Under heading “1.3 UEFI, GPT, and MS-DOS Partitions” the Release Notes for openSUSE Leap 42.1 warn of potential problems installing to legacy MBR (MS-DOS) partitions. The recommended workaround is to convert the legacy MBR partition to GPT (GUID Partition Table).
I have an MBR system disk with grub legacy installed to chain-load various operating systems in extended partitions. This process has worked well but I know it is outdated and risky enough. I don’t want to convert to GPT yet, nor add to the risk of a corrupted hard disk, so looks like Leap 42.1 will have to wait until I can upgrade to SSD some time next year.
In the meantime I would like a chance to evaluate Leap 42.1.
Just wondering if installing Leap 42.1 to an MBR extended partition is feasible despite the developers’ warning and how others have dealt with this road-block?
Robert
As I understand it, this is only a problem when booting in UEFI mode on a PC with the “new” UEFI firmware.
I installed LEAP Beta from the DVD on my test laptop, MBR disk, GRUB2, multi-booting from extended partition with no problems at all.
If you don’t feel comfortable yet, I’m going to install the released version over the weekend and reporting back if you like.
But I don’t expect nasty things to happen as long as I boot the install DVD in “legacy” mode and stick to the original MBR partitioning of the HD.
Two of my installs have been to legacy systems. The installs went very smoothly. There were no problems.
I think the release notes section that you refer to is intended to only apply to newer UEFI machines. It is telling you that it is best to go with UEFI and GPT partitioning on such machines, and not try to use legacy partitioning.
If you have a system that you are already using with legacy partitioning, just continue to use legacy partitioning. I doubt that it will cause any problems.
Thanks for responding OrsoBruno and nrickert.
The Release Notes are indeed, very brief and to the point but your experience does give me some confidence. I have to do the usual backup-ups before attempting an installation, so I will wait until next week and hope for feedback from OrsoBruno, if possible.
Robert
Writing this from my test laptop, with LEAP Gnome just installed from the release DVD.
Nothing unexpected so far: installed to a fresh EXT4 partition, reusing an EXT3 /home shared with other systems all mounted within an MS-DOS extended partition.
All-Intel plain system with integrated graphics; please scan the forum if you have Nvidia or AMD graphics, there might be quirks with Nouveau or proprietary graphics drivers.
The system has a legacy BIOS, so no option for UEFI and no trouble 
I have a Toshiba laptop which has UEFI but does not respond to efibootmgr and so ignores any attempts by openSUSE to set up UEFI for use by openSUSE. After switching to ‘Compatibility mode’ - ie MBR - openSUSE has installed fine - just tell it to use the MBR at installation.