Few questions before installation

[UberSchwarz]

I currently have a laptop running 32bit Vista but I wanted to do a dual boot with openSUSE until broadband is installed at my location.

However, I've never installed a Linux distro before but I have played around with Linux.

Is easy to configure a dualboot of 32bit Vista and 64bit openSUSE?

With openSUSE, can I download the latest version of KDE if the version that came stock with openSUSE is not the latest KDE release?

Down openSUSE come with a dialup application? Would the Dell drivers for Coxanant modems for Ubuntu also work on openSUSE?

I'm currently learning php and MySQL, I wish to become a programmer and software engineer, does openSUSE come with them preinstalled?

I'm purchasing a 1TB WD USB HDD this weekend and I'd figured I'd use it for weekly backups of settings, files, and software. Can I schedule weekly backups with openSUSE?

Please forgive my lack of knowledge of Linux and if this is the wrong place to post this threat. Thanks for any help, tips, or suggestions provided.

[caf4926]

Honestly, without Broadband you are going to struggle. You could get the this CD which KDE updated: "KDE Four Live" CD

But if you need multi-media and the like you will find it very tiresome on dialup.

[buckesfeld]

* UberSchwarz wrote, On 10/13/2009 04:46 AM:
> I currently have a laptop running 32bit Vista but I wanted to do a dual
> boot with openSUSE until broadband is installed at my location.
>
> However, I've never installed a Linux distro before but I have played
> around with Linux.
>
> Is easy to configure a dualboot of 32bit Vista and 64bit openSUSE?

Yes. Check the FAQ:
http://forums.opensuse.org/new-user-...faq-read-only/

> With openSUSE, can I download the latest version of KDE if the version
> that came stock with openSUSE is not the latest KDE release?
>
> Down openSUSE come with a dialup application? Would the Dell drivers
> for Coxanant modems for Ubuntu also work on openSUSE?

What Carl said. Modern Linux distributions aren't really dial-up friendly.

> I'm currently learning php and MySQL, I wish to become a programmer and
> software engineer, does openSUSE come with them preinstalled?

You can select both upon installation, yes. Probably the versions installed aren't the most recent, but you can add additional repositories offering newer versions. Again, dial-up is a bottleneck here.

> I'm purchasing a 1TB WD USB HDD this weekend and I'd figured I'd use it
> for weekly backups of settings, files, and software. Can I schedule
> weekly backups with openSUSE?

openSUSE has a built-in Yast module for backups, but I never used it. There are various other backup solutions available.

HTH
Uwe

[UberSchwarz]

I only use the dialup at home since it is my laptop but when I'm at wifi locations, which is quite frequently, I use high speed. This is why I was gonna do a dualboot. Windows for dialup, openSUSE for other times.

I was running the Live CD of the latest development version, but I didn't see my optical drive listed anywhere in the UI. Is there anyway I can check to make sure my drive is functional in Linux without configuration?

Also, I did some research and it appears for wireless card to work I need to install the madwifi module for it to function. Is this something I download once openSUSE has been installed?

Thanks for your help!

[buckesfeld]

On 10/15/2009 UberSchwarz wrote:
> I was running the Live CD of the latest development version, but I
> didn't see my optical drive listed anywhere in the UI. Is there
> anyway I can check to make sure my drive is functional in Linux
> without configuration?

Define "optical drive", please. If it is the CD/DVD reader you booted from, it works ;-)
Please ask these questions in the install forum; you'll get better answers there or even find the answer.

> Also, I did some research and it appears for
> wireless card to work I need to install the madwifi module for it to
> function. Is this something I download once openSUSE has been
> installed?

Please check if one of the stickies in http://forums.opensuse.org/network-internet/wireless/ answers your question. Else we need details about your hardware over in the wireless forum.

Uwe