Some bad news: Online Update for PPC 32 bit (like Pegasos and EFIKA) is seriously broken. It tries to install almost a hundred 64bit packages especially if you installed any devel packages :-( I'll ask the openSUSE team for an official solution (as opposed to a workaround I provide here), until that here is what to do, if you want to update:

- do not use the update applets from gnome/kde

- using the command line as root, remove any 64bit packages:


- start yast2 and choose 'online update' (or enter you at the command line)

- if you don't have yet an online update source, please use 'configure online update' from yast2 before running online update.

- from the drop down list on the upper left corner of the window choose 'installation summary'

- at the bottom of window deactivate 'automatic check'

- uncheck any package names ending in '64bit' in the right panel

- use 'check now' at the bottom of the window and check 'ignore here' at each question, and click OK at the end

- start the update

- unless you use 'grub', please don't forget to run mkzimage in case of a kernel upgrade (you will be warned, but just for restart).

?!? Excuse me? It works flawlessly for me. I've hundreds of devel packages and online updater never ask me to install 64-bit packages

Well... As I write this reply, KDE update applet is downloading some updates(curl, some X.org and SeaMonkey + 2 other I don't remember)... With this applet I've already update most of the 10.3 release(kernel up to 2.6.22.9-0.4-default, Firefox to 2.0.0.8, Opera to 9.24, some parts of KDE 3 and so on), never did update applet download and/or install any 64-bit packages(once it install 64-bit library, but this was due to stupid package, that had dependency to 64-bit version of that lib)... Are You sure it's problem with Auto Update and not with your system?

Strange. I had the same problem on both EFIKA and Pegasos. Did not try the KDE updater, just GNOME and YOU. So you can recommend the KDE updater?

Well... "recommend" is such a strong word... ;) :P
It's slow. Slow on itself and I also have slow internet connection, so usally I just start update in the morning and in the evening it's done. Also, it's just a simple frontend to zypper really, i.e. currently it simply does:

So, You could simply use zypper instead... ;)
Also, I will check if it really doesn't download those 64bit packages. I had some(20 or so), since 10.1 I belive. Some came with 10.2 and all of them had been updated when I've updated my OpenSuSE installation to 10.3, but I've removed them now and will see wheter I will have 64bit packages after update.

I did not have any 64bit problems on 10.0, 10.1 or 10.2, but now with 10.3 updates it seems to be a disaster. Just checked again 'YaST Online Upate' on one of my machines, and even if I don't have any 'devel packages installed, it insisted installing over a hundred of those. I don't have KDE installed on that machine, so tested again with YOU...

Well, to put this mildly, our stories difer. ;) I clearly remember "fighting" with 10.1 installer to NOT install 64 bit glibc version. Unfortunatly, I had so many failed dependencies messages, that I give up and instead of fscking with dependencies of 75% packages, I simply allowed it to install those 64bit packages.

Well, I have tried that. This morning I had removed all 64bit packages(I had forgot that I even had those in my system, so I only did so when I've noticed this thread) and after that updated couple of packages(glibc, seamonkey, libcurl, autofs and some more). What I have now in my system:

TBH, I simply don't know what "64bit hell" You are refering to, as You can see, that I've no "hell" at all...

Well... I've forced another update of glibc from YaST(software-> online update) and no problemo. Other than that I cannot tell, as I don't have gnome(I think it sucks:P ).
Could You tell which packages give you problems? I will try them. Maybe it's problem with those packages and not with online update...

I also started out this way: removed any existing 64bit packages.

I agree, I'm also a KDE guy, but recently prefer to use XFCE (works better on EFIKA). The only reason I have GNOME, because it has some problems, and I want to see, when a proper fix is rolled out (graphical mono apps, like f-spot, banshee crash on PPC).

As far as I can remember, some GNOME packages were complaining for missing 64bit packages. But will make a GNOME -less install later today, and see what happens.

Well, if I had Efika, I would be using this.
Looks tons better, runs twice as fast and has much nicer memory footprint. I had used it on K6-2 400 with 64MB RAM and it was nice - I even could browse web (with Opera, or better links -g). ;)
Some screenshots.

Well, no wonder then, as I have only some gtk libs installed(all that is needed to run gimp and Evolution).

fvwm is the default window manager of openSUSE, just as it was about 10 years ago, when I started using S.u.S.E. with version 4.3. 4.2 was their first version (as the answer is 42 :-) ).

Now making a list of 32bit packages requiring 64bit packages. A nice 'for' cycle running on all the rpms in the ftp version of the distribution. I hope, that tabooing just those few packages would eliminate the need for de-selecting 100+ packages in YOU.

OK, search is over, there are two packages: ConsoleKit and nss-mdns. Now I install 10.3 by taboo-ing these two and see what happens.

Aye, but fvwm-crystal is not fvwm. Fvwm to fvwm-crystal is exactly the same, as kwin to KDE, i.e. albeit very small and limited, but still, fvwm-crystal is Desktop Environment using fvwm as its Window manager. Only fvwm-crystal uses scripts and already working console programs instead of re-creating same functionality with hundreds of new programs creating bloatware. ;)

Can't say - I started using it with 7.3, IIRC.

OK, found a lot more easy workaround, if somebody is not afraid to use zypper directly.

First of all, one needs to create a file, called /etc/zypp/locks with the following content:


And use zypper from the command line to upgrade the system, as root:


This will ignore any 64bit packages during upgrade. And if somebody is making a fresh install: do a 'detailed' software selection, and taboo these two packages (a round red mark should appear):

No 64bit packages will be installed on the system.

Just wanted to let you know, that I finally found out, why my G3 didn't work on Suse10.3.

I used the OF1.2. OF 1.2 seems to be buggy on G3, so I changed back to 1.1 and everything works.
( Debian 4.0 also works now.)

On G4 there's no bug like on G3.

I'll drop a line to bplan, to fix this in the future..

Could you go into some details here about this "bug"?

Ok, here's the story:

I own 3 Peg2's. 2 with G4 and one with G3. All ran very stable on MorphOS before, memory is tested well.
Suse10.3 was easily installed without errors and probs on both G4s, so I finally tried the G3.

During installation the DVDdrive reported read errors, so I installed by net. ( The DVDdrive doesn't show any
probs on MorphOS!)

Suse10.3 and Debian4.0 both failed a simple test on the G3 with OF1.2:

I just copy a DVD to the harddrive. The system allways crashes a few minutes after start of copying.
Crashing means "locking".

After reading a similar problem at www.pegasosforum.de I made the following tests:
(note: prob at pegasosforum: sudden read errors from DVD during suse10.3-install
which were fixed by downgrading 1.2 ->1.1)

1) I exchanged the G4 on a very reliable system by the G3 cpu > crashes appear
2) I downgrade this system to 1.1 > works well
3) upgrade to 1.2 again > crashes again
4) put G4 to the system who uses the G3 normally > system works stable


Unfortunately, the 1.1 can't follow links on ext3 and gives me a zero MAC for the marvell.
So I want the 1.2.. but I need a stable system, too ... so I need help for a fixed OF.
( I just sent a mail to bplan, too..)

Hi,

I just got a reply to my mail to bplan:

1.2 contains changes to the RAM timings which can cause instructions errors in the cpu. As there's no fix available, OF 1.1 is recommended for G3 systems.