10.1 Beta 4 Installation

Just wondering if anyone has tried beta 4 yet. Was the installation easy enough? How about the overall system stability and function?

Posted below...in the "Beta 4 is here" thread....I am installing now...the new package
manager is a nightmare and it got to the point that I wasn't even clear on what got
to the actual installation...it's installing now...and I guess I won't know exactly what's all
installed until it's done....but I'm going to bed...I'll play with it tomorrow.

Unless you just do the "default" installation, it's not fun at all....

I'm pretty sure that the system, once installed is fine...it's just getting there that is
the hard part....I'll try to let you know what happens..

Thanks for the info.

OK, foks....here is the assessment:

As I wrote before, the installation (package manager) part is a mess...but
after I got through that, the install went fine. The system is very nice and quick.

Comments on package management. 1. The CD's did not register as an installation
source. I added them later, but Yast lost them again. 2. Adding another installation
source doesn't work, so forget adding the inst-source-extra repository...if you need those
packages, download and install manually (I recommend the command line using the
rpm program). Don't try to change anything aftert the install because the package manager
seems to live in its own world and can't help you much...hopefully they will fix all of this
quickly....they admit that it's rough.

New feature: Don't know if I like this or not...but NOW all media mounts on a pseudo
file system "media:/" and doesn't show up in fstab...nor does it mount in the /media
directory (which is empty)....it's just in media:/. I'm sure that you could make manual
entries in fstab if you like to do things the old fassioned way. Problem: Once mounted
there (where ever that is), you can't eject the CD because it says that it's "busy"....I tried
everything...the only thing that lets go of it is to do a "lazy" umount as root and then you can
eject (#eject -l /dev/hdc). They will have to fix these issues on the media. I'm assuming
that other media will behave the same....we'll see.

Updater: There is a new software updater....I have no idea how to set it up or how
it works...but the point is mute right now because there aren't any updates. I do know this....if
you go to the online update section of YaST, it actually opens up a browser to a Novell
update site...it asks for your root password and then checks for updates (it obviously
said that there were no updates)....I have no idea how it's supposed to work through a web
browser and as of yet, don't know if it will work in other browsers besides the Konquerer
that it did it on (I didn't install Firefox yet). Also, I don't understand the configuration of the
little icon on the lower right in the tray...it's asking for a URI but I don't know what to put in
there...my assumption is that it's incomplete and that in later versions it will be all set up.

The rest of the system is very nice.....KDE 3.5.1 is nice (I didn't try gnome yet)....

I'm hoping that by beta 5 that a lot of these issues will be ironed out: My advice....install
if you like...once it's on it's OK, but it's hard to tell what you have installed or not because the
installer is so confused. SUSE: to them, take your time and make it right before pushing
things out the door (I'm talking the final now)....

That's it so far folks...

I also noticed all of the above issues. Also, when booting up for the first time it was extremely slow. I did a 'top' and noticed that the process htdig was hogging up 70% of my memory. I killed it, and it hasn't come back. Also, when loading the YaST package manager (install software)...it drags my system to nearly a hault, and takes up most of my resources (the prrocess y2base). I have filed these both as bugs with bugzilla.

It may be worth your while to have a look at some of the most annoying bugs for 10.1 beta 4 before installing: http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs:Most_Annoying_Bugs

Especially since a number of the bugs are related to the installer.

Well...of course. I did and that's what made me install it to see for myself!!!!

Now I know what they are talking about!!! I think that the new ideas will
be wonderful, once they get working properly....

As usual, I would bet that by final, it will be slick as your wifes........uh...I better
stop there.

Very classy, Bobmeister.

Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the bugs page as a resource.

I know...thanks. I was just having fun....have to stop myself to keep it decent!

I would think that there will be another beta (beta 6) required before all of this gets
ironed out. In the mean-time, we'll work the system and work any other issues out too.

Linux is growing up fast....seems like new ideas are being tried all the time....I have to say
that it's like living "on the edge" all the time with this new stuff....but BOY-O-BOY is it
fun!

I never was one to be accused of having much class, anomie...but I'll try harder.

Have a great day!

I worked around the installation source issue....it seems as if, when you put the first
CD in FIRST...then go to installation sources...THEN it knows that it's there....and it
also showed my inst-source-extra.....so I went through the list again to add the software
that I missed on the first install...remember to only ADD things...if you try to subract, it gets
all messed up. Anyway, the rest of that is going in now.

I am still confused by the update system (although I'm aware that it's inactive now)...I want
to see how we are supposed to set it up, but so far don't see much documentation. If you
go to the update notification icon and "configure"...it asks you to enter a "service" with a URI...
but of course....I have no idea of what they are asking for. Maybe the entries will be "canned"
on later releases and you can pick ftp's or whatever and it's just not ready yet...I was just playing
with it, however...I'll keep looking.

If you go to YaST and "online update"....THEN...it's completely different...it actually takes you to
a NOVELL Website....and I found out that even if you have Firefox installed and it is the default (this
is in KDE), Konqueror will open....so it must be "hardwired" into that somehow....but I can't understand
the differentiation between the "online update" through the web in YaST and whatever the
update notification tool is supposed to do. With the old SUSE Watcher, at least it opened up
the SAME THING...here it seems different. I guess I'm too anal, but if anyone knows how
this stuff is supposed to work, let me know.

The CD mounting issue is something that I need to work out....since it doesn't show up
when it automounts on your file system (at least directly)...I can't figure out how to navigate
to files on the command line....I guess I'll have to play with this more. The only alternative
would be to make an fstab entry for mounting on the regular file system too (when needed) and
doing it that way so that at least you can navigate to the /media directory and get the files...
otherwise you have to type in media:/ to get to it....in a GUI file manager, but of course, this is
invalid on the command line....Hmmm.....any ideas?

OK...other than that...the system is really slick!

Bob