Topic: OpenSUSE Installation help please :)

[Flanjeuk]

hello,

ok so...
I have XP on a 120GB HDD and I have a spare 80GB HDD that i want to install SUSE onto and dual boot them both, basically how do I? step by step so I don't kill my computer. (and no, I don't want to try a live version, I want a full installation please


Thanks'
John.

[sam]

firstly have you used linux before? / installed an OS before?

Firstly make sure that you have backed up everything on your windows disk, but I bet you have already done that.

Secondly turn off the computer and restart it with the SUSE disc one (which version of SUSE do you have?) in the drive, you have to make sure that you have set the BIOS to boot from CD.

Once this is done Grubb should load and ask you about installing, make sure when you are installing you choose your 80GB HDD and that you dont remove any windows (smb) hard disk partitions. Once you have defined the 80GB as the hard disk you want to use (depending on the version of SUSE) it will setup the partitions  for use with linux automatically.

It will now ask you to setup the tools you want to install, if you are unfamiliar with Linux I'd suggest you go with the defaults (maybe selecting KDE and have this as your default interface). Follow the onscreen steps making sure that Grubb is setup to give you an option of booting windows or Linux (it should be default but worth checking).

Hope this is of use.

You might also want to take a look at: SUSE INSTALLATION PAGE

[Flanjeuk]

thanks for the quick response

I have never used linux in my life. (I'm still currently downloading 9.3 Prof)
(can't wait for my blueyonder free upgrade to 10Mb!!)

I've installed XP a million times, because something always goes wrong eventually

about backing up, I never really bother because I dont have very much on it thats not got a disk (eg, its mostly games)


Thanks again.

[sam]

good luck, hopefully this and the link will do the trick.

I'm sure you will like linux and SUSE is probably the closest you can get to windows, if you use KDE that is.

As for reinstalling XP your damn right there, though saying that in 4 years (or so) of use I have only had to reinstall XP 3 times! not bad really. saying that though, I've never had to reinstall linux (unless changing distribution).

As for backing up, well just be careful make sure you have thought of everything. The number of times I have forgotten to backup my bookmarks and then lost them all...

[Flanjeuk]

ok, so i installed it but something isn't right

it boots up fine but when the desktop comes up its like really really low resolution and you can hardly read anything, and half of the picture is missing off the screen. I can see blurred icons and the SUSE logo in the top right corner. the mouse works but i can't see a pointer, i can just guess where it is a click.

any ideas?

[sam]

ok, graphics card - what do you have? you may have found a hardware incompatiblity. Linux just doesnt have the huge database that windows does as standard. You will have to install the exact configuration. Find out what you have got and I'll see if I can find out if there are any known problems.

It might be worth reinstalling it and making sure that you had the exact configuration of the graphics card. Out of interest does it boot straight to the graphical?

[Flanjeuk]

I have a "Leadtek WinFast A6200TD 128MB AGP"

I chose the NVIDIA Display drivers on the update page at the end of the installation.

Im not sure what you mean when you say does it boot straight to graphical,
if you mean into the GUI rather than a screen of writing, then yes it does. but i still have the option to go to that other DOS type screen but it means nothing to me.

[sam]

will you can go into the "dos" screen. Its just a command line interface. At least then you know if the installation works, try something like xedit at the command line and see if you get a basic command line text editor up. To close it i think it is control-x and then control-c.. but to halt the taksk use control-z.

you can leave the command line by typing kde or gnome...see if this gives you the GUI. If not or you get the same error then its bound to be the graphics card.

By specifiying the Nvidia ones you might well have chosen the wrong ones. This is crucial, its not like windows which will just give you a crap screen res. Though I guess it uses the nvidia chipset...and probably should have work.

If the above method doesnt work, I'd suggest you reisntall it. Should be the same procedure as before but asking you to remove the linux partitions and don't use the update.nvidia chipsets are normally very good with linux machines.

[Flanjeuk]

didn't work, tried reinstalling without choosing any graphics drivers, and it did the same again. i think i'll just try a different Linux, I hear Mandrake is another very good version, do you know where i could download it?

[sam]

dont use mandrake. i used to use it and its not one for the newbie.

You need to choose the graphics driver, did u choose one and then not to download the update. thats the situation I'd go with.

Other alternatives I'd recommend: Ubuntu, Fedora.

Fedora is the free version (essentially) of RedHat which is excellent. Just type in google and you should get it.

It might be worth you trying the live version of ubuntu - check if all the devices work before installing it, if you go that way.

I'd suggest the two most "windows-user" friendly ones would be Suse, Fedora and then probably Linspire, which you will find more info in the other Linux boards.

U don't have nothing to lose really, its always good to get the experience with installing these operating systems.

[Flanjeuk]

theres two Fedora's I can download, one says 'SRPMS' in the title and one does not, which one should I download and what does it mean?

[sam]

you dont want the rpms so dont download the SRPMS. you just need:

[ ]   FC4-i386-disc1.iso    06-Jun-2005 22:54    635M   
[ ]   FC4-i386-disc2.iso    06-Jun-2005 22:55    638M   
[ ]   FC4-i386-disc3.iso    06-Jun-2005 22:56    638M   
[ ]   FC4-i386-disc4.iso    06-Jun-2005 22:57    630M   
[ ]   FC4-i386-rescuecd.iso    06-Jun-2005 22:52    84M   

the later is useful. I installed this the other day. It is similar to the SUSE installation, the only real difference is the disk partitioning but again just make sure you dont delete any windows ones and let it do it thing. I'd suggest you remove any linux partitions again.

[Flanjeuk]

one more thing, i formatted my 80GB drive, so i could install the new OS, and it messed up the GRUB boot thingy, so i reinstalled SuSE (didnt work again btw) so i could get back into windows.
how do i do it properly?

[sam]

this could get a little messy as you have to wipe the mbr - dont do it!

When you install fedora, or another linux os it will rewrite the master boot record. if you took out the 80gb disc it would probably just boot to windows.
You can also edit the way grubb works from the commandline of linux but I'd suggest that you proceed with the installation of the other linux distribution.

[Flanjeuk]

i installed Fedora Core, but when I had to restart it did the same thing as before, i get "GRUB failed to load, ERROR 22"

I had to half install SuSE again to get GRUB working again, I have no idea how i can fix this - what should i do?