Installation Guide for openSUSE 11.1 on ASUS Eee PC 1005HA

[BBBThunda]

I put together a step-by-step guide of how I installed openSUSE 11.1 on my ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005HA Netbook.

I planned on going back and re-installing using my own guide to check for mistakes, etc. but I never seem to get around to it, so I'll just post what I have and let you guys comment if you run into issues.

Side notes: This guide assumes you want to wipe out Windows XP and run only openSUSE. Sorry, I'm a Gates hater.

I still haven't figured out how to configure the function keys support for volume controls and wireless. I'm hoping the "eeepc kernel module" mentioned by malcolmlewis here: Suse on my Asus 1005HA - openSUSE Forums will do the trick.

It's divided into 5 parts... I'll post it in 5 pieces.

Enjoy! Hope this is helpful!

[BBBThunda]

This guide will attempt to completely explain in detail how I installed openSUSE Linux on my Eee PC 1005ha Seashell. It took me about a solid 12 hour day to do the installation, research, troubleshoot, etc. The purpose of this guide is to make sure you don't have to spend nearly as much time.

Note: I used another machine with Ubuntu 8.04 Linux (Hardy Heron). The instructions below explain how to prepare the USB drive from a Linux machine. Since the 1005ha Seashell comes with XP, I will go back later when I have time and add an explanation of how to prepare the USB drive from your Eee PC using XP.

Additional Note: I wiped out my Windows partitions completely. There are many ways to run Windows applications from within Linux, but if you ever need XP back you can use the recovery CD that came with the machine to create another USB boot drive which will return your machine to the exact state it was in when you bought it.


PART 1 - Prepare for install
============================

The following steps should be done well in advance of your installation.


1) Get a USB memory stick. Everyone should have a memory stick or an external USB drive that is at least 5GB, for the following reasons:
a) Most large software products nowadays come in DVD format.
b) Unless you opted for the external DVD drive with your Seashell, you do not have a DVD drive
c) Unless Asus made other variations that I'm not aware of, you have 3 built-in USB ports.
d) A single-sided single-layer DVD can store approximately 4.7 GB.

I recommend getting a SanDisk 8GB Cruzer Micro. They are relatively cheap (Mine was around $25) and I got a great review from one of the guys in my IT department who says the quality of the Cruzer drives is great.

But any USB media will do as long as it is 5GB or more.


2) Download the latest openSUSE full installation ISO. It's over 4GB, so it will probably take a long time, maybe even days if you don't have a reasonably fast connection. If you are waiting for your new USB drive, now's the perfect time to start.
a) Go to Software.openSUSE.org
b) Select the following:
i) 32 Bit PC
ii) DVD
-We're using USB, but in a sense we will be tricking the computer into thinking it's a DVD
iii) Standard (ftp or http)
-Feel free to use BitTorrent if you wish, (and if you know how) as this may be faster

If you prefer the direct link, the file I downloaded is currently found here:

http://download.opensuse.org/distrib...1-DVD-i586.iso

3) Download the Atheros network driver. You will need this to get your network devices up and running after you install openSUSE. Keep this driver tarball (.tar.gz) on another USB drive or somewhere you will be able to access it after you install openSUSE.

I think you can actually add it to the USB drive when you are done preparing it, but I haven't tried this so I can't guarantee that won't cause problems.

You can find the driver tarball here:
Atheros AR8132 Driver for Linux

4) Also make sure you will have (at least temporary) access to a wired ethernet connection when the time comes to install.


------------------------------------
-If you are currently running Linux-
------------------------------------

4) Download and prepare the mksusebootdisk script

a) Download the script here: http://opensource.hqcodeshop.com/suse/mksusebootdisk
b) Open the script in a text editor and find the following line:

for (`fsck.vfat -v $part 2>/dev/null`) {

c) Add a -n switch to the line to look like this:

for (`fsck.vfat -n -v $part 2>/dev/null`) {

d) Open the root terminal, change to the directory where you saved mksusebootdisk and run the following command to give execute permissions to the script:

chmod +x mksusebootdisk

Remember where you saved this file. You will need it later.


5) Once you have your USB drive ready to go and you have downloaded the .iso, follow the steps here to properly prepare the USB drive for the .iso image.

a) Open root terminal (or superuser terminal) and enter password if prompted.
b) Use the following command to look at the storage devices and mounted drive mappings on your machine
df -h
Look for a device that matches the size of your USB drive. I'll use the value from my machine as an example:

/dev/sdb1             7.5G  5.1G  2.5G  68% /media/SUSE

/dev/sdb1 is the device path for the partition. "dev" stands for "device". You can ignore the "/dev/" for now as this is a constant. The remaining value is the <partition> name. If you remove the number at the end, you have the <disk> name.

The directory to the far right is the mount point your OS automatically chose for your device when you plugged it in. You will need this directory to unmount the drive later.

So in the above example, you have:
<disk> = sdb
<partition> = sdb1
<oldmountpoint> = /media/SUSE

The following steps will assume these values in the example match your system. If not, just substitute the values you got from this step.
c) Make sure the USB drive is properly formatted
Check the partitions of the "disk"

fdisk -l /dev/sdb

You should see a line similar to this:

/dev/sdb1  * 1  3924     1004528    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

If you see an asterisk (*), the drive's bootable flag is set. If not, run the following commands to enable it.

fdisk /dev/sdb
a
1
w

If you do not see "FAT32", you will need to reformat the USB drive to use FAT32.

umount /media/SUSE
mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdb1

If the above steps are unclear or do not work, please see the following article for an explanation:

SuSE install from USB drive - openSUSE

6) Once the USB drive is prepared, copy the .iso image to the drive
a) First create some mount points, one imaginary mount point for the .iso and another for the USB drive. Essentially you are going to trick the computer into thinking the .iso is the source DVD and the USB drive is the target DVD and you are going to do a DVD image copy.

mkdir /mnt/dvd
mkdir /mnt/usb

b) Mount the .iso image
Change to the directory where you saved the .iso and run the following:

mount openSUSE-11.1-DVD-i586.iso /mnt/dvd -o loop

If your loop-device is not set up, go here for help: Loop device - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
c) Mount the USB drive

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

d) Copy the .iso to the USB drive as though you were doing a disc copy

cp -R -L /mnt/dvd/* /mnt/usb/

Warning: This will take a while... probably at least 10-20 minutes.
e) When finished copying, unmount the USB drive

umount /mnt/usb

7) Use the mksusebootdisk script to write the boot sector on the USB drive (make the USB bootable)
If you followed the instructions in step 3 correctly, and did not forget step 5e above, all you need to do is change to the folder where you saved mksusebootdisk and run this command:

./mksusebootdisk --arch --partition /dev/<partition> /mnt/dvd

------------------------------------
-If you are currently running XP----
------------------------------------

If you plan to create the boot "disk" from XP, here is a site with some ideas on how to do it:

Boot From A USB Flash Drive

------------------------------------
------------------------------------
------------------------------------

[BBBThunda]

PART 2 - Boot from USB and run the openSUSE Installer
================================================== ===

You should now have a working bootable USB Drive with the openSUSE installation .iso image installed.

1) Shut down your Eee PC.

2) Insert the USB Drive.

3) Press the power button to start the machine and after about 2-3 seconds press ESC to select a boot device. There is actually no need to press F2 for BIOS setup on the Eee PC.

4) You should have the following options (or something similar)
HDD:PM-Hitachi HTS543216L9SA00
USB:SanDisk Cruzer
USB:SanDisk Cruzer

Choose the first USB option and press ENTER. The openSUSE Installer will start up.

5) You will see a mostly green GUI with a menu. Choose "Installation" and press ENTER.

Now is a great time for a quick bathroom or snack break, since it a minute or two to load.

[BBBThunda]

PART 3 - INSTALL openSUSE
=========================

This part is initially a bit tricky because the installer assumes you are running it from a DVD ROM, but you will see that this is easy to bypass.

1) You will see a window that says "Make sure that CD number 1 is in your drive." Selecting "OK" will do nothing for you. Select "Back".

2) Select English (or the language or your choosing) and press ENTER.

3) Select English (US) (or the keyboard mapping of your choosing) and press ENTER.

4) At the Main Menu, select Start Installation and press ENTER.

5) At the Start Installation menu, select Start Installation or Update and press ENTER.

6) Since you are not installing from a DVD, you will use Hard Disk as the source medium. Select "Hard Disk" and press ENTER.

(We tricked the existing Linux machine into thinking we were using a DVD, but the openSUSE Installer is not so gullible.)

7) Choose the partition that matches the USB Drive and press ENTER.
In my case it was this:
sdb1 (7.5 GB, vfat, SUSE)

8) You will be prompted to enter the source directory. The root directory of the USB Drive is the one we want, so you can simply type a forward slash and press ENTER.

/

9) The installer looks for driver updates, and then displays a "No new Driver Updates found" popup. Press ENTER and wait for the YAST GUI to start up.

10) Now you have your mouse back! Read the license agreement, and if you agree, click Next.

11) YAST will "probe" your system. If you see any popups, click OK or press ENTER.

12) Installation Mode: "New Installation" will be selected, uncheck the "Use Automatic Configuration" box and click Next.

13) TimeZone: Choose your region and time zone and adjust the clock if needed and click Next.

14) Desktop Selection: You can choose Gnome, KDE 4.1 or Other. This one really depends on your preference. I went with KDE 4.1 since I've heard good things and want to try it. Choose and press Next.

15) Suggested Partitioning: Do not use the suggested setup. Click "Edit Partition Setup".

16) In the "System View" box on the left, expand "Hard Disks" to see the disks. You should see:
/dev/sda (your Hard Drive)
/dev/sdb (your USB Drive)

Expand /dev/sda to see all of your partitions. On the right side, click the "Partitions" tab if it's not already selected. If I remember correctly there were 3 partitions out of the box. Click each partition within the Partitions tab and click the Delete button below to delete them all.

17) Now click the Add button to add the following partitions:
SIZE FORMAT Mount Point
500MB Ext3 /boot
5GB Swap Swap ***Note: If you only have 1GB of RAM, use 2.5GB here
MAX Ext3 /

When finished, click Accept.

18) Create New User: Create a user for the primary user of this machine. If you are installing this yourself, chances are you will be administering the machine as well, so leave "Use this password for system administrator" checked.

I also suggest checking Receive System Mail and unchecking Automatic Login.

When finished, click Next.

19) On the Istallation settings page, verify that everything is correct based on the steps you just followed and click Install to begin the installation.

I don't have time to re-install my system so I can document the rest, but it's pretty intuitive, so you'll have to follow the directions from here on until you are up and running on your new operating system.

[BBBThunda]

PART 4 - INSTALLING NECESSARY PACKAGES
======================================

You will need to use YaST for the first few things until you are able to connect to your network. YaST will grab packages off the USB Image you used to install the OS and install them for you, so make sure the USB Drive is connected.

1) Kernel Source

a) First go to YaST.
Click the Application Launcher in the bottom left corner (little green lizard icon)
Then go to Applications--System--Administrator Settings(YaST)
(or from the console type /sbin/yast2)
You will be required to login as super user (root).
b) On the top of the left-hand list you will see "Software"
Click this, and in the right pane, click "Software Management".
You may get a warning about a repository not being cached... this is ok for now.
c) Search for "kernel-source"
d) Check the box on the right next to the "kernel source" package.
e) Click Accept.

2) Development Tools

a) Go to YaST again. (see #1 for details)
b) On the top left there is a "Filter" dropdown. Select "Patterns".
c) On the Pattern list on the left, scroll down to the "Development" section near the bottom.
d) Check "Base Development" and "C/C++ Development", as well as any others you may find useful. Being a developer, I added almost all of them.

[BBBThunda]

PART 5 - CONFIGURING YOUR NETWORK DEVICES
=========================================

1) Atheros network device driver (Wired ethernet driver)
a) Create a directory for the driver files and download the driver files the new directory. If you haven't downloaded the driver tarball yet, you can get it here:
Atheros AR8132 Driver for Linux
You may need to use your USB drive to copy the file over to your machine.
b) Change to the directory Use the following commands to unpack the tarball into the current folder (tar -xvzf gave me errors so I did them separately and it worked fine)

gunzip -vf AR81Family-linux-v1.0.0.10.tar.gz
        tar -xvf AR81Family-linux-v1.0.0.10.tar

c) Then do the following to compile the driver installation .file:

cd src
        make install

d) Now go to the atl1e driver directory

cd /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-pae/kernel/drivers/net/atl1e

e) Insert module into Linux kernel

insmod atl1e.ko

f) Restart NetworkManager

rcnetwork restart

You should now have wired ethernet connectivity.


2) Disable openSUSE USB boot device repository

Now that you've installed all the necessary packages from the boot device, and you can also connect to the internet (although you need a wired connection for now) we need to disable that repository in YaST so it won't spend insane amounts of time trying to autorefresh every time you use YaST.

a) Open YaST.
b) Go to Software->Software Repositories
c) Enter root password when prompted
d) In "Configured Software Repositories", select "Repositories" on the left and find the repository "openSUSE 11.1-0" on the right. It should be the only one with a URL starting with hd:/// instead of http://. Click this repository to select it.
e) Uncheck both "Enabled" and "Automatically Refresh" checkboxes.

It's unlikely you will need to use this repository again, since the online repositories are constantly updated and your USB device is not, but if needed you can re-enable it the same way.


3) Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter
NOTE: I'm not 100% sure this step (3) is even necessary. Either the madwifi or compat-wireless-kmp-default install took care of this. Some day I will re-install from scratch following these directions and see if I can skip this.
a) Download the rpm package and copy it to a new folder. Use Firefox (comes installed with openSUSE in the Desktop Folder. Go here for the latest packages:
Software.openSUSE.org
Be sure to get the i586 package, not the x86_64.
b) Click the 1-click installation icon for the package you've selected.
When you get a prompt "What should Firefox do with this file?" and Open With YaST Meta Package Handler selected by default, click OK.
c) Click Next, Next, Next. A warning will pop up, click Yes.
d) When prompted, enter root password.
e) If you get an Unknown GnuPG Key prompt, click Yes.
f) When prompted to Import Untrusted GnuPG Key, click Import.


4) Install openSUSE Community Atheros driver "compat-wireless-kmp-default"
a) Go here to find the installation package:
Software.openSUSE.org
b) Click the 1-click installation icon for the package you've selected.
When you get a prompt "What should Firefox do with this file?" and Open With YaST Meta Package Handler selected by default, click OK.
c) Click Next, Next, Next. A warning will pop up, click Yes.
d) When prompted, enter root password.
e) If you get an Unknown GnuPG Key prompt, click Yes.
f) If prompted to Import Untrusted GnuPG Key, click Import.
g) When finished, click Finish
h) Reboot your machine


5) Install wicd
a) Go here to find the installation package:
Software.openSUSE.org
b) Click the 1-click installation icon for the package you've selected.
When you get a prompt "What should Firefox do with this file?" and Open With YaST Meta Package Handler selected by default, click OK.
c) Click Next, Next, Next. A warning will pop up, click Yes.
d) When prompted, enter root password.
e) If you get an Unknown GnuPG Key prompt, click Yes.
f) If prompted to Import Untrusted GnuPG Key, click Import.
g) When finished, click Finish


6) Uninstall networkmanager
a) Go to YaST
b) Go to Software->Software Management
c) Search for "networkmanager"
You will see a bunch of results (6 or 7?)
d) Click twice all checked boxes next to packages starting with NetworkManager.
There should be a red X in place of the checked box.
e) If you get a Conflict Resolution warning, select "Following actions will be done" and click "OK -- Try Again"
f) When all checkboxes have a red X, click Accept.
g) A popup box will explain that zypp will need to be run to resolve dependencies. Click OK.


7) Configure Network Devices to use wicd
a) Go to YaST
b) Go to Network Devices->Network Settings
c) Click the Global Options tab
d) Select "Traditional Method with ifup"
e) Click OK
f) Now reboot your machine hopefully for the last time.
When the system comes back up you will have a new icon in the system tray for Wicd Network Manager. You should be able to use this to connect to any wireless network assuming you choose the necessary encryption and keys, etc.


Steps 4-7 are derived from the post by gpsanino about halfway down this forum post:
OpenSuseLinux no Internet Connection on Asus Eeepc 1005HA - openSUSE Forums

NOTE: It doesn't look like the 802.11n drivers are currently available. At least I wasn't able to find them and I'm satisfied with the 802.11b/g drivers I have for now. If I find a way to configure 802.11n I will update this thread.

NOTE: The Fn+F10. Fn+F11 and Fn+F12 volume control keys do not work. I haven't yet figured out how to enable them.

[Rikishi42]

On 2009-10-27, BBBThunda <BBBThunda@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> I put together a step-by-step guide of how I installed openSUSE 11.1 on
> my ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005HA Netbook.
>
> I planned on going back and re-installing using my own guide to check
> for mistakes, etc. but I never seem to get around to it, so I'll just
> post what I have and let you guys comment if you run into issues.
>
> Side notes: This guide assumes you want to wipe out Windows XP and run
> only openSUSE. Sorry, I'm a Gates hater.
>
> I still haven't figured out how to configure the function keys support
> for volume controls and wireless. I'm hoping the "eeepc kernel module"
> mentioned by malcolmlewis here: 'Suse on my Asus 1005HA - openSUSE
> Forums' (http://tinyurl.com/yf456mf) will do the trick.
>
> It's divided into 5 parts... I'll post it in 5 pieces.
>
> Enjoy! Hope this is helpful!

Hi, thanks for that. I'm about to get an Eee myself and wondered if I could
setup SUSE instead of the Ubuntu that it can be obtained with.

But I was going to try to connect a DVD reader (actually a writer) via an
IDE-2-USB cable, or the 5"1/4 USb box I have lying around.

A suggestion: perhaps it would be possible for people with smaller USB
sticks to use the NET boot CD, instead ?


--
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.

[BBBThunda]

Thanks Rikishi42 for the reply.

I think it's unlikely that the NET boot cd .iso would work for the 1005HA, since the installer doesn't seem to recognize this machine's network devices.

I haven't tried it myself, but unless the NET boot installer has some tricky solution for allowing you to manually install the network drivers without the OS, you won't be able to connect to the internet to complete the installation.

These ASUS machines are gaining popularity though, so maybe one of the next few openSUSE releases will include the drivers for this hardware and the NET boot CD will work fine.

[Rikishi42]

On 2009-10-30, BBBThunda <BBBThunda@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

> I think it's unlikely that the NET boot cd .iso would work for the
> 1005HA, since the installer doesn't seem to recognize this machine's
> network devices.

Yeah, I kinda expect that, too. I'd give it a try, but the old USB box will
hold a spare DVD burner. So I'll just put the install DVD in it.

That'll be for the EOY holidays days off.


> These ASUS machines are gaining popularity though, so maybe one of the
> next few openSUSE releases will include the drivers for this hardware
> and the NET boot CD will work fine.

:-)
Perhaps I'll give 11.2 a run. With KDE 4.x..
Ahh, the joy of spinning a cube on that little thing. Espacially before a
crowd of Win7 fans.



--
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.