Hi,
everyone, I’m about to do a complete reinstall of my box, and I’d like to make it right and clean for once
so first a little back story so you see where I come from (you can skip that, just go to the next part)
a former linux kid I use to play around on my 1st box about 10 years ago
I grew tired of it for kid reasons and needed an MS OS for gaming like many kids and didn’t want to bother back then (multiboot etc)
now 10 years later I came back being tired of the constant issue with win$ and the fact that my hardware is not really up to date either
I started with ubuntu and wasn’t happy with it, too slow, didn’t like gnome etc (granted I’m a new born newbie)
Then after about 4 to 6 month switch to openSUSE 11.1 with KDE… really liked it and sticked to it until now
So here is my problem, being a knowledgeable newbie like I like to call myself… I want to do a clean install of both in multiboot openSUSE and Kubuntu last distribution.
the reason being I like openSUSE better with KDE as it seems they polish more their KDE integration than Kubuntu and I really do prefer YaST and other tools from SUSE. I want to use it as my “main” OS
but my findings through experience and surfing the many forums wikis and such tells me that Kubuntu might have a better hardware integration and would therefore use it for gaming (planeshift, nwn, etc)
now I’d like a few direction to make it right this time and not just do try and miss like i did and end up with what i think is a big mess, even though in surface it works rather well :
I’d like a list of the different repository I should have with the correct URL
I’d like to know exactly what the priority are, how it works and how I should set it up for now
Is it easy to multiboot with SUSE Kubuntu, should I know anything or do something specific with the GRUB
I used a lot of one click install using YaST and many times didn’t like the the outcome, so I went back using YaST. I figured it doesn’t do it properly (uninstall the linked lib you don’t need- so is there a proper way to do a clean uninstall for my future use
any other advice and comment are appreciated
here is my hardware config
laptop
CPU: Intel Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
GPU: ATI mobility radeon 9000
512mb RAM
some kind of integrated intel sound chipset
sorry for the long post but i tryed to group as many information in one post and cover all I can see is needed for me and you…
From playing with different distros, I would suggest you install ubuntu first and then suse.
If you have a separate /home partition, you can have access to your data in both. (Just watch out with using the same user account though. The distros each add their own menus and could end up a mess. Try each on a separate account.)
The repo info is on the opensuse download page:
Software
Package Repositories
Update Repositories
Source Repository
For any other guides look at the how to sectionon this forum.
Just back up any files and data you need to keep beforehand, otherwise its quite easy.
As a final thing, try and get some more ram for the pc, 512 megs is low for most things now days.
the concept being pretty much the same of what I understood and this being the most detailed one I found so far
/
/home
/usr
/var
/tmp
/opt
swap
making sure i get it:
“/” is for the OS. how much should I plan for SUSE (minimum and recommended) and one for SUSE and one for Kubuntu right?
“/home” is basically for all my files picture, doc, videos etc… so up to me decide and can be shared for both OS
“/usr” basically everything I install as a specific user probably one of the biggest one. apparently shouldn’t be shared between OSs. Now is there some subfiles that can with NO problem though?
“/var” not sure if it is useful for me to separate it unless it can be shared between the 2 OSs. and how much should I allocate again
“/tmp” well that’s for what it says right, can it be shared and how much should I give it
“/opt” not sure what that is but I’ve seen some people separating it and moving it to “/usr” why? same question then (shared,space)
“swap” for tmp that need unpacking etc. how much should I put there and can it be shared
here tell me if i get it right, keep in mind I’m a newbie, tell me if I missed anything the objective is to have something clean and keep it clean and optimize performances.
for the space allocation beside the “/” i’d like in gb can you use % if it makes more sens so i can reuse it on other boxes
about the repositories, I was thinking more about the other I should have like packman, game rep, ati etc… or any other good ones.
about how to I used that a lot this is why I don’t have many post out there… I just read what exist already… but it’s also how I came to mess up my system, having too many layers of unided stuff or unstable manipulation, so i figured since i’m starting from scratch I might as well look for a custom solution as much as possible at least for pre install and install
The last time I installed ubuntu, it had problems with the partition layout and hence boot problems.
If you install it first, you don’t have to play later. suse is quite good at sorting out boot problems.
All you really need, unless its a server or you need the /var info is to have a separate root partition and a /home partition.
Normally 15-20 gigs is enough for root. /home depends on how much data you have.
Remember, the original partition how-tos were written when most multiple drives were small compared to today and were probably scsi.
now I didn’t ask the stupid one… when I install the first one do I reserve already the space for the next one but live it unused or I can already format it… or should I just install then repartition with the second one ???
for the other readers I4m still looking for answers on the other question or/and advice/comments
I would only recommend adding Packman the othe 3 should be there on a default install(Oss, Non-Oss and update). Though I see little problem adding a graphics card one(Though a few don’t like it due to some mistiming in the past), webcam or wireless if needed so. Mainly the 3 further addendum as your unlikely to get too many problems(If any) due to the popularity but they won’t be “officially supported” Packman and graphics urls are easy to find out via the wiki.(Maybe kde42 as well if so desired)
2)1 is the highest so the lower the number the higher the priority, so if you have kde42 and update is higher. Which by default will be if you have a package on update it will take priority over kde42 not the desired outcome. So I go for all the same that way it should choose the latest with no priority over another, some prefer a higher priority on Supported repos than others there is no correct way, depends on repos and repo management.
3)Being answered but personally shouldn’t really matter I’ve had a variety of distro’s not automatically pick up another including Suse. Worse case scenario copy the relevant section from one menu.lst to another and if unlucky tweak.
4)Not really Suse tends to be a bit dirty on uninstall several unsupported options but not worth the bother with HDD space the way it is now-a-days. Stop worrying about it tends to be only a few mb’s.
5)When using one clicks don’t keep the repo, it is highly unlikely you need to any way, also search using the usual suspects yast/zypper. 9/10 times you’ll find what you need with out going to some community contrib repo, using the 4 mentioned.
The rule is sort of twice the ram so here 1gb but tbh I think IMHO anything over 2gb is excessive. It really comes down to hibernating to disk, now all I’ve read has suggested that the image will try to be as small as possible. The problem is I rarely and have not noticed recently my usage go any where near 1gb(Half my ram) which is the size of my swap to actually test.
I suspect with 512 you may occasionally swap and would recommend doubling that in the near future if you can.
hi i’m back after some major issues… entirely my fault though i ran the install without checking the integrity of the burned CD… beginners mistake right
well i’m up and running now, but i have a couple question
what is the easy way to make a USBlive version of opensuse 11.1 ? (i check a lot of posts, most of them are out of date with dead links or for older version and not really clear)
i’d like also to experiment with different DE, how should i go at it to test xfce enlightenment to be able to switch back while keeping things clean ??? (is the one click install the best way and just uninstall from here??)
You have Unetbootin but I’ve seen many posts with people that have had problems with it but some do make it work I believe with the downloadable images(Not really sure never done). Or you have this way again not something I’ve ever done though 11.0 shouldn’t be too different if at all Using Kiwi and at the bottom More like a LiveCD
(Edit Last url needs playing with that seems to imply less is needed to be done than the rest of the above)
As for DE’s I thought xfce was already a choice as a pattern from the normal suspects of repos. If not then I’m no I’m not against one clicks but would tell you to try to find it on OSS before adding a community contrib or devel repo.cli magic
zypper se -s -t pattern xfce
yast will show it if you look and after highlighting the group will be probably easier to modify.
I have an ATI radeon mobility 9000 i’d like to know what is the best driver package i can get with 3D acceleration ??? (i went arround and found ati proprietary drivers date of 2006… and i have no idea what else exist and is good)
and for flash plug-ins too… should i go for the adobe one on there website or something else to have the best perf ??
To be fair whych is correct, its not just only for your benefit, but as it started as a multi question post I’ve continued. Posting new topics helps other users with the same questions as the title will not represent the answers given in thread.(But that would imply they searched before hand)
OK so last 2 then do as suggested by whych and do a little searching… firstly there is a wiki page for ati. Can’t really comment I had a bit of a headache with ati. There should be both ways on the wiki, I’m not against one clicks others are, I’m against people blindly adding repos regardless of method
As for flash use the normal repos it should be installed any way iirc but will be on non-oss if not. I would only really suggest adobe if you’re “I want the latest freak” then don’t expect support work it out your self. The other exception unless it has changed for a long time flash was 32bit only iirc Suse hasn’t updated to flash10 beta 64(If it still is) then if there is no other distro specific way I would go for a manual way. But that tends to be my policy any way regardless i.e I rarely manually edit config files on Suse, but do on other distros.
that’s true no more question after on that post i’ll create a new one
yeap I do searching always before asking questions i have currently 12 ATI driver related tabs open but I know it’s always good to remind newbies to do it lol
my question was more to have a definite answer to something that seems outdated… the wiki is getting a clean up on that section that’s why I’m asking… and at that link the mobility radeon 9000 doesn’t exist when ati radeon 9000 does exist, i read that it is the same drivers anyway i’d like confirmation, cause the ati drivers are one of the reason i decided to reinstall I frack that up big time lol
As far as I know there really isn’t anything either distro-version specific(Beyond cli command usage and repo url) or graphics card version for ati.
It seems the page is getting cleaned up to just make a little bit of clarity and to separate the hard way from it, and older versions.
…i decided to reinstall I frack that up big time…
This isn’t a lot to really go on, so you one need to decide whether the hard way or the easy way, the hard way will give you more options to driver version. The easy way will/should mean that on kernel updates everything “should” go smoothly.
So beyond telling you to make sure for “Hard way” you have the build environment correct. The “Easy way” you choose the correct packages for the kernel used. After that all that is left is the xorg.conf here you should always be able to boot failsafe iirc even with a borked xorg. Then even if not if using sax2 then you can always use a similar command to resort back whilst you try or even save the original xorg.conf.
sax2 -r -m 0=vesa
or what ever is in the original xorg.conf might be radeon iirc.
As for how what is the best way to create the xorg.conf you have a multitude of ways but many use sax2 and have no problems, some go manually editing the file, others use the ati script way, why(Something like atictl --initial)? I really can’t give specific advise. So here you’ll have to get to the problem point and get better assistance with a post directed at ati users.
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