Linux Sophomore - 2 yr Fedora User Trialing OpenSuse

Dear Community - Did my first install of OpenSuse 11.1 last night after 2 years of using Fedora F8 thru F11. It is still not up an running to my liking and I have some questions. These center around getting my NIC Adapter working so I can update and add packages.

I have a Dec21Tulip Ethernet Adapter and it is not working. In Fedora I had to edit the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file to blacklist the tulip kernel module and force Linux to use the DFME driver. YAST2 says I am using the DFME driver, but this is blacklsited in the blacklist file. This causes me several questions.

  1. What is my default editor for OpenSuse 11.1? I went to use my old faithful nano and was informed it is not isntalled.

  2. Can I install nano from the distro CD? I’ll try this alter and probably answer this myself.

  3. Is there some trick to editing files in OpenSuse? I used edit, I think this is the default editor and I also tried Kwrite and neither would let me change the blackist file even when logged in as root.

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  1. ‘vi’ for the command line, of course, though ‘nano’ is an option if
    you install it. A significant amount of non-shipping software is
    available via one-click install from http://software.opensuse.org/search
    including nano. For the GUI you have gedit, kate, etc.

  2. I do not know, but see #1.

  3. Try ‘vi’ if nothing else. If you were ‘root’ I cannot imagine why you
    could not edit any given file but if nothing else see if you can get an
    error message to post.

Good luck.

BobLfoot wrote:
> Dear Community - Did my first install of OpenSuse 11.1 last night after
> 2 years of using Fedora F8 thru F11. It is still not up an running to
> my liking and I have some questions. These center around getting my NIC
> Adapter working so I can update and add packages.
>
> I have a Dec21Tulip Ethernet Adapter and it is not working. In Fedora
> I had to edit the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file to blacklist the tulip
> kernel module and force Linux to use the DFME driver. YAST2 says I am
> using the DFME driver, but this is blacklsited in the blacklist file.
> This causes me several questions.
>
> 1. What is my default editor for OpenSuse 11.1? I went to use my old
> faithful nano and was informed it is not isntalled.
>
> 2. Can I install nano from the distro CD? I’ll try this alter and
> probably answer this myself.
>
> 3. Is there some trick to editing files in OpenSuse? I used edit, I
> think this is the default editor and I also tried Kwrite and neither
> would let me change the blackist file even when logged in as root.
>
>
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If you don’t like vi, there is also joe in the default install.
If you feel comfortable editing the .conf files, opensuse is the same as any other distro in that you don’t have to use yast for everything.

BobLfoot wrote:
> I have a Dec21Tulip Ethernet Adapter

what is the real name of that thing (google finds exactly ONE of those
in the universe…yours.

> 1. What is my default editor for OpenSuse 11.1? I went to use my old
> faithful nano and was informed it is not isntalled.

vi or vim (i hate’em both and always use midnight commander (mc) which
is not a default install)

> 2. Can I install nano from the distro CD? I’ll try this alter and
> probably answer this myself.

maybe not on CD, but surely on DVD or in repo (when you get to the net)

> 3. Is there some trick to editing files in OpenSuse? I used edit, I
> think this is the default editor and I also tried Kwrite and neither
> would let me change the blackist file even when logged in as root.

do not log into the GUI as root! log in as normal user and become root
as needed, in this case you can from a command line (or hold down Alt
and press F2) type

kdesu kwrite

and, after you give the root pass a Kwrite with root powers will pop up…

welcome to openSUSE…


goldie
Note: Accuracy, completeness, legality, or usefulness of this posting
may be illusive.

Some openSUSE basic concepts: Concepts - openSUSE

Coming from Fedora, you probably know it all already, but just in case, there may be some openSUSE specific gem where things are a bit different from Fedora.

Wow what a response! I’m almost on overload. Let’s see if I can answer them all.

  1. The full Ethernet Adapter Identification
    A. From Yast2 - Hardware - Hardware Information

    1. Network Card - 21x4xDEC-Tulip compatible 10/100 Ethernet (eth0)
    2. Network Interface - Ethernet Network Interface
      a) Driver - tulip - which I think is the problem
    3. PCI - 21x4xDEC-Tulip Compatible
      a) Bus ID : 2
      b) Bus : PCI
      c) Device ID 82766
      d) Device Identifier : 102658
      e) Model : Davicom 21X4…Ethernet
  2. Editing /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
    A. Alt-F2 then kdesu kdewrite opened a kwrite window OK
    B. Edit of blacklist tulip and no blacklist dfme appears to have taken
    C. Rebooting to test
    D. NIC Up and Working OH JOY

  3. Thanks OLD CPU for the concepts link. Helped me get the NVIDIA and PACKMAN repositories into YaST.

  4. First Update now in progress.

  5. I’ll post more as I get time to play with this version.

THANKS AGAIN FOR THE MULTITUDE AND SPEED OF THE RESPONSES. And yes I meant the ALL CAPS.

That’s the reason I came to OpenSuSE after more than 2 years of making no progress in Fedora Core 4 to 9. The limitation is with me, of course, but the support on this forum is so wide and deep that I even I can do something with OpenSuSE

The code offerings among all the available distros do not vary markedly; the people supporting them do - and that’s what makes the difference…

Glad to read its working.

One can browse Packman, to see what is offered by going here: PackMan :: webpage
Then after one finds an app one likes, install from one’s software package manger. I’m not a believer in the one click, but I prefer the control one gets by using one’s software package manager.

When it comes to setting up respositories, be careful. There are many repositories, and the quality of the packages on them, despite some superb efforts by the community, can at times be lacking, especially when it comes to coordination between various repositories.

If I need a less known repository for something, I tend to add it, install the app, and then immediately remove the repository.

Thus my recommendation is for users to only keep setup OSS, Non-OSS, Update and Packman. Just those 4. No others. None. Others can be added and removed on an adhoc basis. In particular, videolan and packman are known not to work well together with various apps, and even when there are no dependency problems, apps from one will break apps from the other. Note:

  • OSS - same apps as are on DVD
  • Non-OSS - 3rd party and proprietary apps (some) that are not on DVD
  • Update - official Novell/SuSE-GmbH updates to OSS/NON-OSS
  • Packman - 3rd party repos, great for multimedia

good luck!

Having played with most distros, I think that bexides the value-added extras of suse, the forum and it’s help are great. That’s why I have always gone back to some flavour of suse. Fedora 11 doesn’t giv boot options for anything but fedora, but (open)suse finds windows, fedora, mint and ubuntu!

> D. NIC Up and Working OH JOY

good for you! come back often…while fedora/red hat/openSUSE are all
linux linux under the hood you WILL find some things changed here and
there…

for sure: do some reading on YaST, and zypper if you like the command
line…

welcome…oh, btw i don’t see (easily) if you are using KDE3 or
KDE4…if KDE4 then good luck and before you go running back to RH
be sure and try one of the DEs on openSUSE which are reliable…or
update from KDE4.1 to 4.2 or 4.3 (see exhaustive how-to somewhere
around her…i’m not ‘into’ eye-candy so i dont follow that stuff…)


goldie
Give a hacker a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach man and you feed him for a lifetime.

Note: Accuracy, completeness, legality, or usefulness of this posting
may be illusive.