Howdy folks, I just installed 11.2 and (yay!) it works great. I don’t have a question; I just thought I’d share the secrets of my success. None of this is original, the only benefit to my fellow newbies is that it’s collected in one place.
My laptop is about 3yr old, one of many HP models with 1) a broadcom wireless adapter, 2) nVidia graphics, and 3) Altec-Lansing sound. I’m a linux fan but not a power user, and I’m writing these instructions not quite at a click-by-click level, but at a fairly low level so that I can use them myself if I have to do it all over again at some point.
STEP 0: PREPARE
OK, I actually did these steps on a previous version, but they still apply. First, plan to do this on a day when you have some time, and make sure you have some way to kill time while keeping an eye on your laptop while it thinks. The best device for that is a smartphone, because you can also use it to search online for solutions to any problems that may come up.
Plan to split your hard drive three ways, one section for existing Windows, one for Linux, and a third section accessible to both of the others, for data files. I gave each of the three sections approximately equal billing. To make this split possible, defragment your drive and then disable swap. (Read the Help in Windows if you don’t know how to do these things.) After installing Linux, you can boot Windows and re-enable swap.
When you run the opensuse installer, it’ll let you resize your windows partition and then suggest what to do with the rest. Remember to add a large FAT32 partition for data accessible to both operation systems. (FAT32 is a format that both can read reliably, but remember that it supports a maximum file size of only 4GB, not large enough for a hi-def movie.) For the linux section, the installer will suggest a main linux partition plus a separate partition for users, and a swap partition. You need the swap, but otherwise, why break it up? You’ll only kick yourself when one partition gets full and you have plenty of room on the other.
STEP 1: INSTALL
I used the KDE live CD. Like many SuSE fans, I prefer KDE to GNOME. It’s Windows-ish by default but highly configurable, and it incorporates some cool 3D stuff from another project, a little less intuitively but more reliably. This part is straightforward but time-consuming: Download the image, burn it on CD, then reboot with that CD in the drive. Remember, when prompted for passwords, to check for Numlock as well as Capslock.
CRITICAL: Be sure to have your computer cable-connected to the internet while installing. Wireless won’t work until the next step:
STEP 2: WIRELESS
Open a terminal (from favorites in the start menu), and switch to root (type command su). As root, run these commands, still with an ethernet connection:
/usr/sbin/install_bcm43xx_firmware
/sbin/modprobe -v b43
/sbin/modprobe b43
Reboot, and configure wireless (WEP key or whatever) from network manager in the tray. You’ll probably be prompted to configure kwallet; if you leave the password blank, you won’t have to enter a password everytime you boot up before your wireless connects. Depends on how you feel about security.
STEP 3: BROWSER SPEED
Open Firefox and type “about:config” in address bar; agree to the confirminator. Search (ctrl-F) for “ipv6”. This filters down to one line. Click on it. If Internet Protocol version 6 is ever implemented, reverse this step.
STEP 4: GRAPHICS
On openSuSE main page, search for nVidia. On the page it finds, use the 1-click install link and follow prompts. Reboot. Configuring the desktop effect is now possible (favorites, in the start menu). I happen to like Wobbly Windows. Explore this configuration tool, and while you’re at it, click on fonts, install, navigate to your Windows font directory, and select 'em all. In the mouse/keyboard section, you can set mouse speed to taste, set numlock to be on at start, and set a double-click to open icons like in Windows.
STEP 5: PERIPHERALS
Open Yast, Hardware, Printer. Add printer. Look up its ip address on your router if necessary. For an HP printer, add driver, and select HPIJS. Likewise add the scanner if it’s an all-in-one; network-attachment is tricky so keep a usb cable for scanning.
STEP 6: MEDIA
Some media formats, like Adobe’s Flash (on youtube for instance) won’t work until you install more software, some of which isn’t open-source. You can read about about it at Restricted Formats - openSUSE-Community and follow the link to the version for 11.2. (As long as you’re one the site, search for and read about repositories, too.) If you decide to install anything, the manual steps work better than the 1-click install. This install includes Amorok; open it and scan your music collection, and if you have a USB speaker, configure Amarok to prefer it (i.e., to use it whenever it’s plugged in.)
STEP 7A: WINDOWS SUPPORT
Install Wine; do not use 64bit version. Research your favorite Windows apps at winehq.org, and have any WinXP DLL files they need. Copy these to home/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32. In a terminal, type “winecfg” (need not be root) and select native format for those DLLs. Copy, download, or navigate to a windows install file, click on the executable, and type “wine” when prompted how to open it.
STEP 7B: MORE WINDOWS SUPPORT
Through Yast, install VirtualBox-ose (needed even though supporting packages are preloaded). Also through Yast, Security, add users to the vbox group. Through superuser filemanager, give users permission on /etc/init.d/vboxdrv. (That is, go to start menu => applications => system => file manager and click the superuser version.) After this step, I had to uninstall and reinstall VirtualBox-ose. Run the program, create a new virtual machine (with over 10GB), then try to start that machine. You’ll get an error message which tells you to run a command, so open a terminal and do it. For me, the output of the command looked like it produced some kind of error, but I could still open virtualbox and actually start a virtual machine. Once you get that done, install windows from the disk that came with your computer.
Then, from devices menu, choose Install Guest Additions, which won’t work, but note the folder(s) where the “guest additions” can’t be found. Then go to Index of /virtualbox/, download the appropriate version of the iso, and copy it to the folder you noted. You’ll have to rename the iso so that it doesn’t include the version number. On the virtual machine, restart windows so that you can boot into safe mode, and install the Guest Additions.
Hope y’all find this helpful,
GEF