openSUSE-11.3 M6 experiences on 5 different PCs

[oldcpu]

I've booted 5 PCs with 11.3 Milestone-6 build-0577, and installed it on the 5th PC. Most of this detail I posted elsewhere in scattered posts. This is a consolidation of those posts with a bit more detail:

64-bit liveCD Experience:

• PC#1: booted with openSUSE-11.3 64-bit M6 KDE4 liveCD on my 64-bit Intel Core i7 920 w/6GB (Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard) w/ PCI-e nVidia GeForce GTX260 graphics. PC booted using the Noveau graphic driver at maximum expected resolution (1920x1200). As expected, special desktop effects does not work with Noveau driver.
  Sound works. Wired Internet works.
  .
• PC#2: booted with openSUSE-11.3 64-bit M6 KDE4 liveCD on my 64-bit Dell Studio 1537, Intel P8400 w/4GB, w/ATI Radeon 3450HD graphics . Sound just worked. Graphics booted with the Radeon open source driver (as evident in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file) at maximum expected resolution (1440x900). The graphics came up with special desktop effects and was impressive. I had seen this behaviour before in M4.
  
  I do note that for videos to play back smoothly, special desktop effects need to be disabled. In comparison, on same hardware on openSUSE-11.2 with proprietary Catalyst driver, special desktop effects do NOT have to be disabled for smooth video playback.
  
  Setting up the wireless Network on this laptop in 11.3 M6 was finicky. I am not sure how easy it is to reproduce what I succeeded with �. I note that YaST > Network Devices > Networksettings does not work. No GUI is launched. This bug report was pointed out ot me: Bugs:Most Annoying Bugs 11.3 dev - openSUSE with the note that there are work arounds are available.
  .
  I tried to configure the wireless Network manager in the lower right corner, initially with no luck. Then I noted if I tried to configure two instances of the wireless Network manager in the lower right corner, it would either work, or it would crash, offering to restart. Upon restarting the wireless Network would then connect. Most bizarre, but I do have wireless working. Wireless on this laptop is an Intel Wireless 5300 AGN.

32-bit liveCD Experience:

• PC#3: booted with openSUSE-11.3 M6 32-bit KDE4 liveCD on my 32-bit AMD Athlon-2800 w/2GB (Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard) w/ PCI nVidia GeForce 8400GS graphics. PC booted using the Noveau graphic driver at maximum expected resolution (1920x1200). Sound worked. Wired internet worked. As anticipated, special desktop effects with the Noveau driver did not work on this hardware.
  .
• PC#4: booted with openSUSE-11.3 M6 32-bit KDE4 liveCD on my wifes 32-bit AMD Sempon-2600 w/1GB (Epox EP-8K7A motherboard) w/AGP ATI RV280 (Radeon-9200Pro) graphics. This booted ok, coming up at 1280x1024 max resolution for the monitor using the open source radeon driver. Special desktop effects could not be enabled (which surprised me, as they can be enabled on 11.2 with the xorg:x11 cutting edge Mesa and radeon driver). Sound worked. Wired Internet worked. Fonts good.
  .
• PC#5: attempted various boots with openSUSE-11.3 M6 32-bit KDE4 liveCD on my sandbox PC, an old 32-bit AMD Athlon-1100 w/1GB (MSI KT3 Ultra motherboard) w/AGP nVidia GeForce FX5200 graphics . It had problems with the 32-bit openSUSE-11.3 M6 KDE4 liveCD. It would not boot in any of the 800x600, 10247x768 nor vesa mode, each time hanging up when trying to run X (presumably the nv or nouveau driver failing ? ) . A text mode boot worked. Running startx would freeze the screen. I then booted then to safe Settings, only to watch that 'hang' after a clock setting. I pressed < ctrl-c> and it restarted / continued its boot and eventually booted to X at a low 1024x768 resolution. That turned out to be the nv graphic driver. Fonts were horrible on this boot. Sound worked. Wired Internet worked.

32-bit DVD Installation Experience

• After the above tests with the 32-bit LiveCD, I then installed openSUSE-11.3 M6 LXDE desktop from the 32-bit DVD on PC#5 my sandbox PC (which, again, is an old 32-bit AMD Athlon-1100 w/1GB (MSI KT3 Ultra motherboard) w/AGP nVidia GeForce FX5200 graphics). The installation was similar to what I encountered with M5 (documented here: openSUSE Forums - View Single Post - Milestone 5 ISOs available for download ) . In essence 800x600, 1024x768, VESA and Text modes all failed for installation. The boot kept hanging at the �udev� probing line. In the end a safesettings install worked and the PC ended up booting to 'nv' driver at 1024x768. After that the experience was the same as per the M5 experience: openSUSE Forums - View Single Post - Milestone 5 ISOs available for download where a lot of tuning was needed to obtain a good setup (with proprietary nVidia driver) and good fonts

[peteh100]

Nvidia have a new version of driver which works with milestone 6 and no longer needs -ignoreABI parameter.

[oldcpu]

Nvidia have a new version of driver which works with milestone 6 and no longer needs -ignoreABI parameter.

Thats general good news for most nvidia cards. I think its the 195.36.24 driver. I note this: NVIDIA DRIVERS 195.36.24 Certified

# Added official support for xserver 1.8. The -ignoreABI option is no longer required with this version of the server.

... unfortunately for my sandbox PC, the new driver does not support the much older FX5200 nVidia series, which still requires the "-ignoreABI parameter". But when I install 11.3 on my two other PCs (with nVidia cards: 8400GS and a GTX260) I'm hoping this new driver will work well.

[oldcpu]

While on the subject of drivers, I note 11.3 M6 has :

• open source Intel 2.11.0 graphic driver
• open source nv 2.1.17 graphic driver
• open source nouveau 0.0.15_20100225 build
• open source radeon 6.13.0 graphic driver
• open source radeonhd 1.3.0 (20100325_54ca963 build ? )

From what I have seen, there is a significant improvement in the quality of the ATI open source radeon driver in 11.3 (as compared to the 'as packaged') 11.2 radeon driver. This should make the initial installation for ATI graphic hardware users easier. However its still likely some ATI legacy hardware users will need to update Mesa and the xorg-x11-drivers from the cutting edge xorg : x11 repository to get special desktop effects ..

I think the nVidia graphic card users, especially those with older nVidia hardware, may be in for a bit of a rough ride with the nouveau graphic driver. The depreciation of sax2 may also mean for those who discover the nouveau driver does not work well may also have the added problem of not being able to tune the nv driver as well as they would like. ... Although thats all speculation on my part, and in general, I think the graphic driver situation for openSUSE is going to be improved with 11.3.

[peteh100]

I should have said more earlier.
Your link is of course correct and I can tell you that the nvidia driver installs and runs perfectly.
There seems to be one hitch only on milestone 6. Once I've loaded up the driver my reboot needs a 2nd confirmation. That is, when I close down to return to m5 I get a small window telling me to abort an active session with "myusername tty1".
I assume it's a bug and I assume it's in openSUSe M6 rather than nvidia because it doesn't happen in M5 using the same driver.
I should submit it if I knew where.

[jaycee4]

Yay! openSUSE 11.3 M6 is the first Milestone to successfully install on my laptop! (I'm using it to type this.)
Unfortunately, I couldn't wirelessly connect during the live session, and in my installation the applet isn't showing. The applet KNetwork Manager, once turned on, indicates "Network Management disabled". Also, despite connecting through ethernet, there isn't a network status applet showing. Also Yast -> Network Devices -> Network Settings fails to respond.
Kindly asking forgiveness of my n00bness, what's the best way to let the developers know about all this?
All this said, the interface is certainly polished and warmly welcoming, and I have yet to find any bugs. Improvements are being steadily developed for this release of the distro! Keep up the good work, and this will be the best release yet! Cheers!

[oldcpu]

Yay! openSUSE 11.3 M6 is the first Milestone to successfully install on my laptop! (I'm using it to type this.)

Great news ! Can you refresh our memory as to what your laptop model is ?

Unfortunately, I couldn't wirelessly connect during the live session, and in my installation the applet isn't showing. The applet KNetwork Manager, once turned on, indicates "Network Management disabled". Also, despite connecting through ethernet, there isn't a network status applet showing. Also Yast -> Network Devices -> Network Settings fails to respond.
Kindly asking forgiveness of my n00bness, what's the best way to let the developers know about all this?

I think the developers know more work is needed in wireless.

Did you read my note about the wireless? I quote it here:

Setting up the wireless Network on this laptop in 11.3 M6 was finicky. I am not sure how easy it is to reproduce what I succeeded with …. I note that YaST > Network Devices > Networksettings does not work. No GUI is launched. This bug report was pointed out ot me: Bugs:Most Annoying Bugs 11.3 dev - openSUSE with the note that there are work arounds are available.

So per that post either:

• Install yast2-network-2.19.25 as mentioned in comment #10 of bug report 600576 (after which YaST network devices will work) or
• edit /etc/sysconfig/network/config and enable NetworkManager

With either of those fixes in place, it should hopefully be a step toward getting the liveCD wireless working.

[jaycee4]

Great news ! Can you refresh our memory as to what your laptop model is ?

I think the developers know more work is needed in wireless.

Did you read my note about the wireless? I quote it here:
So per that post either:

• Install yast2-network-2.19.25 as mentioned in comment #10 of bug report 600576 (after which YaST network devices will work) or
• edit /etc/sysconfig/network/config and enable NetworkManager

With either of those fixes in place, it should hopefully be a step toward getting the liveCD wireless working.

Oops! Yeah, I read your post, and promptly forgot everything in it, it seems...
My laptop is a Compaq CQ41-209tx - Compaq Presario CQ41-209TX Notebook (XC6469) | Dick Smith Online Store. I think the blank-screen-install this has been an issue for most laptops for the KDE LiveCD milestones in the past...
As you say, it seems a recent update has fixed the networking bug.
Thanks for your patience!

[tripcat520]

11.3 M6 did not boot on Accer 7749
Intel i3-330M with integrated Intel HD Graphics (128M VRAM) with 4 Gig of DDR3 RAM. Start hangs...text mode displays pci_mode...msg and stops. Left to run...nothing.

Using Knoppix wiped the drive of all partitions and cleared the MBR to start clean.

[oldcpu]

11.3 M6 did not boot on Accer 7749
Intel i3-330M with integrated Intel HD Graphics (128M VRAM) with 4 Gig of DDR3 RAM. Start hangs...text mode displays pci_mode...msg and stops. Left to run...nothing.

Did you try the safe settings?

Did you have this working with M5 ?