Should YaST Become Independent?

Nov 10, 2008

Californian Ben Kevan, server administrator for Linux and VMware, ponders the future of YaST in his blog.

Kevan's blog includes a number of screen shots from a current YaST build. He feels that YaST from openSUSE is now ready to be ported to other systems: "I would have to say it is far from 'Yet another Setup Tool'. I consider it 'The ultimate Setup Tool'."

Kevan ultimately presents the notion of forking YaST to other distributions, based on an idea openSUSE community manager Joe Brockmeier offered last Friday in his blog. Brockmeier wondered if YaST should be released separately from openSUSE, an idea he in turn inherited from Stanislav Visnovsky, who asserts in his own blog that "YaST is a tool that can be used across distributions and there are people interested in this to happen."

Brockmeier cites several arguments in favor of the separation. "Linux, after all these years, still lacks a good, comprehensive, and cross-distro system management tool." Also, YaST releases would get more attention by being independent. Not least of all, more users would test the product, thus providing better chances for improvement.

Related content

  • YaST

    One of the highlights of openSUSE is YaST, the Swiss Army knife of configuration tools for Linux. YaST will help you with everything from managing hardware to configuring users.

    more »
  • A New Look for Yast

    The Opensuse project is collecting ideas for a visual rework of the Yast management tool.

    more »
  • What Means openSUSE? Trademark Guidelines

    The openSUSE project has released guidelines for use of the Novell marks openSUSE, SUSE, YaST, Gecko and AutoBuild.

    more »
  • Linux Magazine DVD
    more »
  • Novell Starts SUSE Studio Appliance Program

    Novell has announced its image building SUSE Studio to be ready for production and the Linux distributor has simultaneously started a partner-program aimed at software manufacturers who want to use SUSE Linux Enterprise as a base for software appliances.

    more »

Comments

  • Meh

    Talk to Novell!!

    It's like asking Microsoft to go open source.

    Won't be happening anytime soon :S

  • Should YaST be Ported to Other Distros

    Yes - absolutely. I've been waiting since SuSE 7.3 for YaST to become universally ported. It is the best in the west as for my experiences...not saying there are other installers for Linux that do very good jobs - but, YaST is by far the best. It's most advanced features that allow you to save the day with it's uses of LVM installation and selecting or deselecting softwares is the most reliable. You can click things to NOT be installed and make them "NEVER" be installed and YaST takes care of that even on updates whereas other distro installers may allow selective installation to begin with - YaST is the only one as of now that I have seen that actually preserves the initial installation and upon updating - only updates what you initially installed and doesn't go ahead install a complete new load of "ALL" the programs of the distro. This is totally important in setting up servers - just in case you need to know why I object to my original install being weighted down with programs and games that should never even be on the computer.
comments powered by Disqus

Issue 210/2018

Buy this issue as a PDF

Digital Issue: Price $9.99
(incl. VAT)

DevOps

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Events Hardware Linux Linux New Media Linux Pro Magazine Mobile Programming Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source
njobs Europe
What:
Where:
Country:
Njobs Netherlands Njobs Deutschland Njobs United Kingdom Njobs Italia Njobs France Njobs Espana Njobs Poland
Njobs Austria Njobs Denmark Njobs Belgium Njobs Czech Republic Njobs Mexico Njobs India Njobs Colombia