this machine, but only the radeon driver at present as
this system runs secure boot along with openSUSE and Windows 8…
still working on a signed driver, but the radeon is fine.

I have a desktop running with nvidia ( my wife’s machine) as she prefers
GNOME 2.X I also have a HP ProBook 4430s running SLES but that has an
Intel GPU.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 12.3 (x86_64) Kernel 3.7.10-1.16-desktop
up 1:26, 3 users, load average: 0.18, 0.18, 0.14
CPU AMD E2-1800@1.70GHz | GPU Radeon HD 7340

11

I see mention of MP3 multiple times in this discussion but I don’t see anyone point out that SLED ships with MP3 playback support.

[CODE]$ zypper info gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…

Information for package gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3:

Repository: SLED11SP3-Pool
Name: gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3
Version: 12-4.7.18
Arch: x86_64
Vendor: SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany
Support Level: Level 2
Installed: Yes
Status: up-to-date
Installed Size: 1.2 MiB
Summary: Gstreamer mp3 plugin from Fluendo
Description:
Fully licensed mp3-decoder binary as available from
http://shop.fluendo.com free of charge. The source code has a free
MIT-like license, as explained in
https://core.fluendo.com/gstreamer/svn/trunk/gst-fluendo-mp3/LICENSE[/CODE]

My approach with SLED is add packages, but don’t replace packages that are provided in SLED. That is the approach which led me to come up with https://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/additional-multimedia-codec-support-for-sled-11-sp3/
I managed SLED installations with numerous additional packages installed and have successfully obtained support from SUSE.

Ultimately the only way you can decide whether SLED will meet your needs is to try it and see. Are you aware that you can download a copy of SLED for free? It keeps working forever, you just don’t get any updates after 60 days.

FWIW, I just downloaded Komodo-IDE and it launched fine. I have no idea how to actually use it though so all I can say is it launched without errors. It’s supplied as a .tar.gz so zypper/YaST isn’t involved, you unpack it, run the install script and tell it where to install.

12

Thank you for the link, downloading now and I’ll try to install it…

[QUOTE=mikewillis;15553]I see mention of MP3 multiple times in this discussion but I don’t see anyone point out that SLED ships with MP3 playback support.

[CODE]$ zypper info gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…

Information for package gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3:

Repository: SLED11SP3-Pool
Name: gstreamer-0_10-fluendo-mp3
Version: 12-4.7.18
Arch: x86_64
Vendor: SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Nuernberg, Germany
Support Level: Level 2
Installed: Yes
Status: up-to-date
Installed Size: 1.2 MiB
Summary: Gstreamer mp3 plugin from Fluendo
Description:
Fully licensed mp3-decoder binary as available from
http://shop.fluendo.com free of charge. The source code has a free
MIT-like license, as explained in
https://core.fluendo.com/gstreamer/svn/trunk/gst-fluendo-mp3/LICENSE[/CODE]

My approach with SLED is add packages, but don’t replace packages that are provided in SLED. That is the approach which led me to come up with https://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/additional-multimedia-codec-support-for-sled-11-sp3/
I managed SLED installations with numerous additional packages installed and have successfully obtained support from SUSE.

Ultimately the only way you can decide whether SLED will meet your needs is to try it and see. Are you aware that you can download a copy of SLED for free? It keeps working forever, you just don’t get any updates after 60 days.

FWIW, I just downloaded Komodo-IDE and it launched fine. I have no idea how to actually use it though so all I can say is it launched without errors. It’s supplied as a .tar.gz so zypper/YaST isn’t involved, you unpack it, run the install script and tell it where to install.[/QUOTE]