who ever is interested in this just as a comment on SuSE 11.0.
I have been using SuSE for years now and always went with the new distor when it came out. For the first time now I will downgrade because what SuSE 11.0 provides is at most at the beta level.
What finally put me over the edge that I tried to mount a usb drive. I first tried to mount it with root form my user. Access denied. So I tried with root itself. Access denied. Write access of course. Are you serious with this?
So I might come back when you deliver SuSE 11.1 but I will try ubuntu first.
What sort of usb did you try to access? I have no problems accessing a usb mass storage device as a regular user. No contortions of any kind, just using the Device Notifier.
For security reasons (and ones that I agree with), regular users cannot mount things by themselves, unless there is a line in /etc/fstab that allows them to.
I, also, have had no problems using any sort of usb mass storage device. Please tell us exactly what you typed in, and what error message was displayed. I am curious…
BTW, was the flash drive formatted ntfs? I don’t have any problems with mine (it just pops up good to go), but if you are trying to hand mount it, you might need to specify an option or two to write to an ntfs device.
This sort of behaviour has been the case with openSUSE as long as I can remember. 11.0 is no different than the previous openSUSE versions in this respect, EXCEPT there is a very easy work around with openSUSE-11.0 (and also 10.3)
I see Linux as Linux and I have good friends who use Ubuntu. But IMHO you are going to put youself through needless installation for nothing.
The work around to your hot plug problem with a USB NTFS formatted drive is incredibly simply and quick to implement in openSUSE. It takes seconds to apply (permanently) and you could spend hours setting up and tuning your Ubuntu to the exact way you want it. … But its your time, … Linux is Linux, and I hope you enjoy your Ubuntu Linux experience.
In case you are curious, the simple openSUSE fix to obtain hot plug automounting of your external USB hard drive is to open a gnome-terminal / konsole and copy and paste: **
cd /sbin
su -c ‘ln -s mount.ntfs-3g mount.ntfs’**This work-around creates a symbolic link in /sbin solving this hiccup.
Again, … best wishes in learning your new Ubuntu Linux.
He didn’t mentioned the usb drive as ntfs. What if it is not. Is there another work around for a different file system that is not mounting? I ask this because I saw a good deal with this kind of drive, just in case I encounter I will be prepared.
If the drive is vfat, it should “just work” with KDE (and I suspect with Gnome). ie plug it in, one gets a pop-up, and one can access the drive.
Thats how it works with my external USB/firewire drives that are formatted as vfat.
I believe the most likely thing that could mess up the hot plug experience (with vfat) on KDE/Gnome would be if he installed his openSUSE with his USB drive switched ON, in which case the USB drive might be contained in his fstab. That will likely mess up the hot plug mounting.
He will have to remove the USB drive entry from the fstab or always plug-in/switch-ON his USB drives on BEFORE booting.
But he notes he has been using SuSE for a long time, and that is pretty much common knowledge amongst those who have been using SuSE for a while, so I confess I assumed he was aware of that fact.
While you guys are very likely right about the USB I think he just wanted an excuse to go try Ubuntu. If that be the case he or she is still using linux & that’s a good thing.
As a newcomer to SuSe I feel I should say how pleased I am with the installation process. It handles all the disc partition possibilities very nicely and I ended up with just the installation I wanted. I have tried many other distributions, including Ubuntu (also a good distro) but to date SuSe is my favourite !
I’ve transferred from Ubuntu to Suse just for fun. To see how it works. I have ATI Radeon 9000. Big mistake. It didn’t work. Second, I tried to install some additional software. And what answer did I get 90% of the time? Error… Download failed… Failed to connect…
Can you clarify a bit wrt this? What did you try to make it work?
I’m finding many new users do not understand what the “open” means in “openSUSE”. Open in openSUSE, at least in part, refers to the fact that since openSUSE-10.1 and continuing until now (and the current planned future) SuSE mostly does not include proprietary drivers nor software, but rather it sticks as much as possible to opensource freesoftware per the GPL. That is different from distributions like Ubuntu, where many proprietary drivers are included.
Hence in openSUSE, when dealing with graphics devices like ATI, one has to initally either use the VESA driver, or the openGL driver, … and the openGL driver does not always work easily with every ATI graphic device. That is because the proprietary ATI driver is not included. But there are easy work arounds (if one knows how) and all one needs to do is ask for help, and many openSUSE users will pitch in and explain how one can get one’s graphic desktop running. … and later on one can download and install the proprietary ATI graphic driver.
Software is a breeze to install in openSUSE if one has a good internet connection, one has their openSUSE setup properly, one did not have a bad install (due to bad CD/DVD checksum) and if one is not behind a proxy or corporate firewall that blocks too many ports. One of the big advantages to openSUSE-11.0 is zypper (software package management) is very fast. IMHO its just as fast, if not faster, than yum/apt on other distributions. Plus the Smart Software package manager is also easy to setup on openSUSE. … One has many options, which is one of the things I like about Linux.
I hate to say this, but one of the reasons for this failure is luck of substantial information regarding opensuse before attempting the installation. The very important first step in any attempt to try for the first time is to know or research the compatibility of your machine e.g. hardware etc. against the distro. One has to research also how the distro manages the app installation, like what it is using, with suse it is using yast, zypper and smart and how to add and use the repositories. When you have all this necessary tools chances are, problem will be just minimal and ranting will be avoidable.
A soldier by instinct will not attempt to go to war without a sophisticated weapons and ammunitions.
You don’t enter into the lion’s den without knowing that it is tamed or you have tarzan at your side.
On 09/06/2008 oldcpu wrote:
> Software is a breeze to install in openSUSE if one has a good
> internet
> connection, one has their openSUSE setup properly, one did not have a
> bad install (due to bad CD/DVD checksum) and if one is not behind a
> proxy or corporate firewall that blocks too many ports.
That particular error hit me frequently with Opensuse 11, on various different connections. Hitting “Retry” helps. No idea why, maybe it is a certain mirror acting up. But he has a point here.
