SuSE 11.2 :-(

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,

sorry, to say but the SuSE 11.2 is a real disappointment!

I gave already some feedback on the 2nd release candidate where I did not see a chance for getting VMware running.

However, you managed to make things worse for the final release.

Now, it seems to be not easily possible to compile the NVIDIA graphics driver anymore. This did work under RC2.

There was a mixup with the kernel versions n RC2 which made VMware at least for me not useable. However, the final version of the kernel is not a good choice either for NVIDIA drivers nor for VMware.

But what makes the current version of SuSE 11.2 completely useless to me is that it cannot mount the crypted file systems of my USB drives.

I hope that you are aware of that people make backups on external drives and it would be nice if encryption could be used there in case such a device is stolen. However, if you do not maintain compatibility here, this is causing rather a big problem because it means that you need to maintain a system to read your backups!!!

I guess there is quite a some space for improvements regarding the SuSE development process. Ok, you might say, that SuSE is meant to be an experimental system. Well ok, then play in your sandbox …

For now I’ll go back to SuSE 11.1 …

Cheers,

Klaus

2

Funny. Workstation 7 works fine.

You don’t need to compile the drivers because the 1-click works fine. nVidia drivers have been available almost a day before launch.

nVidia drivers will also compile by hand if you install the needed dependencies, mainly kernel-source, -headers and -devel for your kernel.

You might also say “Post once you know what you’re talking about” which would be aimed at you.

3

KUFischer, first, do you have a problem reading our forum guidelines? Install/Boot/Login is for users looking for help. Are you looking for help? If not, then rants belong in Soap Box. Ok ?

I ran the Nvidia*.run file to custom build the nVidia driver for 2 PCs running 11.2 with absolutely no problem: FX5200 and an 8400GS. So clearly it IS possible.

I don’t use USB encrypted file systems, so I can not comment on that.

Have you asked for help and were not able to obtain it?

Now, in general I am sorry to read that you are frustrated.

But I think your sandbox views are specific to KUFisher and not to most others. For example, for the first time since I have been using openSUSE, my wife’s Epson scanner (under 11.2) “just worked” without having to hand tune config files. I was able to setup an 11.2 PC as an IP print server using the YaST GUI only, such that both Windoze and Linux PCs could print to it, with no problems. On EVERY other openSUSE release, I had to hand tune config files.

Now 11.2 is NOT without its glitches, where some wireless and ati-graphic problems come to mind. I’m also struggling a bit with a firewire interface problem on an 11.2 PC , but I have not yet reached the stage where I will ask for help, but I WILL ask for help if and when the time comes.

I have 11.1 still on a couple of PCs, and for those PCs I plan on waiting a couple of months before upgrading to 11.2. My view there is no rush.

Out of curiosity, given you are happy to roll back to 11.1, what was the BIG rush that forced you do install 11.2 a couple of days after it was released ? While a lot of effort is done during the milestone testing, my experience with ALL operating systems and all Linux distributions, is the testing never picks up everything, and for the BEST experience, while still having NEW release, one should wait a couple of months after a new release hits the street, before installing. OpenSUSE is no exception to that.

So your big rush to install 11.2 makes no sense to me.

Anyway, if there is something on 11.2 that our forum can help with, please post.

4

This is perfectly normal with a new release, the 2.6.31 kernel was released only 6 weeks ago.

Testing the -RC versions is far too late to have anything but Show Stopper bugs get fixed in the GM, generally bugs do not get fixed so late to avoid “innocuous” changes having unintented consequences, as no integration testing is possible at that late stage.

GM’s priority ought to be successful installation and configuration on a wide variety of hardware, so basic operation works for most ppl and updates can be run to fix this type of bug later.

I think if you simply installed a “stable” vanilla kernel, or copied over the latest 11.1 kernel & initrd from 11.1 there’s a good chance VMware would run ok, without too many consequences, so long as you didn’t install into an ext4 filesystem.

Please check Novell Bugzilla and make sure the faults you found have been reported, if not please submit your test cases.

5

> I gave already some feedback on the 2nd release candidate where I did
> not see a chance for getting VMware running.

by ‘feedback’ do you mean you posted a bug via
http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports

if you just posted a note here then you missed a good chance to have a
meaningful impact on the 11.2 release, including your problem fixed
(if it is an actual bug, and not only your problem–which others seem
to think it might be a setup problem in YOUR setup)…

by the way, there is no such thing as SuSE 11.2, there is a:

SLED 11
openSUSE 11.2

–
palladium

6

I’ve always had the best results by logging on to a console logon session and then compiling the NVidia driver from there - MUCH faster than using the default drivers. (I’m a gamer so I NEED fast video drivers!) Hang in there - even though they removed KDE3, KDE4 appears to be usable now. The folks here are GREAT - go easy on them.

7

As a relative newbie, I had no issue whatever with a fresh 11.2 install (moving from an earlier 11.1). Adding the community/additional repositories after install took care of everything - nvidia, MP3, DVD etc. etc. So, it has been perfect for me. I do not use and hence have no idea of VMware and encryption.

The only funny thing I noticed was that the manual copy of home folder I made to an NTFS drive before replacing 11.1 did not contain all my files. Fortunately I did not lose anything, but am curious how this can happen.

Thanks.

8

Hi,

the problem here is I guess that I am NOT a newbie to SuSE. However, I do not have the time to really contribute to its development. However, what I can do is give feedback on what does NOT work!

It is not helpful if people tell here that NVIDIA…run compiles without problems on their desktop. Probably this was the point when I tried RC2 and well, I can say, yes it worked. However, on my ASUS notebook (equipped with an NVIDIA Gforce 9500M) I get the error message:

/tmp/selfgz3419/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-185.18.14-pkg1/usr/src/nv/os-agp.c:296: err
or: ‘agp_memory’ has no member named ‘memory’
make[4]: *** [/tmp/selfgz3419/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-185.18.14-pkg1/usr/src/nv/os-
agp.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [module/tmp/selfgz3419/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-185.18.14-pkg1/usr/sr
c/nv] Error 2
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
NVIDIA: left KBUILD.
nvidia.ko failed to build!
make[1]: *** [module] Error 1
make: *** [module] Error 2
-> Error.

This is prouced by NVIDIA-Linux-x86-185.18.14-pkg1.run which is to my knowledge the last version of the drivers. Because the late stage of the error message, it is clear that the kernel is basically configured correctly (I mean at least for what I can reasonably do from my side).

When people ask me why I was rushing to install 11.2. Well, the experience with RC2 seemed to be promising. Some details that were actually already good with 11.0 and which were not that nice in 11.0 seem to have come back. So I was really looking forward to an improvement of 11.1. However, the current version of 11.2 is not what I would consider an improvement.

The worst is the problem with the encrypted USB drive partitions. Actually 10.3 had the best way to deal with encrypted partitions of USB drives. Starting with 11.0 I needed to switch to Dolphin to get my encrypted partitions mounted. I am now not sure why Dolphin is no longer able to make encrypted partitions of USB drives whether this is a problem of the kernel or dolphin.

However, because I basically lost an encrypted partition of my internal drive of my desktop (where I tried to upgrade from 10.3 to 11.2 with a new installation of course). But the 11.2 installation could for what ever reason not read the encrypted partition of the hard drive and I ended up formatting it.

In doing so, I was glad that I had the backup on my external USB drive. Of course, on an encrypted partition. The suggestion to discourage encrypted partitions on USB drives is a “brilliant” idea. Storing data from an encrypted drive on a non encrypted target seems to be a really “bright”(!) idea. Of course, you could say that there is TrueCrypt but this has other problems, why I would prefer to continue to use encrypted partitions.

And well, to conclude. Whether you like it or not, as far as I write it here, i know what I am talking about. These ARE problems in 11.2.

Best regards,

Klaus

9

Are you saying that VMWare can’t be used as a host OS with OpenSuSE 11.2? I’m considering upgrading from 11.1, but no VMWare would be a showstopper for me.

10

Ahh there you go. Thats the problem. Its an old driver.

I always check the nvidia news forum for linux before I download a nvida driver: Current NVIDIA Linux graphics driver releases - nV News Forums
It notes: Current official release: 190.42 (x86 / x86_64)

Or if you go to the nvidia driver download site: Unix Drivers Portal Page there is no mention of the driver you used, …

or if you go here:
Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers
and follow the menu’s for your hardware GeForce9500M:
and I still get the 190.42

I can not replicate the 185.18.14 no matter how hard I try.

Perhaps you could give the 190.42 driver a try?

11

Forgot to add the comment on VMware.

Well, in the RC2 candidate there was the problem that at least in the version that I had the sources of the kernel that were distributed did not match the version of the installed kernel and that is why I did not get VMware running on the RC2.

The problem with the official version is actually more difficult. the installation of the rpm of VMware 6.5 already crashes. Leaving with 11.2 installation with the strange state that the rpm is installed and NOT installed at the same time. So even after an improvement (probably a kernel update) I will have to completely reinstall 11.2 to get rid of this again.

I actually did not report the VMware problem as a bug. On the one hand, I did assume that the final version of 11.2 would not be released with an inconsistent source and installed kernel. On the other hand, I did look for an appropriate place to give feedback to the developers regarding RC2 but even with reasonable effort of searching, I only found a general forum place where new version were discussed. And there I gave my feedback. I do not have the spare resources left to get seriously involved in SuSE’s development and therefore I consider official bug reports from my side only in rare cases appropriate.

The general frustration from my last postings was probably true because I go through this with about every new release that is provided and every time I think whether it would not be a better idea to in the end switch to ubuntu …

Best regards,

Klaus

12

********* Do you realize this is not a bug with SuSE but with the vmware installer which is really, really badly written and happens on every distribution that runs 2.6.30+.

For the reason / fix:
VMware Communities: Workstation Installer Hang 6.5.3 and …

People like you really tick me off.

13

Klaus, … if you really think another distribution will serve you significantly better, than you need to go with what you believe is best. We all have our own reasons for preferring one OS over another, or one distribution over another.

I do suspect many of your problems are solvable on openSUSE, but you really need to ask for help. None of us are beyond asking for help. If you do not ask for help, IMHO you are going to waste an absolutely silly amount of time. And whats the point of wasting time?

I’ve been using Linux as my desktop since 1998 (my last full time windoze was win95) and I still on occasion seek help. Just last weekend, I needed some wireless help from our wireless guru’s on a hiccup I had on openSUSE-11.1.

Anyway, good luck with the up to date nVidia driver and good luck with your vmware install.

14

I’ve been censored! :slight_smile:

15

The vmware thing is horrible, and it seems to happen
with every upgrade I do. However, it’s not the fault of
the suse devs that current kernels are usually not supported
by vmware. It’s the fault of vmware that they distribute
software that won’t compile on current kernels.

I always assumed that the commercial-license versions of
vmware had proper support along these lines, and it’s the
free stuff (these days called vmware “server” and “player”)
that got the table scraps of attention from vmware devs.

Whatever the reason, it’s nothing to do with 11.2.

16

On 11/15/2009 07:46 PM, cratylus wrote:
> Whatever the reason, it’s nothing to do with 11.2.

Switch to VirtualBox. Their developers are very quick to respond to kernel ABI
changes.

17

Normally that’s pretty good advice. In my case, the
intel CPU in question lacks VT-X, which vbox requires to run
a 64 bit guest, and I need the guest to be 64 bit :frowning:

It’s not urgent, I can wait til there’s a vmware
workaround, but in my particular case vbox is a
suboptimal solution. Thanks for the advice tho.

18

> And well, to conclude. Whether you like it or not, as far as I write it
> here, i know what I am talking about. These ARE problems in 11.2.

and you will submit a bug report, right?

–
palladium

19

> I actually did not report the VMware problem as a bug. On the one hand,
> I did assume that the final version of 11.2 would not be released with
> an inconsistent source and installed kernel. On the other hand, I did
> look for an appropriate place to give feedback to the developers
> regarding RC2 but even with reasonable effort of searching, I only found
> a general forum place where new version were discussed. And there I gave
> my feedback. I do not have the spare resources left to get seriously
> involved in SuSE’s development and therefore I consider official bug
> reports from my side only in rare cases appropriate.

complaining here, no matter the level of specific detail is unlikely
to lead to progress without a bug report…

if your only reason is to tell everyone you have found a bug that
should be reported, but you won’t because of your “insufficient spare
resources”, then you might as well expect no one is going to submit
the bug for you, and you should therefore NOT expect it to be resolved…

–
palladium

20

@oldcpu:

Thanks for your comments. They were indeed helpful. I admit that I did not know all of the sources that you mention.

However, I know Drivers - Download NVIDIA Drivers already for a long time and usually get the drivers from there. I always try to get the newest version as soon as it is available. Unfortunately, this page does not offer an alert for new versions and the NVIDIA driver does not realize itself when it is outdated.

However, I can assure you that after my failed installation of the 185 version, I did go to this page and verify whether it would give me a new version. Of course, if I would have been aware of the other sources then I would at least have had the name of the version that I would need. However, if NVIDIA does not make it available when the final is out, this is a source for frustration on the user’s side.

It is also especially frustrating to see that the 185 version works with the RC2 and does no longer work with the final. If we would be in a beta stage or at least in the rc stage then of course I would be more mild with my comments. But the situation in the final stage of the releases has definitely space for improvement.

However, again thanks for your hint that there is a new version and yes, I can acknowledge, it works fine.

The other two problems remain:

  1. Dolphin does not support the mount of USB crypto file systems anymore.

  2. Install of VMware rpm crashes badly and leaves the system in a stage that the rpm is installed AND uninstalled at the same time.

Cheers,

Klaus

PS: The problem with crypto file systems is actually worse. On one of my desktops I had an encrypted partition on an internal drive (crated with SuSE 10.3). The installation procedure refused to mount this encrypted partition and complained that fstype is not specified. However, when dealing with partitions, I usually go to manual mode. But at the only(!) place I know to tell the installation that there is an encrypted partition, it is not possible to to specify easily a file system type all one can say is that it is and encrypted Linux partition.