My Experience

English Hardware
1

Greetings Ladies & Gentlemen,

This is my first post here and considerably I am a newbie to Linux distros. I used Fedora Core 2&3 long time ago and moved back to Microsoft products until I hit Ubuntu 8 months ago and have upgraded to OpenSUSE 11.1 Kde 4.2 last week. I just want to put down the problems I have faced with this distribution. My laptop configuration is

> Toshiba Satellite A215 S7413.
> AMD Athlon X2 64 bit processor (1.7GHz)
> ATI X1200 in-built graphics card.
> 4GB Ram
> 120GB Hard Disk
> Sparklan WPEA 110n wireless card

Having said that, my problems are as follows:

>> Cannot transfer huge movie files sizing over 4GB from my laptop to External HD. I can do reverse(weird!!!). Same applies when trying to transfer >4GB file from Ext HD A to Ext HD B. With Ubuntu I could do this without any hitch and the entire process worked out flawlessly. I know that people say its FAT32 which cannot handle more than 4GB files but somehow Intrepid & Jaunty never complained when copying 4 to 5 five mkv files sizing 30GB to my Maxtor or WD Passport.

>> I get this weird error “Could not install ksms Server. Check your installation.” randomly and when I click ok, system logs me out and am back on kdm login screen. Never got this error on Ubuntu Gnome.

>> ATI x1200 graphics(I hate it) is THE mother of all problems. Screen flickers when I enable Desktop Effects. Have tried various options mentioned in this forum. None of them worked. Did a gentleman’s suggestion on this forum about downloading drivers from ATI website, and generated the RPM from the .run file by selecting creating distribution specific driver. When ran the RPM file with yast, it says it needs 3 file starting with “libstdc” which I cannot find neither on Yast Software Installer nor on Google. I am glad and happy for those that this process helped them. Sadly, it didn’t work out for me. What bothers me is I am not able to enjoy the juice of desktop effects. I disabled it. Its unethical for me to swear ATI folks on an open forum for not resolving this issue.

>> I don’t know if this is an issue or not, whenever I try to download & install something via Yast Software Installer, it asks me to insert the OS DVD and when I do it (I don’t want to carry the OS DVD all the time), few times I have to ignore/skip some file installation and there after everything goes nicely till I get this weird one of those “lengthy online survey” types where one will have to select the radio buttons to resolve conflicts during installation and this is sometimes irritating. I ain’t using Gentoo where everything has to be specified and customized.

And moving on to positive experiences,

>> Professional & amazing UI…KDE 4.2 simply rocks.
>> Awesome tools like hypervisor, k3b, amarok etc.
>> Smooth operation without any lag and no system hangs.

Apart from the above mentioned issues…OpenSUSE simply rocks…I’m lovin’ it every time I use it.

Thanks to all those who have contributed their hours to develop a free product for freemen.

Venkarl

2

Hello once again…To add on my previous post

I did exactly mentioned in this link:

Hardware - Installing ATI Drivers - openSUSE Forums

but when I do “rpm -Uvh fg(press tab to autocomplete)”

this is the output I get

Preparing… ##################################################
Preparing… ##################################################
fglrx64_7_4_0_SUSE111 ##################################################
/usr/src/kernel-modules/fglrx /
make: Entering directory /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9-obj/x86_64/default' make: Leaving directory /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9-obj/x86_64/default’

Build of kernel module failed!

Building/installation of fglrx kernel module failed! Try again
by calling “/usr/bin/fglrx-kernel-build.sh” manually.

Please read “/usr/share/doc/packages/fglrx/README.SuSE” for
configuration details when using SaX2.

And when I try to do that manually…something else negative shows up.

Thank you all for reading my lengthy posts. I appreciate your patience.

Venkarl

3

Any takers?

4

Hi
For your card issues, did you install kernel-source, kernel-syms etc?

You can disable the DVD via YaST->software->repositories and use the
online repositories. What I normally do with this netbook is have a
copy of the iso on the local drive and create a local repository for
that and one for any downloaded rpms.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.2 Milestone 6 (i586) Kernel 2.6.31-rc7-4-desktop
up 9:45, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.11, 0.09
ASUS eeePC 1000HE ATOM N280 1.66GHz | GPU Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME

5

Cannot transfer huge movie files sizing over 4GB from my laptop to External HD. I can do reverse(weird!!!). Same applies when trying to transfer >4GB file from Ext HD A to Ext HD B. With Ubuntu I could do this without any hitch and the entire process worked out flawlessly. I know that people say its FAT32 which cannot handle more than 4GB files but somehow Intrepid & Jaunty never complained when copying 4 to 5 five mkv files sizing 30GB to my Maxtor or WD Passport.

This has to be a FAT32 issue. If the drive is formatted that way?
You say other distros could do it - I think not.

6

The best place to first look is not YaST Software Installer nor Google, but rather webpin: Webpin - search for libstdc

IMHO before trying to build the driver, you should go to YaST > Software > Softare Management and change the “filter” to “patterns” and install the base development pattern. Also, as noted above, ensure you have installed kerenl-source and kernel-syms.

7

An issue? No.

A PITA ? Yes.

Simply go to YaST > Software > Software Repositories and disable the CD/DVD as a repository. Ensure OSS is ENABLED as a repository as it has the same content as the DVD. Also ensure Non-OSS and Update are enabled as repositories. I also like Packman as a repository.

And I recommend you disable ALL other repositories until you have a year or more of openSUSE experience under your belt, so to speak. … or saying it different, if you have other repositories enabled, there could be dependency problems between repositories that are not easy (nor obvious) for a new user to solve. Average to advanced openSUSE users typically have few to no problems with some more repositories, but new users mess this up an incredible amount of times, having all sorts of problems that in essence originally started because they choose to ignore the advice of only OSS, Non-OSS, Update and Packman.

8

Installing the KDE development pattern is part of any new openSUSE install for me.

It’s a big download (up near 1 GB) but worth it IMO.

Makes installing from source so much easier.

9

Hi Malcolm, Oldcpu

Thank you very much for help. I appreciate your guidance on setting up repositories in Yast Software Manager and searching libstdc++.

Regarding x1200 drivers installation I did install the following prior to driver installation process
>>kernel-source
>>kernel_syms
>>Kde Base 4 development pattern

However, I tried to do what baskitcaise has suggested on this thread

[Published]Howto: ATI Radeon Driver - openSUSE Forums](http://forums.opensuse.org/how-faq-read-only/unreviewed-how-faq/390874-published-howto-ati-radeon-driver.html)

now, I get this atieventsd and cannot proceed further.
I am now researching how to remove atieventsd from runlevel 3 services. Wondering if I should do it from runlevel 2(absolute noob thought:|)

btw…Oldcpu…whats PITA?>:(

Thanks again SUSErs:)

10

Its something moderators should not repeat on the forum as it gives a bad example. >:) PWiktionary Fothwith I shall cease and desist in its usage.

11

oooooo…I thought you are a moderator…a global one:P