Installation of openSUSE-13.1 on new Core-i7-4770 desktop PC (with Gigabyte Z87X-D3H motherboard)

English Open Chat
#1

As the title notes, I installed openSUSE-13.1 on a new Desktop PC (with Gigabyte Z87X-D3H motherboard) w/UEFI firmware and GPT partitioning, where I handpicked the components from a local German Internet Desktop PC supplier. I ordered the PC without an operating system, although I did install Windows7 in addition to openSUSE on this PC.

The Gigabyte Z87X-D3H motherboard supports UEFI firmware, and so this was my opportunity to teach myself a bit about openSUSE installation on UEFI firmware on GPT partitioning in a dual boot with Windows7. Previous, I had learned a bit about openSUSE on UEFI firmware on GPT partitioning with Windows8 on my Toshiba Satellite Z930 Ultrabook (which I blogged about here).

**Specification: **

The custom specifications that I selected for this Desktop PC were:

  • Gigabyte Z87X-D3H motherboard
  • Intel Core-i7 4770 cpu, that comes with integrated graphics
  • no dedicated graphic card (rather used the motherboard/i7-4770 Intel Haswell graphics)
  • 16 Gbytes ELIXIR RAM (DDR-3 PC 1600) ← this was ‘in stock’ RAM of my supplier
  • 256 GB SSD drive (sandisk) ← this was ‘in stock’ SSD of my supplier
  • 2TB HD drive (Seagate Barracuda 7200) ← this was ‘in stock’ HD of my supplier
  • DVD-RW Writer Samsung SH-222BB
  • Case – Cooler Master K380
  • PSU (Power Supply Unit) 650 watt Cooler Master Nt GX RS-650-ACAA-D3
  • CPU cooler – Silent Scythe Katana 3
  • 2 x 120mm Fans (Super Silent)

** Mass storage**

I wanted an SSD drive for the executeables, and a regular hard drive (HD) for data.

I restricted the HD to only 2 Terabytes (TB) because I knew 2 TB would work with BIOS/MBR-partitioning and I wanted to retain that possibility as a backup in case I could not master/figure out a UEFI/GPT-partitioning approach. This turned out not to be necessary, so in hindsight possibly I should have gone for a large HD, as the delta in price was relatively small.

I went for a large 256 GB SSD drive to host the operating system executables, where 256 GB was significantly larger than my originally intended 128 GB SSD drive. I had a few friends/colleagues recommend to me to go for the larger 256 GB SSD since the price delta (over a 128 GB SSD) was small, even though I struggled to see how I would use the extra space. Currently, as will be seen later in this post, this 256 GB SSD drive is massively underused in my setup.

** Case/Power Supply/Fans**

I confess this was the 1st time I had ever spent any time picking a case/power supply/fan. Previous I had only selected the cheapest case, while this time I gave a bit of thought to my selection.

After some deliberation, where the USB-3.0 port on the front of case played a big roll in my selection, I eventually chose the Cooler master K380 :

http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/30555/45fa03305549630.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/45fa03305549630)
[box the PC case came in]
[click on image for a larger view]

I learned early on I did NOT want to spend a lot of money on this, although I wanted something reasonable. I believe the 650 watt power supply greatly exceeds the needs of my PC ‘as is’, but if later on I should purchase a PCI-3 graphic card, this 650 Watt should be adequate for most graphic cards. I liked the case because it had a USB-3.0 port on the front, which is very very useful. The extra fans were inexpensive, so I picked them up to add more cooling. I had no clue as to the CPU fan, so I picked one that in essence matched my approximate budget. It turns out this is a large CPU fan that just barely fits in the case !!

http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/30555/e01908305549632.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/e01908305549632)
[There are only two fans displayed here - and the CPU fan is on an angle in the middle]
[click on image for a larger view]

I do note this PC with its Core-i7-4770 runs SIGNFICANLY cooler than my older PC with a Core-i7-920 (with same operating system). Whether that is due to the newer PC having a more efficient CPU, having no PCI-e graphic card (while my older PC has a nVidia GTX-260) or there being more/better fans in this new PC I can’t say.

http://thumbnails109.imagebam.com/30555/fd38e9305549631.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/fd38e9305549631)
[overall look at inside of PC]
[Note the fan on the bottom of the PC !! That was a 1st for me in a PC that I owned]
[click on image for a larger view]

** Graphic card**

I struggled here for a while wrt a graphic card selection. I was leaning toward a nVidia GTX-660, but I had read a number of user horror stories wrt the nVidia GNU/Linux drivers for this card. Such stories are always difficult to decipher, as my experience with technical support threads is those complaining can on many occasions exaggerate significantly. In the case of the GTX-660, I could not tell, and I was concerned.

My requirements are for HD video playback and Video Editing. The only game I play is chess, which has rather basic graphic needs.

In the end, after receiving some recommendations from the openSUSE forum and also the Phoronix forum, I decided to go with the Integrated Intel graphics that came with the motherboard/CPU combination. This has turned out well, thus far.

** CPU selection**

I did not spend much thought on this. The Core-i7-4770 fit within in my budget. To go for a much faster CPU would have been too expensive. To go with an AMD CPU would have meant a different motherboard, and I struggled significantly wrt motherboard selection.

** Motherboard Selection**

GNU/Linux typically works well with most motherboards, but sometimes there can be incompatibility problems between a motherboard and GNU/Linux. I did not want to leave anything to chance, so I made a list of motherboards that I could get from my Internet PC suppliers that were at the price of my budget, and then I tried over the Internet to find compatibility stories of happy GNU/Linux users with these motherboards. This proved to be incredibly difficult. It turns out most GNU/Linux users never post as to their motherboard experience.

In the end a user recommended a Gigabyte motherboard that was very very similar to the Gigabyte Z87X-D3H that I chose.

http://thumbnails109.imagebam.com/30555/bdbbb5305549629.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/bdbbb5305549629)
[the motherboard’s box]
[click on image for a larger view]

There was also another similar motherboard to the Gigabyte Z87X-D3H (which was the GA-Z87X-UD3H) but that UD3H motherboard had an ALC898 audio code, as opposed to the ALC892 audio codec in the D3H. I had read stories of users not being able to get the ALC898 to work with GNU/Linux. I could not tell from those posts if a user with strong audio understanding could get this to work, and so in the end I went with the D3H where I had read stories of success with the ALC892.

  • … to be continued next post ….*
#2

Installation

Firmware/BIOS and SSD/HHD

When booting the PC for the first time, I went into the Firmware and ensure it had settings applied that I wanted. In the most it was what I wanted, although I did disable a boot/switch-ON on LAN enabled to which I saw no apparent use. That strikes me as a security risk.

In the Gigabyte mother board’s firmware I set:
[ul]
[li]Boot Mode Selection - controls wht device system can boot to[/li][LIST]
[li]UEFI and Legacy <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I have this selected [/li][li]Legacy only [/li][li]UEFI only [/li][/ul]

[li]Storage Option Control - controls the execution of UEFI and Storage OpROM[/li][ul]
[li]Disabled [/li][li]UEFI only <<<<<<<<<<<<< I have this selected [/li][li]Legacy only [/li][li]Legacy first [/li][li]UEFI first [/li][/ul]

[li]Other PCI Device ROM Priority - for PCI devices other than Network, Mass Storage or Video defines which OpROM to launch[/li][ul]
[li]UEFI OpROM <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I have this selected [/li][li]Legacy OpROM [/li][/ul]

[/LIST]

I wanted to try out using UEFI/GPT and I believe the above provides a reasonable degree of flexibility when installing wrt that goal.

I noted that the SSD was originally flagged as MBR type (as delivered by PC supplier) and the HD flagged as a GPT. Using a gparted liveCD boot, I left the HD as GPT and I changed the SSD to a GPT type.


[gparted application and liveCD - illustrating changing drive to GPT]
[click on image for larger view]

1st installation (openSUSE-13.1 only)

The PC arrived before I had purchased a copy of Windows7. In fact, I still had not yet made up my mind to install Windows7 at that time. So after 1st booting the Desktop PC from a 64-bit openSUSE-13.1 KDE liveUSB, I then rebooted from an openSUSE-13.1 installation .iso (on a USB-3.0 stick) and made a quick no-brainer install of openSUSE-13.1 on the PC from that USB stick, with the intent that this would be a temporary install, and replaced in a couple of weeks. Fortunately with an SSD drive and an install from a USB-3.0 memory stick, the copy part of the install takes just over 4-minutes, hence it is not an onerous timecomsuming activity to re-install. The 1st openSUSE by itself install was successful, and I won’t dwell on that as it is not interesting. Instead I’ll go to the 2nd installation

One interesting point, was the PC was hard wired by the PC supplier such that the HD was sda and the SSD drive was sdb. Fortunately that made no difference.

… to be continued …

#3

** 2nd installation (both windows7 and openSUSE-13.1)**

In the end I decided to put Windows7 on the PC, together with openSUSE-13.1. I had installed Windows7 on PCs before with BIOS/MBR/legacy-grub, but never before with UEFI-firmware/GPT/grub-2 combination, so this added a challenge.

** Windows-7 installation**

Prior to installing, I removed all partitions on both the SSD drive and the HD. Removing partitions from the HD was not necessary (as windows7 was destined for the SSD), but I wanted to change that HD’s partitioning, so this presented an opportunity. I had read that Windows7 on PCs with UEFI would not let one install on an HD with multiple partitions, and hence I removed the SSD partitioning as I did not want to challenge/test that reading.

I ended up aborting the Windows7 install a few times. I rarely use MS-Windows, and I did not want to give Windows7 the entire 256 GB SSD drive, and I strugged to figure out how to tell Windows7 to restrict its install to only ~68 GB of the 256 GB SSD drive.

In the end, thanks to encouragement from an openSUSE forum support thread, I noted on a Windows7 installation partitioning menu an item for “new” :

http://thumbnails110.imagebam.com/30556/0f09b1305551718.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/0f09b1305551718)
[note the [b]“ORANGE” new entry]
[click on image for a larger view]

and after selecting “new” I then had this option that allowed me to adjust the size:

http://thumbnails109.imagebam.com/30556/5430bb305552996.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/5430bb305552996)
[click on the image for a larger view]

Then I noted that windows7 insisted on creating a 100 MB FAT32 EFI boot partition (as sdb1) and also a 128 MB microsoft reserved partition. Also, one can not change the size of that Windows proposal.

http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/30556/8d89bd305551719.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/8d89bd305551719)
[Note windows7 has proposed to create 3 partitions]
[click on the image for a larger view]

I wanted a 256 MB or larger and so I aborted any installs where the EFI was only 100 MB

I tried creating my own 260 MB FAT32 EFI (of type ef00) and an empty 128 MB partition (to also be the Microsoft reserved) but windows7 ignored that insisted on creating a new 100 MB FAT32 EFI in addition to the 260 MB FAT32 that I created.

http://thumbnails110.imagebam.com/30556/4ae322305551721.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/4ae322305551721)
[Note windows7 still wants to add its own EFI partition and ignores the EFI partition I set up]
[click on above image for a larger view]

So I aborted that.

I also tried (with clean partitioning) to abort a Windows7 install after the 100MB EFI partition was created, and then go in with Gparted liveCD and enlargen that partition to 256 MB. Unfortunately, gparted complained about the Microsoft created partition and refused to allow me to change the size.

  • … to be continued next post ….*
#4

What worked for Windows7 partitioning

In the end I discovered if I started with a clean SSD drive partitioning, and using the gparted liveCD I created a 256 MB VFAT32 EFI partition (of type ef00), and an empty 128 MB partition (to also be the Microsoft reserved) AND then also with gparted flagged the 256 MB VFAT32 EFI partition as ‘boot’ (ie made it an ‘active’ partition) that Windows7 would accept that partition as the EFI and would not create an additional 100 MB partition.

I thus was then able to install Windows7 which was uneventful. Although I do note the Windows7 install copy to SSD drive phase is much slower than the openSUSE install copy phase. Also when Windows7 booted the 1st time, its graphics were a pathetic 800x600 (on a system capable of 1920x1280) and the Network did not work (one needed to use the driver on the CD that came with the motherboard).

** Gparted liveCD activies between openSUSE installation and Windows7 installation**

Something I did, which turned out to be incorrect, was after the windows7 install, boot to the gparted liveCD and remove the boot flag from the /sda1 256 MB VFAT32 EFI partition. This apparently changed the UUID type from ef00 to something else, although it did NOT affect the Windows7 boot functionality. nor did it affect the openSUSE install.

I also used the gParted liveCD to partition both the SSD remaining space, and the HD to the setup I wanted, which is as noted below:

The SSD drive was sdb, and it was primarily configured by me for the operating system and application executables:

  • sdb1 VFAT32 - 260.0 MiB EF00 ←-- this is the EFI which contains the boot information
  • sdb2 not formatted by me - 128.0 MiB 0C01 ← this is the Microsoft reserve partition
  • sdb3 NTFS 66.4 GiB Windows7 executable/data partition (which I will rarely use)
  • sdb4 VFAT32 - 260.0 MiB - 0700 ← used to backup EFI partition contents
  • sdb5 EXT4 - 48.8 GiB - /root for openSUSE-13.1
  • sdb6 EXT4 - 24.4 GiB – reserved to use as /home for test GNU/Linux version
  • sdb7 EXT4 - 24.4 GiB - – reserved to use as /home for test GNU/Linux version

The hard drive was sda, and it was primarily configured by me for data

  • sda1 VFAT32 256.0 MiB – reserved to backup EFI partition contents
  • sda2 EXT4 24.4 GiB – /var (I wanted a /var on the HD to reduce writes to the SSD)
  • sda3 EXT4 24.4 GiB – /tmp (I wanted to reduce writes to the SSD, but instead of putting the /tmp on the HD, I could have instead placed it in RAM)
  • sda4 swap 16.6 GiB – I probably don’t even need a swap with an SSD with 16GB RAM, but I decided to create one here on the HD, since I had lots of space
  • sda5 EXT4 24.4 GiB – reserved to use as /home for test GNU/Linux version
  • sda6 EXT4 24.4 GiB – reserved to use as /home for test GNU/Linux version
  • sda7 EXT4 48.8 GiB – reserved for unknown use
  • sda8 EXT4 1.7 TiB – my nominal /home partition for openSUSE-13.1

… to be continued (openSUSE-13.1 install next) …

#5

OpenSUSE-13.1 install (dual boot with MS-Windows7)

The openSUSE install was pretty uneventful from a 64-bit openSUSE-13.1 installation .iso on a USB-3.0 memory stick. I selected the ‘secure-boot’ and ensured the grub2-efi option was selected. With the YaST installer I had it rescan the SSD and HD and I pointed the EFI to /sdb1, the VAR to /sda2, the TMP to /sda3, the root to /sdb5, and the home to /sda8

http://thumbnails112.imagebam.com/30556/27e57a305551722.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/27e57a305551722)
[Image of the partitioning/format activities of the openSUSE installation wizard as chosen by me]]
[click on above image for larger view]

The openSUSE install was very smooth. I selected the items I normally like to add, which include selecting the ‘base-development’ pattern, installing rpm-build, checkinstall, leafpad (editor), mc (editor), xchat, xsane, hplip, kernel-source, and kernel-syms.

Upon the 1st and subsequent reboots, the PC booted to openSUSE-13.1 which was nice :slight_smile: (as opposed to my dual install with windows8 on my Toshiba which insisted to reboot to windows8). However windows7 was NOT a grub2 option, and I struggled a bit to sort that issue out.

http://thumbnails110.imagebam.com/30556/87a3b4305551723.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/87a3b4305551723)
[limited grub2 (EFI) boot selection]
[Note - there is no Windows-7 boot selection in that menu]
[click on above image for larger view]

The partitioning in place on the SSD was the following


 4770:/home/oldcpu # gdisk /dev/sdb -l
 GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7

 Partition table scan:
   MBR: protective
   BSD: not present
   APM: not present
   GPT: present

 Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
 Disk /dev/sdb: 500118192 sectors, 238.5 GiB
 Logical sector size: 512 bytes
 Disk identifier (GUID): B4EBD075-E09E-4F8D-92A7-39903D1A5DB8
 Partition table holds up to 128 entries
 First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 500118158
 Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
 Total free space is 154727021 sectors (73.8 GiB)


 Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
    1            2048          534527   260.0 MiB   0700   
    2          534528          796671   128.0 MiB   0C01   
 **   3          796672       140060671   66.4 GiB    0700  Basic data partition**
    4       140060672       140593151   260.0 MiB   0700   
 **   5       140593152       242993151   48.8 GiB    8300  **
    6       242993152       294193151   24.4 GiB    8300   
    7       294193152       345393151   24.4 GiB    8300

This is what I had in place, where I note this from efibootmgr -v :


 4770:/home/oldcpu # efibootmgr -v
 BootCurrent: 0004
 Timeout: 1 seconds
 BootOrder: 0004,0003,0005,0009,000A,0002,0001,0000
 Boot0000* TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB      BIOS(3,0,00)AMBO
 Boot0001* ST2000DM001-1CH164    BIOS(2,0,00)AMBO
 Boot0002* SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I      BIOS(2,0,00)AMBO
 **Boot0003* opensuse      HD(1,800,82000,4fc1f61d-b032-4cbd-9eda-3dc1a71c5908)File(\EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi)
 Boot0004* opensuse-secureboot   HD(1,800,82000,4fc1f61d-b032-4cbd-9eda-3dc1a71c5908)File(\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi)
 Boot0005* Windows Boot Manager   HD(1,800,82000,4fc1f61d-b032-4cbd-9eda-3dc1a71c5908)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................
 **Boot0009* UEFI: ST2000DM001-1CH164       ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(1f,2)03120a000000ffff0000HD(1,800,80000,cde86124-7fda-4269-bb4d-ccc36efdf3b9)AMBO
 Boot000A* UEFI: SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I         ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(1f,2)03120a000100ffff0000HD(4,8592800,82000,a7f589cf-be23-44a2-9725-0738d992c876)AMBO

By default the desktop PC boots to openSUSE.

But as noted, there was no Win7 entry in the grub2 menu. I could only boot to win7 if I pressed F12 immediately upon booting, to obtain the UEFI boot menu, and select from win7 there.

I noted win7 does not show up when os-prober is run. In that case all I obtained was:


 4770:/home/oldcpu # os-prober
   No volume groups found

where nominally there should be the windows7 entry after “No volume groups found”

In the end, with help from a couple of users in this thread, where arvidjaar recommended I look at the /var/log/messages when ‘os-prober’ is run. That yielded a large output pasted here: http://susepaste.org/12316363 where arvidjaar then noted the error


 20microsoft: debug: Skipping legacy bootloaders on UEFI system

and noted from my gdisk oupt that /dev/sda1 had I UUID of 0700 instead of the ef00 that I had originally applied.

I did not deliberately change that UUID, so it dawned on me than that by my using gparted to remove the ‘boot’ flag (active partition flag) from the EFI partition (/sdb1) I had caused the problem where grub2 (using os-prober) could not detect the windows7 entries in the EFI partition. So I ran gparted and changed the EFI partition (/sdb1) to have a ‘boot’ flag (ie active partition flag).

After doing this, and rebooting, the efibootmgr application had additional entries:


 4770:/home/oldcpu # efibootmgr -v
 BootCurrent: 0004
 Timeout: 1 seconds
 BootOrder: 0004,0003,0005,0009,000A,000B,0002,0001,0000
 Boot0000* TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222BB      BIOS(3,0,00)AMBO
 Boot0001* ST2000DM001-1CH164    BIOS(2,0,00)AMBO
 Boot0002* SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I      BIOS(2,0,00)AMBO
 **Boot0003* opensuse      HD(1,800,82000,4fc1f61d-b032-4cbd-9eda-3dc1a71c5908)File(\EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi)
 Boot0004* opensuse-secureboot   HD(1,800,82000,4fc1f61d-b032-4cbd-9eda-3dc1a71c5908)File(\EFI\opensuse\shim.efi)**
 **Boot0005* Windows Boot Manager  HD(1,800,82000,4fc1f61d-b032-4cbd-9eda-3dc1a71c5908)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...a................**
 Boot0009* UEFI: ST2000DM001-1CH164      ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(1f,2)03120a000000ffff0000HD(1,800,80000,cde86124-7fda-4269-bb4d-ccc36efdf3b9)AMBO
 Boot000A* UEFI: SanDisk SD6SB1M256G1022I        ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(1f,2)03120a000100ffff0000HD(4,8592800,82000,a7f589cf-be23-44a2-9725-0738d992c876)AMBO
 **Boot000B* Windows Boot Manager  HD(4,8592800,82000,a7f589cf-be23-44a2-9725-0738d992c876)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)**

ie there is now an additional Windows Boot manager entry .

and now if I ran os-prober I could see the windows7 EFI entries detected :


 4770:/home/oldcpu # os-prober
   No volume groups found
 **/dev/sdb1@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi:Windows Boot Manager:Windows:efi**

I was then able to run yast > system > boot loader and then save the grub2 setup, where this time grub2 (which runs os-prober) added windows7 to the boot menu.

http://thumbnails109.imagebam.com/30556/fc003e305551724.jpg](http://www.imagebam.com/image/fc003e305551724)
[Note windows7 boot selection now in Grub2 boot selection]
[click on image for larger view]

That provided a nice Grub2 selection to boot MS-Windows (if so desired) as opposed to being forced to use the Firmware (F12 key) boot menu selection.

And for the record, this is what the partitioning looks like, after changing the /dev/sdb1 flag to ‘boot’ (ie an ‘active partition’) :


4770:/home/oldcpu # gdisk -l /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdb: 500118192 sectors, 238.5 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): B4EBD075-E09E-4F8D-92A7-39903D1A5DB8
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 500118158
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 154727021 sectors (73.8 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
**   1            2048          534527   260.0 MiB   ****EF00**  
   2          534528          796671   128.0 MiB   0C01  
   3          796672       140060671   66.4 GiB    0700  Basic data partition
   4       140060672       140593151   260.0 MiB   0700  
   5       140593152       242993151   48.8 GiB    8300  
   6       242993152       294193151   24.4 GiB    8300  
   7       294193152       345393151   24.4 GiB    8300

It can be seen from that , that the UUID code was changed back to ef00.

*… to be continued … *
.

#6

The remainder of the openSUSE tuning after an install install was fairly standard.

SSD drive tuning.

I followed the advice from this openSUSE wiki on SSD ( https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:SSD_performance ) for updating the entry for /etc/fstab file for /sdb5 on my SSD (which is the / partition) and also changing the scheduler from CHG to NOOP. The idea here is to both improve speed and reduce wear/tear on the SSD device.

**USB-3.0 is fast on the Z87X-D3H !! **

The USB-3.0 actually works well with this PC and my USB-3.0 devices (memory sticks and external hard drives). I see speed of read/write anywhere from 70MB/sec to 130 MB/sec, where around 85 MB/sec is more typical. This is using the dolphin browser copying from the HD (sata device) to the USB-3.0 storage device, where dolphin as a file manager application is no speed deamon.

**Skype **

Skype worked fine after applying the fix that is in the release notes (and noted in my Blog entry https://forums.opensuse.org/entry.php/151-Skype-4-0-4-2-on-openSUSE-13-1 ). I also had to ensure that I installed alsa-plugins-pulse-32 to provide Skype access to pulse audio.

**Audio **

I installed the pulse audio volume control (pavucontrol) and pulse audio equalizaer applications (but as it turns out I don’t like the ‘improvements’ from the pulse audio software equalizer and I prefer the default sound).

I connected my very basic inexpensive Logitech X-540 5.1 surround sound system (which has 4xsatellite, 1-center, 1-sub-woofer speaker) and sound worked. The ‘sub-woofer speaker’ just worked with this Gigabyte Z87X-D3H motherboard which was the big surprise, as I had struggled with my older Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard to get the subwoofer working with openSUSE. I’m still not 100% convinced thou, that I have my audio fully tuned wrt channel assignment and taking full advantage of pulse audio options.

** Some other tuning.**

I also applied some tuning that I nomally do :

  • I changed YaST software management default settings so not to exit the software manager every time I installed software via YaST’s software manager
  • I edited the /etc/ssh/sshd to block root access via ssh
  • I tuned the desktop, making everything a bit ‘larger’ for my older eyesight

Installing the network printer (an HP all-in-one-photosmart-premium C309a) was a breeze, as was installing the scan functionality of that printer.

My web cam, a Logictech C920 ‘just worked’ after plugging in.

There is not much else to add. This PC is working very well for me, and I am quite happy with it.
.

#7

For information, the support threads that I participated in that supported my new Desktop install included:

Many thanks to all of those who gave me advise in those threads, which helped me greatly in researching, specifying and then installing on my new Desktop blogged about in this blog entry.

#8

Thanks Lee for this extensive report. Very nice read on the early monday morning

#9

Hey there oldcpu. Thanks for sharing your experience with the above, very informative. My question is why not btrfs, especially with the ssd ? I also have a 256gb ssd, dual-boot with w7 and use btrfs with os-Factory on it. Works like a charm and has speed and snapshots.

#10

Mainly I stayed with ext4 due to a lack of confidence using something (ie btrfs) that in Feb-2014 was still fairly new to openSUSE. I’m a very conservative openSUSE user, and only use the very latest features when I have no other choice.

But I’ll be watching btrfs and possibly sometime in the future I may switch to it.

#11

Well of course you are, that’s why you’re “oldcpu” rotfl!

I’ve been testing btfrs on a vm installation for quite some time now (since last year), I’ll prolly roll it out on the next release due to mainly using SSDs nowadays on host drives - the only thing I don’t like about it is the number of sub-volumes as it makes the whole system convoluted.

#12

I installed a 64-bit openSUSE-13.2 earlier today on this PC, installing from a USB-3.0 memory stick. Install was fast and from the start to the end, including menu selection times, instalilng printer and scanner drivers, Skype, VirtualBox (proprietary version) , chrome, and gimagereader (per this blog entry: https://forums.opensuse.org/entry.php/77-openSUSE-12-1-to-13-2-OCR-with-gImageReader-and-Tesseract (again, thanks Malcolm for packaging ! ) was less than an hour.

It was a clean install, with the exception that I kept my old home. Other than change the them on KDE there was not much else for me to do on this install. I was a bit surprised at how simple/fast it was, and my precautions (in case of trouble) were pretty much not needed - BUT one can’t be too careful.

Prior to the install I made a snapshot (which I printed on paper) of my “Expert partitioning” , and I during the install I rescanned the drives, and did a custom partitioning mount selection, keeping the previous /tmp and /var and /home on my 2 TB hard drive, and the / and EFI on my SSD drive .

The longest part was BEFORE the install, where it took roughly 3 hours to backup 1TB of data off of my /home to an external USB-3.0 hard drive.

Output of inxi :


System:    Host: linux-mtpj Kernel: 3.16.7-21-desktop x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: KDE 4.14.6
           Distro: openSUSE 13.2 (Harlequin)
Machine:   System: Gigabyte product: Z87X-D3H
           Mobo: Gigabyte model: Z87X-D3H-CF v: x.x Bios: American Megatrends v: F7 date: 08/02/2013
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-4770 (-HT-MCP-) cache: 8192 KB 
           clock speeds: max: 3900 MHz 1: 3895 MHz 2: 3883 MHz 3: 3894 MHz 4: 3897 MHz 5: 3895 MHz 6: 3898 MHz
           7: 3877 MHz 8: 3899 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
           Display Server: X.Org 1.16.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1920x1200@59.95hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Desktop GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.3.7
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
           Card-2 Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel
           Card-3 Logitech HD Webcam C910 driver: USB Audio
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.16.7-21-desktop
Network:   Card: Intel Ethernet Connection I217-V driver: e1000e
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 94:de:80:ae:5b:77
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 2256.5GB (53.8% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST2000DM001 size: 2000.4GB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: SanDisk_SD6SB1M2 size: 256.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 48G used: 6.7G (15%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb5
           ID-2: /home size: 1.7T used: 1.1T (67%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda8
           ID-3: /var size: 24G used: 839M (4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
           ID-4: /tmp size: 24G used: 45M (1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
           ID-5: swap-1 size: 17.83GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda4
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8C mobo: 27.8C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 233 Uptime: 0:43 Memory: 864.7/15969.9MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.19