Can't usb install Tumbleweed on old Acer that has 11.2 suse

(help!) Install not launching properly: troubleshooting suggestions?

I made a USB install with Balenetcher on a stick formatted exFAT on a win10 machine. Has two partitions- EFI folder that can be seen under W10 and a separate iso partition.

Install iso: openSUSE-Tumbleweed-LegacyX86-DVD-i586-Snapshot20240511-Media

Boots to an odd installation screen that does not find the installation stick. It gives a list of possible sources, that does not include the installation usb:

cd:/
hd:/
http : //download.opensuse.org/ports/i586/tumbleweed/repo/oss/
Enter another URI.

I have an old suse version on the machine but too borked to download imagewriter or update completely to newest Tumbleweed. It did update system packages, but not apps, with zypper dup and update.

I wanted to do a complete new install because I want to take over the entire hard drive with Suse ā€“ now dual boot with WinXP.

When trying to update apps, get this error:

File /repodata/repomd.xmlā€™ not found on medium ā€˜http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/GNOME: /Apps/openSUSE_11.2/ā€™

I donā€™t know what Balenetcher is because I donā€™t use Windows except for maintaining my Harmony remote. I donā€™t know what a ā€œseparate iso partitionā€ means either. Is it a filesystem containing the downloaded .iso file? If Windows reports an .iso file on a separate ā€œdriveā€, it wonā€™t be usable for booting your downloaded TW until you perform the correct procedure.

Most people who canā€™t get their USB stick with a Linux installation .iso file on it to boot is because of the general difficulty in Windows to put the .iso on the USB stick properly.

The existing format of the USB you use is 100% irrelevant. This is because you canā€™t copy an .iso file to a USB stick filesystem and have it able to do its job.

Instead, the process of putting an .iso on a stick properly is commonly called ā€œburningā€, which means it gets copied to a special location on the stick, not to any filesystem of any type. Instead, it is copied starting at the very first sector on the USB, the location where the partition table must be located. The process creates a new partition table with as many of its own new filesystems as required for it to do its job. All data that was on the USB is lost.

Unless you can get your Windows USB writing program to correctly burn starting at the first sector, any subsequent attempts to boot it the copied .iso will fail. Different writing utilities have different names for this, but it essentially means that if the selected writing program process does not report that all existing data on the USB device will be lost as a consequence, youā€™re using the wrong process and writing from the .iso file to the wrong location on the stick.

1 Like

They donā€™t mention Balenetcher here, but it has worked when I installed Ubuntu on another machine.
https://en.opensuse.org/Create_installation_USB_stick

They do mention Rufus. I think I will try it.

A possible problem is that balenetcher creates 2 drives because one is FAT32, and canā€™t handle more thanā€¦4G? The ISO is 3.6G, so it shouldnā€™t be a problem, but maybeā€¦

On to Rufus, with some caveats (in reply).

Caveat here: FAQ Ā· pbatard/rufus Wiki Ā· GitHub

Ubuntu is not the same as openSUSE they use different methods and file layouts. You must copy the iso without changes to the USB device not a partition. May Windows based copy programs change the image when copying. Should be a binary copy, period, No tweeks

1 Like

Itā€™s actually Belena Etcher, not Balenetcher. Balena is the company, Etcher is the software. Iā€™ve been using Etcher for quite a few years now, and Iā€™ve never had a problem. https://etcher.balena.io/

1 Like

In windows 11 I use rufus selecting the DD protocol. In opensuse I have always found myself very happy with imagewriter and imageburner which are in the repositoriesā€¦
I have no knowledge of ubuntu

1 Like

In Linux I use cp to simply copy the iso to the device no need for fancy GUI.

1 Like

Rufus: same results as Balena Etcher: I get a lightbulb with options but none allow installation (not even ā€œinstallationā€, which borks at the selection of the repository which only includes online, cd and hd ā€“ descriptor found in online).

Will try to do a dd copy with WSL ubuntu on W10.

(Thanks for all the suggestions!)

Stymied with the usb. WSL2 wonā€™t recognize a usb stick.

Will try another tack: if I can install new SSL certificates on my old 11.2, I will be able to connect to the internet and can hopefully connect to an online repository for an update.

So: I will post another question about how to install updated SSL certificates without an internet connection to the machine. (Though the machine will ping addresses.)

What is the goal? openSUSE 11.2 is EOL since May 2011. So there is no update available. And if you plan to upgrade this machine from openSUSE 11.2 to Leap 15.5ā€¦better forget that and make a fresh installation. You cant directly upgrade from openSUSE 11.2 to Leap 15.5. You canā€™t skip a release inbetween. See SDB:System upgrade - openSUSE Wiki
That would be a massive waste of time and energy to go this way as you would need to do 16! full distribution upgrades from openSUSE 11.2 to Leap 15.5ā€¦

1 Like

Thanks for the tip!

Ok. So it has to be a fresh install of Tumbleweed (thatā€™s what I was trying to do anyway). I thought if I got the old version working I could use it to create a proper installation usb.

But I think you are right: just get the installation usb working and do a fresh install.

Could be I have a dud install iso!

Will continue to hammer at the usb issueā€¦ or burn a dvd? I think I have a writable dvd that is big enough (need 4G, I assume).

Another thought: As this system had openSUSE 11.2 installed (which was released 2009ā€¦15 years ago!), the hardware seems to be even older.
Maybe Tumbleweed kernel/drivers already dropped support for some of the components of this machineā€¦this is also something to considerā€¦

Is this your only linux machine? If you want to keep this thing for fun/experimenting/learning this should be OK. But donā€™t expect any performance with such hardware. I lately retired a 11 year old laptop with a 64bit i7ā€¦it is no fun to work with such a piece of hardware if you want to do more than browsing and textingā€¦and yours seems to be a 32bit museum piece.

1 Like

Just a question regarding your hardware: What Acer laptop is it you are using? At least Intel discontinued i586 processors in 1999. Did you take the wrong ISO or do you have a really old laptop?

Edit: whoops, seems like hui had the same thought. You can ignore my post then.

1 Like

ā€¦ old Acer that has 11.2 suse

openSUSE 11.2 was released in 2009ā€¦

1 Like

Yep, but the i586 gen is at least 10 years older than that

Thats why i wrote this comment regarding the hardwareā€¦

1 Like

I know, I just saw it after I posted. Sorry for technically repeating you. Wasnā€™t on purpose. I just didnā€™t see your post before I replied

It is an Acer Aspire 3000. Old! But with 11.2 quite snappy. I was hoping that Tumbleweed could handle old (very old!) machines. Wishful thinking?

Wellā€¦ if you feel like experimenting I guess you can try. Maybe with LXQt as desktop? I wouldnā€™t dare to attempt it with KDE or Gnome.

In general openSUSE might be a bit too heavy, depending on what your hardware specs are.

And this:

If I was to play with such old hardware I would maybe try Arch Linux (if you want an easier install process you could try EndeavourOS) with a light DE (LXQt would be my choice) or even just a window manager.

1 Like