I have done a net install of Leap 42.2 Alpha2 Gnome on an UEFI Optimus laptop (Intel + Nvidia).
The installer refused to configure a first user (see Bug986542 ) but the install completed smoothly.
Nouveau complains in dmesg but I’m not going to fiddle with proprietary drivers yet at this stage.
The installed system seems quite useable, with a few Gnome hiccups here and there:
the mouse & touchpad preference panel crashes;
bluetooth doesn’t work (but might be HW related, it’s not always smooth in 42.1 or TW either).
Gnome is 3.20.2 but at first glance it seems a bit behind (and maybe still more buggy) than the current version on Tumbleweed. Not sure if I’m going to file bug reports in this area yet.
Major applications are at 42.1 revisions (e.g. LibreOffice) or a bit behind (e.g. Firefox), so nothing new to test (other than integration with the new base system).
The new base (kernel at 4.4.11, systemd, udev, a new Yast apparently) might warrant a few tests in the weeks to come.
Comments or suggestions from other early testers are welcome.
As this is not asking for help, this will be moved to General Chitchat. That is a good place to have some discussion on 42.2’s developement and features.
>
> OrsoBruno;2783649 Wrote:
>> I have done a net install of Leap 42.2 Alpha2 Gnome on an UEFI Optimus
>> laptop (Intel + Nvidia).
>> The installer refused to configure a first user (see ‘Bug986542’
>> (https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=986542) ) but the install
>> completed smoothly.
>> Nouveau complains in dmesg but I’m not going to fiddle with proprietary
>> drivers yet at this stage.
>>
>> The installed system seems quite useable, with a few Gnome hiccups here
>> and there:
>> - the mouse & touchpad preference panel crashes;
>> - bluetooth doesn’t work (but might be HW related, it’s not always
>> smooth in 42.1 or TW either).
>>
>> Gnome is 3.20.2 but at first glance it seems a bit behind (and maybe
>> still more buggy) than the current version on Tumbleweed. Not sure if
>> I’m going to file bug reports in this area yet.
>> Major applications are at 42.1 revisions (e.g. LibreOffice) or a bit
>> behind (e.g. Firefox), so nothing new to test (other than integration
>> with the new base system).
>>
>> The new base (kernel at 4.4.11, systemd, udev, a new Yast apparently)
>> might warrant a few tests in the weeks to come.
>> Comments or suggestions from other early testers are welcome.
> Moved from Install/Boot/Login and open again.
>
> Happy testing!
>
Downloaded 42.2 to see if if would install better than 42.1 on my hardware
as I never did get a really stable 42.1 system running. One is an older
Compaq dual core box 4 Gb ram and no UEFI support, the other is a much more
recent HP 8-core 16 Gb machine with UEFI support. The first was working to
some degree with 42.1, the newer HP was a disaster from the git-go. Unable
to keep networks up, video issues, and when an update went south I was
basically done.
Started with the Compaq but got an immediate error when the installer began
to install packages - something on the order of being unable to create a
user - so I wiped the disk. With a clean, unpartitioned disk 42.2 went on
with no problems other than requiring “nomodeset” to keep things happy with
an old NV 6350 video. That was expected since that video set has has
problems for a long time. Other than that. installing to the blank drive
went quite well and most things worked as hoped. Still a bunch of tweeking
needed, especially the display, but some what useful. I went to re-install
over the running system and got the memory exception from the installer
again. Only working install (out of 5-6 install attempts) were to
completely clean drives??? Figure that one out! Even using a 13.2 live cd
to wipe that drive and recreate the same partitions as created by the first
successful 42.2 installation.
Anticipating problems with the HP box, I deleted the partitions used by the
once-working 42.1 system. Started a UEFI mode install, defined the
partitions and set the format to EXT4 (still not ready to face the BTRFS
hassles) and got as far as failed Compaq installs but I was able to confirm
that the installer did manage to allocate the partitions and set the
appropriate format before crapping out with the memory access complaint as
before.
I’m not at the house just now but I’ll post the error message I got when I
get home. I also need to get all this put together to use as a bug report.
Will post the bug response here once I get that done.
If it is the same problem I witnessed, it has been confirmed and seemingly solved (let’s see with Alpha3…) according to 986542 – Leap 42.2 Alpha2 Net installer fails to set up a first user account.
If that is the case, you can safely go ahead, the installer will ask for a root password, then you can create your users logging in as superuser on the first boot.
WRT partitioning, I reformatted an existing EXT4 test partition as / and reused existing /home and swap with no problems using the “expert partitioner” choice.
> If it is the same problem I witnessed, it has been confirmed and
> seemingly solved (let’s see with Alpha3…) according to
> https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=986542
> If that is the case, you can safely go ahead, the installer will ask for
> a root password, then you can create your users logging in as superuser
> on the first boot.
> WRT partitioning, I reformatted an existing EXT4 test partition as / and
> reused existing /home and swap with no problems using the “expert
> partitioner” choice.
>
I figured it was something like that - the bug you reference is pretty much
what I saw. Anyway, it got me to set up the test boxes for the collection
of oddball of machines I see around here. I’ve got the folks I try to help
out running 13.1 (evergreen) so I’m hoping all the grief I’ve had with 42.1
will get ironed out in this version. Too many cross-connected major upgrades
with LEAP to suit me so it may be an interesting test period
An update on the BlueTooth issue I witnessed: it might be related to timing problems in the setup of the BT chip, an Atheros unit using the ath3k driver and connected through an xhci usb hub that has been known for such problems across distros and kernels.
I was able to set up BT and transfer files by:
first booting to CLI target (“runlevel 3”);
checking in dmesg that the BT usb device had been set up;
then “telinit 5”, going to the graphical target, logging in and finding BT working as expected in Gnome.
When going straight to the GUI, the usb system might not be able to set up all functions or registers of the BT chip, apparently.
Comments from testers having similar devices (or different ones, for that matter…) are welcome.
I’m not going to file a bug report on this for the time being, since the ath3k seems to be a nightmare to debug.
BTW, the Gnome BT control panel needs tweaking: the active area showing “discovered devices” is so thin that you have to scroll even to see the first device in the list.
Keeping that on my TODO list for Alpha3…
I testet in a WM(VB) KDE environment and as always later years notice that when the partitioner suggestions shows up… Again that I don’t understand why. Scare away newcomers.
Tested to map NFS mounts and so on. Tested to click on a *.rpm for install of drivers. Oh no. Same as 42.1 problem.
A short comment about my first test on 42.2…
On the other hand, - a step on the way :P. It 's a Alpha (2).
Does anybody know if 42.2 supports Skylake systems?
42.2 comes with long-term kernel 4.4 but I’m not sure if Skylake support has started with this release.
I did a little homework googling around and can confirm that Skylake support began with kernel 4.3.
However glitches with integrated graphics continued through kernel 4.4.x and a potentially nasty power management problem might still be around, see http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html?page=2#comments for an authoritative source.
I see no noticeable difference with powertop here on Haswell i7 4720HQ switching from Leap 42.1 to 42.2 Alpha2, i.e. Package staying in pc2 and cores in cc7 most of the time when the system is idle.
It would be nice to hear from anybody actually testing 42.2 on a Skylake.
