On 2013-07-05, allenaitch <allenaitch@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> The O/S is definitely ‘OpenSUSE’ V 11.2, I checked in the ‘My computer’
> section (no problems) and as I suspected is a short version.
> When I insert a CD/DVD data disc the software does nothing, that is it
> does not recognize either drive.
IIRC you have a dual-boot with XP. Can I confirm XP sees CD/DVD discs no problem? If it does, please output the result
of the command (surrounding the output with the code tags iconified by octothorpes):
sh-4.2$ ls -l /dev/*cd*
If you don’t know how to do this, please let us know and we can help you.
According to various books on Linux inserting a CD should give me an
Icon on the monitor screen right away. Going into ‘root’ hardware tools
media tells me that no CD’s are loaded.
I’m not sure what you mean by `root’ hardware tools; do you mean YaST?
> Now for V 12.3 which I borrowed from a colleague. This apparently loads
> but will not start.
Is the the live CD or the installation DVD? My guess this is the live CD. If so is it KDE or GNOME? Have you tried
booting in safe mode?
> In fact nothing happens when I start the Kickoff
> Application launcher!
I don’t understand how you could reach the Kickoff Application launcher when you say (above) V12.3 `loads but will not
start’. Can you clarify this, because if can reach the Application Launcher, I suspect we have a way forward.
> My second hard drive is 30 megs and devoted
> entirely to the O/S.
Do you really mean 30 megs?
> As I mentioned earlier My computer is an Asrock
> K7S41 Socket 426 with 1 Gig of RAM and AMD Sempron 2400 running at 1667
> Megs. which handles XP OK.
It will handle Linux OK aswell.
> The first time that I loaded the OpenSUSE
> software the computer downloaded about 2 hours worth of updates and then
> would not start after a re-boot.
Is this 11.2 or 12.3? When you say it does not start after a reboot, what happens? Does GRUB load and give an error when
you select openSUSE? If there’s an error, what does it say.
> Yes, I probably need to update my computer with a more modern one but
> not all of us OAP’s are rolling in in money!
If you’re using your machine for nothing more than email and some gentle surfing, I see no reason to change it.
> I like the OpenSUSE O/S and want to stay with it.
Good! But please expect a lot of questions from us, because the details are incredibly important in working out the
problem.
> Finally, with tongue in cheek, and I thought Linux was supposed to be
> easy!
This of course is not true! Linux is not free; you only pay with time rather than money. Whoever suggested to you that
Linux was supposed to be easy is plain wrong, and openSUSE is not the usual choice for someone starting to use Linux.