Have you cobbled together a system that you are going to use for something critical / important?
Have you just built The World's Most Beastly System?
Do you have a system that MUST run, 24/7, come Hell or High Water?
Or, maybe, you just want to see if your system has The Right Stuff.
What you need is a PC Benchmark Program.
There are a lot of benchmarks out there - and if you don't believe me just go to any well stocked magazine rack somewhere and snoop three or four PC magazines. You will find as many benchmarks as there are editors - each claiming that THEIR benchmark is the sine-qua-non of benchmarks.
Each of these benchmarks exists to target a particular aspect of your computer - be it raw processing power, graphics rendering and speed, the motherboard, or whatever.
But, just maybe, all you need to know is if Your Machine Can Hack It.
Here are two interesting little beasties - and I mean little as these utilities have a very small footprint. And I also mean BEASTIES, as these will torture your system to the point where it will confess to setting the Reichstag fire, if not plotting the downfall of Rome itself.
The first is PRIME95 - specifically designed to try and find Mersenne prime numbers. Specifically it seeks to find Very Large Mersenne prime numbers. As in 12 million decimal-places - or more.
So, why should you care, and how is this going to help?
First - should you decide to join the fine folks at GIMPS, and should you be so extremely lucky as to actually FIND one of the beasties, (since the dawn of mathematics, only 47 have been found so far), there is not only glory to be had, there are also CA$H PRIZE$. As in moola, Benjamins, coin, or just plain cash money. (This is also a great way to flesh out a Mathematics dissertation.)
NB: It should be noted that there is also a poster for sale there at the GIMPS site, about the size of a 4x8 piece of plywood, that contains every last digit of this immense number in Living Color. Likewise it should be noted that they sell - as a companion product to the poster - a high-power Jeweler's Loupe so that you can actually SEE the digits! (They are indeed that tiny.)
Secondly - even TRYING to find one of those "little" twelve-bazillion decimal-place beasties requires all the computing power your poor little PC has to muster.
Not only does your CPU take a beating - every single core of it - but each and every FPU, (Floating Point Math Unit - built into each CPU core), gets the workout of it's life. The result is usually a CPU chip that gets hot enough to smell. Not to mention you will get to hear your processor's heat-sink fan wind up to its maximum speed for the first time in history.
While making your CPU cry "Uncle!" by beating it senseless, working with twelve-bazillion-digit numbers requires a LOT of data-shuffling back and forth into RAM. Ergo, your main memory gets the beating of it's life too. Not to mention your motherboard's Memory Management Unit, northbridge chip, southbridge chip, sandybridge, windy-bridge, suspension-bridge, and any other kind of bridge chip you may have.
The result of putting your machine on the Rack is this: If there is anything in your system that's not up to snuff - or is even considering the vaguely distant possibility of departing from the Straight And Narrow Path - this will flush the partridges out of the bush in short order.
The next fine fellow in the Spanish Inquisition isn't even a torture test. It's just a cute little utility that stands around, thermometer in one hand and digital voltmeter in the other, telling you how loudly your PC is cursing you.
It's called HW Monitor, and the fine folks at CPUID, (who also make the excellent CPU-Z program), provide it free of charge.
It provides a nice window showing all your system voltages, fan speeds, MoBo and CPU temperatures, etc. Running this with Prime95 is a good idea. This way you will know if the smell coming from your PC is just hot aluminum, or the smell of melting silicon as your $700 CPU breathes it's last.
The bottom line is this - if you have a PC, Mac, Linux box, or whatever you need to test - these are a couple of free tools you can download to do it.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Welcome to the QA Tech-Tips blog!
Did you notice something different?
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
You Can't Get There From Here! (Part 2)
Issues with the new AHCI interface
In a previous article, I talked about the advantages of the new AHCI interface. It's fast and it supports a whole host of useful features. Things like the ability to dismount and remove/swap a drive, as well as a lot of the newer features that have been built into modern hard drives.
Especially the "dismount and remove" feature - which makes swapping a SATA/eSATA drive as simple as swapping a USB thumb-drive. If you are like me and you have multiple external SATA drive docks that you use to plug in a hard drive, use it for something as if it were a GIGANTIC USB thumb drive, and then remove it; AHCI is an absolute necessity.
Given your choice, AHCI is indeed the way to go.
However, there is a "dark side" to The Force: A lot of software that needs to talk directly to the drives won't work with the new AHCI interface protocol. The classic symptom of this incompatibility is that the software cannot find the hard drives or optical media devices on your system.
For example, my long-time-favorite CD/DVD/etc. burner software - CDBurner XP - has significant issues with the AHCI interface. Likewise other CD burning software, True Burner is a good example, won't work with AHCI.
If you have hard-drive imaging software that is more than a couple of years old, it's pretty much a lead-pipe-cinch that it won't work with AHCI either.
If you have some older rescue disks laying around, such as BartPE disks, or even older versions of Linux - like the earlier versions of Knoppix - they have trouble with the AHCI interface protocol as well.
"Why is this so?" you may ask. And yes, that is a very good question.
The answer is this:
As hard drive interfaces have evolved in the past; from the custom and non-standard embedded interfaces used in ancient computers, to the Western Digital interface for MFM and RLL drives used in computers only slightly less ancient, to the venerable IDE / EIDE / Ultra ATA interface used for so long, to the new SATA/eSATA interface - each major advance in the drive controller interface has obsoleted - and orphaned - the previous protocols and standards.
The AHCI interface - developed by Intel during the Itanium days - was designed to provide a whole host of useful, and needed, features to the hard drive community. When SATA came around, the SATA standards leveraged the capabilities of the AHCI interface protocol - and the hard drive manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon and made sure that their drives would support these new standards.
The rock in the road here is that the design for the IDE/ATA interface never imagined any of these capabilities - drive swapping for example - because these features were just not possible with the older ATA. (PATA), drives.
However! (# 1)
Most of the software available at that time - including operating systems - did not support the AHCI interface protocol. So, the computer motherboard and BIOS manufacturers worked around this issue by providing a choice: You can set the computer's motherboard to use the older - and more "compatible" IDE protocol, or the newer AHCI protocol. As a result, the IDE protocol has stayed around, a relic of days-gone-by.
However! (# 2)
Newer motherboards - and especially newer laptops - have decided to do away with the, (relatively), old and crufty IDE interface choice - leaving room in the BIOS for more interesting features.
As you have probably already noticed, the intersection of "However #1" and "However #2" results in things just not working - or working in bizarre ways.
To make matters even more interesting - you cannot just switch from one interface protocol to the other willy-nilly. Doing so on a Windows based machine is the fast track to a machine that won't boot. (See this Microsoft site for an explanation why, and the registry hack needed to fix it.)
There are two big take-aways from all of this:
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Especially the "dismount and remove" feature - which makes swapping a SATA/eSATA drive as simple as swapping a USB thumb-drive. If you are like me and you have multiple external SATA drive docks that you use to plug in a hard drive, use it for something as if it were a GIGANTIC USB thumb drive, and then remove it; AHCI is an absolute necessity.
Given your choice, AHCI is indeed the way to go.
However, there is a "dark side" to The Force: A lot of software that needs to talk directly to the drives won't work with the new AHCI interface protocol. The classic symptom of this incompatibility is that the software cannot find the hard drives or optical media devices on your system.
For example, my long-time-favorite CD/DVD/etc. burner software - CDBurner XP - has significant issues with the AHCI interface. Likewise other CD burning software, True Burner is a good example, won't work with AHCI.
If you have hard-drive imaging software that is more than a couple of years old, it's pretty much a lead-pipe-cinch that it won't work with AHCI either.
If you have some older rescue disks laying around, such as BartPE disks, or even older versions of Linux - like the earlier versions of Knoppix - they have trouble with the AHCI interface protocol as well.
"Why is this so?" you may ask. And yes, that is a very good question.
The answer is this:
As hard drive interfaces have evolved in the past; from the custom and non-standard embedded interfaces used in ancient computers, to the Western Digital interface for MFM and RLL drives used in computers only slightly less ancient, to the venerable IDE / EIDE / Ultra ATA interface used for so long, to the new SATA/eSATA interface - each major advance in the drive controller interface has obsoleted - and orphaned - the previous protocols and standards.
The AHCI interface - developed by Intel during the Itanium days - was designed to provide a whole host of useful, and needed, features to the hard drive community. When SATA came around, the SATA standards leveraged the capabilities of the AHCI interface protocol - and the hard drive manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon and made sure that their drives would support these new standards.
The rock in the road here is that the design for the IDE/ATA interface never imagined any of these capabilities - drive swapping for example - because these features were just not possible with the older ATA. (PATA), drives.
However! (# 1)
Most of the software available at that time - including operating systems - did not support the AHCI interface protocol. So, the computer motherboard and BIOS manufacturers worked around this issue by providing a choice: You can set the computer's motherboard to use the older - and more "compatible" IDE protocol, or the newer AHCI protocol. As a result, the IDE protocol has stayed around, a relic of days-gone-by.
However! (# 2)
Newer motherboards - and especially newer laptops - have decided to do away with the, (relatively), old and crufty IDE interface choice - leaving room in the BIOS for more interesting features.
As you have probably already noticed, the intersection of "However #1" and "However #2" results in things just not working - or working in bizarre ways.
To make matters even more interesting - you cannot just switch from one interface protocol to the other willy-nilly. Doing so on a Windows based machine is the fast track to a machine that won't boot. (See this Microsoft site for an explanation why, and the registry hack needed to fix it.)
There are two big take-aways from all of this:
- Software that relies on direct, low-level access to a drive may not work in the AHCI mode.
So, if a software title you've used for years and years suddenly decides to stop working, or stop working on a new machine, check the AHCI mode setting in your BIOS. - When you find something like this, do not hesitate to ask the author(s) of this software product to update their software's drivers to support AHCI.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Monday, April 2, 2012
QA Engineer Downtime
FlightGear 2.6
Just in case you were wondering what Software QA people do when they're not testing code. . . . They go home and test code!
Today's topic is about yet another program you may want to "test" - FlightGear. FlightGear is an Open Source flight simulation package that has been under active development since the mid to late '90's. You can download it for free, and it has terrain and detail maps for (as far as I can tell) the entire globe.
One of the things I've been passionate about since - well - I can't remember back that far, has been airplanes and flying. A Pilot's license, (and an airplane to go with it), has been a dream of mine for ages.
Of course, with 20/400 vision (uncorrected), corrected vision that requires lenses whose thickness is measured in centimeters - even with "High-E" plastic - and is good enough to let me drive, but not much else. . . . the chances of passing the medical to get said Pilot's license is slim to zero, to say the least!
So, I have to assuage my frustrated dreams with flight simulation programs - the de facto standard being Microsoft's Flight Simulator in all it's versions.
Microsoft's Flight Simulator - all the way up to the latest version which is Flight Simulator "X" - is a truly worthy program for those who enjoy the exhilaration of flight. It's fairly simple, you install the software, plug in your joystick/yoke and rudder pedals, (if you are lucky enough to have a set), hop in the virtual plane, and start flying!
Using the default "as installed" settings, your plane is refueled, your trusty valet-cum-ground engineer has already done the pre-flight checks, the engine is started and all warmed up, so all you have to do is release the brakes, advance the throttle a bit, and you're soon in the air. And, unless you tell it to be extra picky, you always start on a day that has wonderful weather, a few scattered clouds, no wind to speak of, and inexhaustible fuel.
Microsoft's slogan for most of their Flight Simulator packages is something like it being "As Real As It Gets!" Needless to say, flying in MS Flight Sim is - almost - trivially easy. With a little practice and patience you can even get back on the ground in one piece!
Which left me wondering. . . . Is flying an airplane REALLY that easy?
Answer: No.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is - above all - a "game". A very sophisticated game nonetheless, but still a game. You can advance the "reality" settings from the default of "fantasy" to "somewhat realistic" - but it's still a game. Microsoft goes to great lengths not to frustrate those people who planked down $60+ for this beast, and they do so at the expense of realism.
On the other hand, FlightGear is most definitely NOT a "game" by any stretch of the imagination. The stated design goal, (make that read "long-term design goal"), is to make a sim that is accurate enough to be FAA certified. And they mean it.
Once you load and start the sim - and if you are at all smart about your selection of which plane to fly - you are somewhere outside of San Francisco in a seldom used municipal airport dedicated to small planes, sitting in a Cessna 172. Said Cessna being one of the "easier" planes to fly.
And unlike Microsoft's Flight Simulator, there is no trusty valet to set things up for you. YOU have to do the work. You have to do the pre-flight. You have to file the flight-plan, and yes YOU are expected to actually fly the airplane.
The program launches, you're sitting in "the Left-Hand Seat", (Pilot In Command), and there is no noise whatsoever. Not even crickets.
Thinking that the sound support is still a little squiffy, I proceed to release the parking brake and advance the throttle. Nothing. I can see the controls move but nothing happens. I try several other things, and still nothing is happening. Is the game frozen? Is it "paused"? I decide to take another look at the "quick start" guide to see what I am doing wrong.
Guess what! The absence of sound is deliberate - the engine is not running yet.
So, you look up the "engine start" check-list, (yes, there are check-lists for everything, just like in a real airplane), and proceed to do the drill: Check and set the magnetos, set throttle and mixture controls, verify proper control action by looking at the wings, elevators, and tail. And! Especially if you have "random stuff happening" set, you do actually have to make sure that there isn't some clod near the airplane when you start the prop spinning.
So you flip the magneto switch to "start" and you hear the engine crank. And crank. And crank. And crank.
Seriously, the first time I tried to start that beast I did not simulate starting the engine, but I did simulate running the battery down.
Reset simulation.
OK, lets look at that checklist again. Hmm. Looks OK to me. So back to the manual! It turns out that in order to get a REAL Cessna 172 started, you have to put both the mixture and throttle controls in certain very specific positions. And it takes a few tries to get the hang of it. Eventually. . . . you learn how to start the plane without killing the battery.
Ready for takeoff! Release the brakes, advance the throttle and down the runway you go! You pull back on the stick and. . . . nothing. You're about three feet in the air, wheels bouncing around as you swish this way and that way all over the grassy countryside surrounding the airport. And yes, those odd looking structures up ahead, (that you are about fifteen seconds from crashing into), are high tension electric wire towers.
Eventually you come to a stop, assuming you avoid the high-tension towers, and wonder what went wrong.
Reset simulation, (for the upteenth time), and it's back to the manual!
In real life, (and in FlightGear), you have to be much more careful about trying to take off. You need to have the correct amount of flaps set. You have to have enough engine speed, (check the throttle and mixture again!), and you have to manage to get to your airplane's realistically rated "rotation velocity" before you can get off the ground. Again, as in real life, you have to get it right. "Almost" right isn't going to cut it.
And so on.
Now, I don't want you to think they have just tossed you to the wolves. There are a lot of excellent tutorials about all kinds of things, from actually getting the plane to start, to flying a REAL IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) departure and approach, all the way to learning how to do everything the right way from the beginning.
The key words here being "the right way". As far as I can tell, (based on the short time I spent with it, as well as reading the documentation), this piece of software strives for absolute, uncompromising, realism. Though they do make apologies for certain inaccuracies. Things like "Helicopter blades do not shatter if you have the tips exceed the speed of sound", or "we don't have access to real ground or air-traffic-control simulations yet".
However most of it is right on the money - from the yucky weather outside all the way to the positioning of the moon and constellations. All of this stuff is derived - whenever possible - from real NOAA or GeoSAT weather, Naval Observatory data - even the precession of your inertial gyro is modeled down to the hairs on a flea. And yes, you have to reset the Inertial system periodically. Just like in real life. And when doing your approach in lousy weather, you have to do your "procedure turns" and listen for the nav-aid beacons, just like in real life.
So, what does this have to do with QA, besides seeming to cater to the masochistic streak that every software QA Engineer has to have?
Though very realistic - in the ways that it can be realistic - there is still much room for improvement. Testing, of both the stable releases as well as the development builds is an important contribution. Even helping to clean up the documentation is welcomed with open arms.
It's also interesting - especially if you want to see what a REAL simulation is like!
Go check it out! http://www.flightgear.org
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Today's topic is about yet another program you may want to "test" - FlightGear. FlightGear is an Open Source flight simulation package that has been under active development since the mid to late '90's. You can download it for free, and it has terrain and detail maps for (as far as I can tell) the entire globe.
One of the things I've been passionate about since - well - I can't remember back that far, has been airplanes and flying. A Pilot's license, (and an airplane to go with it), has been a dream of mine for ages.
Of course, with 20/400 vision (uncorrected), corrected vision that requires lenses whose thickness is measured in centimeters - even with "High-E" plastic - and is good enough to let me drive, but not much else. . . . the chances of passing the medical to get said Pilot's license is slim to zero, to say the least!
So, I have to assuage my frustrated dreams with flight simulation programs - the de facto standard being Microsoft's Flight Simulator in all it's versions.
Microsoft's Flight Simulator - all the way up to the latest version which is Flight Simulator "X" - is a truly worthy program for those who enjoy the exhilaration of flight. It's fairly simple, you install the software, plug in your joystick/yoke and rudder pedals, (if you are lucky enough to have a set), hop in the virtual plane, and start flying!
Using the default "as installed" settings, your plane is refueled, your trusty valet-cum-ground engineer has already done the pre-flight checks, the engine is started and all warmed up, so all you have to do is release the brakes, advance the throttle a bit, and you're soon in the air. And, unless you tell it to be extra picky, you always start on a day that has wonderful weather, a few scattered clouds, no wind to speak of, and inexhaustible fuel.
Microsoft's slogan for most of their Flight Simulator packages is something like it being "As Real As It Gets!" Needless to say, flying in MS Flight Sim is - almost - trivially easy. With a little practice and patience you can even get back on the ground in one piece!
Which left me wondering. . . . Is flying an airplane REALLY that easy?
Answer: No.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is - above all - a "game". A very sophisticated game nonetheless, but still a game. You can advance the "reality" settings from the default of "fantasy" to "somewhat realistic" - but it's still a game. Microsoft goes to great lengths not to frustrate those people who planked down $60+ for this beast, and they do so at the expense of realism.
On the other hand, FlightGear is most definitely NOT a "game" by any stretch of the imagination. The stated design goal, (make that read "long-term design goal"), is to make a sim that is accurate enough to be FAA certified. And they mean it.
Once you load and start the sim - and if you are at all smart about your selection of which plane to fly - you are somewhere outside of San Francisco in a seldom used municipal airport dedicated to small planes, sitting in a Cessna 172. Said Cessna being one of the "easier" planes to fly.
And unlike Microsoft's Flight Simulator, there is no trusty valet to set things up for you. YOU have to do the work. You have to do the pre-flight. You have to file the flight-plan, and yes YOU are expected to actually fly the airplane.
The program launches, you're sitting in "the Left-Hand Seat", (Pilot In Command), and there is no noise whatsoever. Not even crickets.
Thinking that the sound support is still a little squiffy, I proceed to release the parking brake and advance the throttle. Nothing. I can see the controls move but nothing happens. I try several other things, and still nothing is happening. Is the game frozen? Is it "paused"? I decide to take another look at the "quick start" guide to see what I am doing wrong.
Guess what! The absence of sound is deliberate - the engine is not running yet.
So, you look up the "engine start" check-list, (yes, there are check-lists for everything, just like in a real airplane), and proceed to do the drill: Check and set the magnetos, set throttle and mixture controls, verify proper control action by looking at the wings, elevators, and tail. And! Especially if you have "random stuff happening" set, you do actually have to make sure that there isn't some clod near the airplane when you start the prop spinning.
So you flip the magneto switch to "start" and you hear the engine crank. And crank. And crank. And crank.
Seriously, the first time I tried to start that beast I did not simulate starting the engine, but I did simulate running the battery down.
Reset simulation.
OK, lets look at that checklist again. Hmm. Looks OK to me. So back to the manual! It turns out that in order to get a REAL Cessna 172 started, you have to put both the mixture and throttle controls in certain very specific positions. And it takes a few tries to get the hang of it. Eventually. . . . you learn how to start the plane without killing the battery.
Ready for takeoff! Release the brakes, advance the throttle and down the runway you go! You pull back on the stick and. . . . nothing. You're about three feet in the air, wheels bouncing around as you swish this way and that way all over the grassy countryside surrounding the airport. And yes, those odd looking structures up ahead, (that you are about fifteen seconds from crashing into), are high tension electric wire towers.
Eventually you come to a stop, assuming you avoid the high-tension towers, and wonder what went wrong.
Reset simulation, (for the upteenth time), and it's back to the manual!
In real life, (and in FlightGear), you have to be much more careful about trying to take off. You need to have the correct amount of flaps set. You have to have enough engine speed, (check the throttle and mixture again!), and you have to manage to get to your airplane's realistically rated "rotation velocity" before you can get off the ground. Again, as in real life, you have to get it right. "Almost" right isn't going to cut it.
And so on.
Now, I don't want you to think they have just tossed you to the wolves. There are a lot of excellent tutorials about all kinds of things, from actually getting the plane to start, to flying a REAL IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) departure and approach, all the way to learning how to do everything the right way from the beginning.
The key words here being "the right way". As far as I can tell, (based on the short time I spent with it, as well as reading the documentation), this piece of software strives for absolute, uncompromising, realism. Though they do make apologies for certain inaccuracies. Things like "Helicopter blades do not shatter if you have the tips exceed the speed of sound", or "we don't have access to real ground or air-traffic-control simulations yet".
However most of it is right on the money - from the yucky weather outside all the way to the positioning of the moon and constellations. All of this stuff is derived - whenever possible - from real NOAA or GeoSAT weather, Naval Observatory data - even the precession of your inertial gyro is modeled down to the hairs on a flea. And yes, you have to reset the Inertial system periodically. Just like in real life. And when doing your approach in lousy weather, you have to do your "procedure turns" and listen for the nav-aid beacons, just like in real life.
So, what does this have to do with QA, besides seeming to cater to the masochistic streak that every software QA Engineer has to have?
Though very realistic - in the ways that it can be realistic - there is still much room for improvement. Testing, of both the stable releases as well as the development builds is an important contribution. Even helping to clean up the documentation is welcomed with open arms.
It's also interesting - especially if you want to see what a REAL simulation is like!
Go check it out! http://www.flightgear.org
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
Friday, March 16, 2012
A First Look at openSUSE 12.01
Stay Away - Stay Far Far Away
Just this last week my friend Pat, his girlfriend and I went to the Trenton Computer Fair where there was some really interesting stuff to see. The embedded micro-controllers were especially interesting and - even a week later - I am still drooling over what I saw there.
One of the tables was hosted by a couple of guys from openSUSE who were handing out free CD's of their - New and Improved! - 12.10 distribution. (You know, SUSE. Like GICO. They both have green lizards as mascots.)
It was wonderful! Balloons! Confetti! A Heavenly Choir! Promises of the Wonderfully Open Vistas of Open Source Computing! All it needed was the presence of Richard Stallman of FSF/GNU fame to make it a Truly Religious Experience.
I was particularly interested in the new release of openSUSE since the SUSE reps mentioned that much work had been done to move the current release firmly into the 21st Century. So, I'm thinking - hey! It's free, why not! So, I grabbed a couple, planning to give one to my friend Pat.
One of the SUSE reps asked me if I had tried openSUSE before, and if I had - what did I think of it. I told them yes, I had tried earlier versions; and on my rankings of things I like to do, I rated it just below the flu and just above intestinal diarrhea.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that these earlier versions were hideously abysmal, but any distribution in the late '90's or early 2000's that required a boot floppy to launch, even after installation, was not high on my list of bleeding-edge distributions. Or even functionally usable distributions for that matter. And judged by that standard of excellence - requiring a boot floppy to start - the rest of the distribution did not disappoint either. These earlier distributions were crufty and their install a BEAR with a capitol GROWL!
After polite laughs all around at my tactful description of the merits of the earlier versions of openSUSE, they suggested that I try their newest one. For one thing, it no longer required a boot floppy. Miracle of miracles, it would actually boot from the hard drive! Additionally, the 12.10 release was even a, (gasp!), live CD!! (Oooh! I bet the early versions of Knoppix are just burning with jealousy. . .) They were brimming with pride at the technological advancements in this, their newest release.
All sarcasm aside, I did want to see what they had actually done, I grabbed a couple of CD's and proceeded to try to install it on one of the machines I had.
The installation CD itself is a "flippy" disk with the 32 bit version on one side and the 64 bit version on the other. Now I don't know if that saves them money - but it is convenient in a way - you don't need two disks.
However, the religious aura began to fade when I noticed that, not only was the CD housed in a rough cardboard sleeve with no liner, (Can you say "scratches"?), the "32 bit" and "64 bit" designations on the flippy disk were both upside down and backwards.
"Ahh! Mere trivia!" I thought, so I proceeded with the installation.
The first thing you notice is that the install is reminiscent of an early Red-Hat or Fedora install. Which, in a way, makes sense as openSUSE is yet another RH/Fedora clone. Unfortunately, the one thing sadly lacking in the installation process is any kind of serious usability testing.
Now I will admit that, maybe, the ease and simplicity of a typical Ubuntu install has me spoiled; but I think that by now - in 2012 - any distribution's installation should be more polished than this one was. Though it had a GUI of sorts, there was a strong deja-vu kind of flash-back to the times when I tried to install text based Red Hat 5.n releases.
"It's all about choices!" - and there are choices aplenty in this distribution. Which is good. Unfortunately there is very little help to guide the person installing the distribution as to which choice they might want to choose, and why they might wish to choose it. Which is bad. Even a seasoned installer is calmly guided into choices that - if not watched carefully - will end up doing things to the system that Shouldn't Happen to a Dog.
In a sense it reminds me of a line I read in a Sci-Fi novel a while ago: "It's like handling a live grenade; you have to REALLY PAY ATTENTION." And they're not kidding!!
OpenSUSE's Kindergarten Report Card:
Listens and Follows Instructions - "F"
Plays Well With Others - "F"
Case in point:
OpenSUSE appears to be totally oblivious to the presence of any other operating systems installed with the exception of Windows. "Oooh! You have Ubuntu, Slackware, Minix, or even Tiny Core installed? Hah! You don't need those stinkin' wannabees now - you have openSUSE!" And it goes to great lengths to take over the entirety of your hard disk - exclusive of Windows - and doesn't tell you if it sees anything else there. If you're not paying attention during the partitioning phase, say syonara! to your carefully crafted disk partitions.
If you are careful, (or lucky), and notice that openSUSE is about to clobber everything else on your disk, you can select "manual partitioning" to force it to do what you want. Sort-of.
OpenSUSE wants to create a bunch of "LVM" - logical volume manager partition sets - like it or not - and getting it to change it's mind is like pulling teeth.
The instructions down at the bottom of the manual partitioning page tell you to "select the partition you want to change." So you select one and click "change". It pops up a dialog telling you that the partition you selected is part of a managed logical volume and cannot be changed because of this.
So, wanting to get rid of the managed logical volume itself, you select it and click "change". Zzzzzt! You get a dialog telling you that the managed logical volume contains managed partitions so you cannot change it.
Are you noticing a pattern here?
After trying several things and rapidly becoming convinced that, just possibly, what needs to be changed is the distribution itself - you stumble on the fact that you need to select the sub-sub-sub item within the managed logical volume for it to allow you to, finally, make the changes you desire. Not that this is at all obvious, mind you.
After - gleefully! - deleting every #&*%@&ing!!! managed partition, AND the managed logical volume itself, you can then - try - to partition the disk some other way.
OpenSUSE's tenacity is absolutely amazing! It goes to great lengths to insist that you create managed logical volumes; like them, want them, need them, or not.
Now, I am sure that there are real advantages to having managed logical volume sets, whatever those advantages might be. And I am equally sure that they are the Wave of the Future. However my installation is comparatively simple and a single primary partition is all I need. And I'd really appreciate the distribution respecting my choice to do as I will. Even the choice to make horribly destructive mistakes - after being duly warned of my potential stupidity - if that is what I choose to do.
Eventually. . . . I convinced openSUSE to make the ONE STINKIN' PRIMARY PARTITION I wanted, format it as EXT4, mount it as root, and use the existing swap partition as it's swap space.
Frankly, I don't remember what I did to get to that point. Black magic? Blood sacrifice? Hefty bribes? I don't remember and I am convinced that this may well be a case of selective amnesia.
On with the show! Finally satisfied, (actually scared silly that it will ignore my carefully laid plans), I proceed to install the distribution.
With regard to the installation - I will give it credit for one thing. . . . .
Unlike both Windows and Ubuntu, openSUSE avoids the professional dogmatism and hoopla telling you how wonderful this operating system is, and how lucky you will be having installed it. There could be a couple of reasons for this: Maybe, just maybe, they finally got something in the UI right - or, as is likely - they really didn't have that much to crow about.
The installation is done and you reboot into your shiny new operating system, eager to see what the openSUSE 12.10 release is like.
When the desktop finally appears you are indeed struck by the Wonderfully Open Vistas of Open Source Computing. Minimalist? This takes sparse to a whole new level! Not only is there eff-all on the desktop, there's darn little else on the peripheries to guide you either.
The two things you DO notice are the "favorites bar" on the left hand side - think "Macintosh's Dock" - and a series of boxes on the right hand side that are supposed to represent the various flippable desktops you can select. It's not a bad idea, but the visual cues make you think that those boxes are placeholders for something or other.
Another gripe is that the Favorites Bar is BIG. It takes up a vertical swath on the left-hand side that is easily 10 to 15% of the screen width - if not more.
The Macintosh experience is driven further by the fact that finding something to use - or do - is a pain if it's not located on the Dock - oops! I meant "favorites bar"! The only big difference between the favorites bar and the Dock - besides it being positioned on the left, which the Mac can do if you want - is the fact that the icons located there don't bounce when you select them.
After searching and finding something you want - like a terminal - you need to save it to the favorites bar if you plan to use it more than once or twice a year. (Or, alternatively, you can try to remember where it's hidden.)
Like Ubuntu, it does tell you if there are "restricted" drivers for your hardware. Unlike Ubuntu, it doesn't make them easy to install. After you locate the installer for these restricted drivers (!!) you are given a list of the drivers available - but you can only select and install one at a time.
So, you end up going through a process like this:
Some of the other utilities are also models of intuitive usability.
One good example is the package installer. It's called Yast, (an incredibly intuitive name in itself), and it has an icon that looks like either an anteater or aardvark with a schnoz to match. Maybe you are supposed to get the idea of "vacuuming up" the various packages off the floor? Or maybe the available packages rate right up there with termites or other insect vermin? Dunno. They didn't tell me.
Fair is fair. I haven't used a RH/Fedora distribution in several years so it is possible that the desktop paradigm has become foreign to me. And it is also true that within the realm of Open Source, anyone can take whatever distribution they want, bend it in all kinds of different ways, and nobody can say "Boo!"
So, despite my opinions of the openSUSE distribution, it is their distro - and they can do with it whatever they darn well please. Like it or not.
In my opinion the current openSUSE distribution is, most definitely, NOT for the uninitiated. And even if you are a Seasoned Veteran - with the Battle Scars to prove it - you might just want to think two or three times before messing with the 12.10 distribution of openSUSE.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
One of the tables was hosted by a couple of guys from openSUSE who were handing out free CD's of their - New and Improved! - 12.10 distribution. (You know, SUSE. Like GICO. They both have green lizards as mascots.)
It was wonderful! Balloons! Confetti! A Heavenly Choir! Promises of the Wonderfully Open Vistas of Open Source Computing! All it needed was the presence of Richard Stallman of FSF/GNU fame to make it a Truly Religious Experience.
I was particularly interested in the new release of openSUSE since the SUSE reps mentioned that much work had been done to move the current release firmly into the 21st Century. So, I'm thinking - hey! It's free, why not! So, I grabbed a couple, planning to give one to my friend Pat.
One of the SUSE reps asked me if I had tried openSUSE before, and if I had - what did I think of it. I told them yes, I had tried earlier versions; and on my rankings of things I like to do, I rated it just below the flu and just above intestinal diarrhea.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that these earlier versions were hideously abysmal, but any distribution in the late '90's or early 2000's that required a boot floppy to launch, even after installation, was not high on my list of bleeding-edge distributions. Or even functionally usable distributions for that matter. And judged by that standard of excellence - requiring a boot floppy to start - the rest of the distribution did not disappoint either. These earlier distributions were crufty and their install a BEAR with a capitol GROWL!
After polite laughs all around at my tactful description of the merits of the earlier versions of openSUSE, they suggested that I try their newest one. For one thing, it no longer required a boot floppy. Miracle of miracles, it would actually boot from the hard drive! Additionally, the 12.10 release was even a, (gasp!), live CD!! (Oooh! I bet the early versions of Knoppix are just burning with jealousy. . .) They were brimming with pride at the technological advancements in this, their newest release.
All sarcasm aside, I did want to see what they had actually done, I grabbed a couple of CD's and proceeded to try to install it on one of the machines I had.
The installation CD itself is a "flippy" disk with the 32 bit version on one side and the 64 bit version on the other. Now I don't know if that saves them money - but it is convenient in a way - you don't need two disks.
However, the religious aura began to fade when I noticed that, not only was the CD housed in a rough cardboard sleeve with no liner, (Can you say "scratches"?), the "32 bit" and "64 bit" designations on the flippy disk were both upside down and backwards.
"Ahh! Mere trivia!" I thought, so I proceeded with the installation.
The first thing you notice is that the install is reminiscent of an early Red-Hat or Fedora install. Which, in a way, makes sense as openSUSE is yet another RH/Fedora clone. Unfortunately, the one thing sadly lacking in the installation process is any kind of serious usability testing.
Now I will admit that, maybe, the ease and simplicity of a typical Ubuntu install has me spoiled; but I think that by now - in 2012 - any distribution's installation should be more polished than this one was. Though it had a GUI of sorts, there was a strong deja-vu kind of flash-back to the times when I tried to install text based Red Hat 5.n releases.
"It's all about choices!" - and there are choices aplenty in this distribution. Which is good. Unfortunately there is very little help to guide the person installing the distribution as to which choice they might want to choose, and why they might wish to choose it. Which is bad. Even a seasoned installer is calmly guided into choices that - if not watched carefully - will end up doing things to the system that Shouldn't Happen to a Dog.
In a sense it reminds me of a line I read in a Sci-Fi novel a while ago: "It's like handling a live grenade; you have to REALLY PAY ATTENTION." And they're not kidding!!
OpenSUSE's Kindergarten Report Card:
Listens and Follows Instructions - "F"
Plays Well With Others - "F"
Case in point:
OpenSUSE appears to be totally oblivious to the presence of any other operating systems installed with the exception of Windows. "Oooh! You have Ubuntu, Slackware, Minix, or even Tiny Core installed? Hah! You don't need those stinkin' wannabees now - you have openSUSE!" And it goes to great lengths to take over the entirety of your hard disk - exclusive of Windows - and doesn't tell you if it sees anything else there. If you're not paying attention during the partitioning phase, say syonara! to your carefully crafted disk partitions.
If you are careful, (or lucky), and notice that openSUSE is about to clobber everything else on your disk, you can select "manual partitioning" to force it to do what you want. Sort-of.
OpenSUSE wants to create a bunch of "LVM" - logical volume manager partition sets - like it or not - and getting it to change it's mind is like pulling teeth.
The instructions down at the bottom of the manual partitioning page tell you to "select the partition you want to change." So you select one and click "change". It pops up a dialog telling you that the partition you selected is part of a managed logical volume and cannot be changed because of this.
So, wanting to get rid of the managed logical volume itself, you select it and click "change". Zzzzzt! You get a dialog telling you that the managed logical volume contains managed partitions so you cannot change it.
Are you noticing a pattern here?
After trying several things and rapidly becoming convinced that, just possibly, what needs to be changed is the distribution itself - you stumble on the fact that you need to select the sub-sub-sub item within the managed logical volume for it to allow you to, finally, make the changes you desire. Not that this is at all obvious, mind you.
After - gleefully! - deleting every #&*%@&ing!!! managed partition, AND the managed logical volume itself, you can then - try - to partition the disk some other way.
OpenSUSE's tenacity is absolutely amazing! It goes to great lengths to insist that you create managed logical volumes; like them, want them, need them, or not.
Now, I am sure that there are real advantages to having managed logical volume sets, whatever those advantages might be. And I am equally sure that they are the Wave of the Future. However my installation is comparatively simple and a single primary partition is all I need. And I'd really appreciate the distribution respecting my choice to do as I will. Even the choice to make horribly destructive mistakes - after being duly warned of my potential stupidity - if that is what I choose to do.
Eventually. . . . I convinced openSUSE to make the ONE STINKIN' PRIMARY PARTITION I wanted, format it as EXT4, mount it as root, and use the existing swap partition as it's swap space.
Frankly, I don't remember what I did to get to that point. Black magic? Blood sacrifice? Hefty bribes? I don't remember and I am convinced that this may well be a case of selective amnesia.
On with the show! Finally satisfied, (actually scared silly that it will ignore my carefully laid plans), I proceed to install the distribution.
With regard to the installation - I will give it credit for one thing. . . . .
Unlike both Windows and Ubuntu, openSUSE avoids the professional dogmatism and hoopla telling you how wonderful this operating system is, and how lucky you will be having installed it. There could be a couple of reasons for this: Maybe, just maybe, they finally got something in the UI right - or, as is likely - they really didn't have that much to crow about.
The installation is done and you reboot into your shiny new operating system, eager to see what the openSUSE 12.10 release is like.
When the desktop finally appears you are indeed struck by the Wonderfully Open Vistas of Open Source Computing. Minimalist? This takes sparse to a whole new level! Not only is there eff-all on the desktop, there's darn little else on the peripheries to guide you either.
The two things you DO notice are the "favorites bar" on the left hand side - think "Macintosh's Dock" - and a series of boxes on the right hand side that are supposed to represent the various flippable desktops you can select. It's not a bad idea, but the visual cues make you think that those boxes are placeholders for something or other.
Another gripe is that the Favorites Bar is BIG. It takes up a vertical swath on the left-hand side that is easily 10 to 15% of the screen width - if not more.
The Macintosh experience is driven further by the fact that finding something to use - or do - is a pain if it's not located on the Dock - oops! I meant "favorites bar"! The only big difference between the favorites bar and the Dock - besides it being positioned on the left, which the Mac can do if you want - is the fact that the icons located there don't bounce when you select them.
After searching and finding something you want - like a terminal - you need to save it to the favorites bar if you plan to use it more than once or twice a year. (Or, alternatively, you can try to remember where it's hidden.)
Like Ubuntu, it does tell you if there are "restricted" drivers for your hardware. Unlike Ubuntu, it doesn't make them easy to install. After you locate the installer for these restricted drivers (!!) you are given a list of the drivers available - but you can only select and install one at a time.
So, you end up going through a process like this:
- Find the installer. (If it's not on the Dock.)
- Update the installer
- Pick and install a restricted driver.
- Reboot.
- Jump back to step 1 until you either run out of drivers to install, or patience with all this horse-hooey.
Some of the other utilities are also models of intuitive usability.
One good example is the package installer. It's called Yast, (an incredibly intuitive name in itself), and it has an icon that looks like either an anteater or aardvark with a schnoz to match. Maybe you are supposed to get the idea of "vacuuming up" the various packages off the floor? Or maybe the available packages rate right up there with termites or other insect vermin? Dunno. They didn't tell me.
Fair is fair. I haven't used a RH/Fedora distribution in several years so it is possible that the desktop paradigm has become foreign to me. And it is also true that within the realm of Open Source, anyone can take whatever distribution they want, bend it in all kinds of different ways, and nobody can say "Boo!"
So, despite my opinions of the openSUSE distribution, it is their distro - and they can do with it whatever they darn well please. Like it or not.
In my opinion the current openSUSE distribution is, most definitely, NOT for the uninitiated. And even if you are a Seasoned Veteran - with the Battle Scars to prove it - you might just want to think two or three times before messing with the 12.10 distribution of openSUSE.
What say ye?
Jim (JR)
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