Suse 11.x requirements

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I plan to upgrade from Suse 10.2 to 11.2 (when it’s released), but before doing so, I like to ask if the new version still supports the following:

  • PCI WinTV card
  • Parallel Scanner (Epson Action Scanner II)
  • Wacom Intuos II tabled (serial)
  • NVidia Quadro II Pro
  • Sound Baster SBLive

Computer to be installed on:

P4 1.1 Ghz
512 Kb RAm

Those devices can be considere ‘legacy’ now.

I plan to do a clean install but over the current installation so I don’t have to reformat the current partitions before starting installation.

Thank you.

#2

> so I don’t have to reformat the current partitions before starting
> installation.

what you describe is not recommended even if just moving from 10.2 to
10.3, see http://en.opensuse.org/Upgrade

you should plan on backing up all your data to a absolutely safe place
(i recommend an OFF machine place), doing a format and install and
then reintroducing your data into the system…

and, while your cpu/ram meets the minimum requirements
http://en.opensuse.org/Sysreqs you might be very surprised at how
resource hungry is openSUSE 11.2…especially if you load it down
with KDE4 with spinning cubes and blinking candy…

as for you TV, scanner, wacom, graphics and sound it is probably best
for you to do that research yourself here in the forum
<http://forums.opensuse.org/search.php> and in the Hardware
Compatibility List <http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/>

ps: there are LOTS of changes between 10.2 and 11.2, i’d suggest you
first download and try out a Live CD with your hardware…

–
palladium

#3

I downloaded the live CD of 11.1, will try it. Altough don’t know if it’ll use the devices since installing them on Suse requires some manual setup.

If it takes much more resources then I’ll probably stay with 10.2 or find another distribution like Ubuntu, even if I never use any ‘eye candy’ like those you described.

I work on hi-res graphics at print resolution (330dpi or higher) and only occasionally I feel the machine getting slow, but if 11.x will use more resources then it can affect my workflow.

#4

Latest Ubuntu or Fedora will give exactly the same problems if you run KDE4. Adding some RAM would help a lot, but 1.1 GHz is a bit low for any recent OS. You could think of choosing a light weight desktop, like XFCE or LXDE. There’s Live-CD’s for those as well.

#5

if it’s KD4 and not the OS itself then I’ll check if all those ‘eye candy’ can be turned off or simply use the previous version of KDE.

#6

mhunt0 wrote:
> if it’s KD4 and not the OS itself then I’ll check if all those ‘eye
> candy’ can be turned off or simply use the previous version of KDE.

depending on your needs and your hardware you may need to choose a
less resource intensive desktop environment, like Gnome, Xfce, and
there are now several others which take less…but i don’t have their
names on the tip of my fingers…

and, you may even have to go to a smaller/lighter distribution than
the big three (openSUSE, *buntu or Fedora) in that case here is my
standard reply (copied from the posts of others, here and elsewhere):

i’ve not actually run any of these more than a few minutes, but i hear
they might do what you need:

-SOAD Linux: Possibly the most light weight liveCD is a Russian
effort based on openSUSE-11.1, where there is an “Enlightenment” live
CD link to SOAD Linux, which is SuSE On A Diet Linux here:
http://sda.scwlab.com/soad_linux.html This Enlightentment desktop is
supposed to be more light weight than either KDE, Gnome or XFCE.

-SliTaz <http://www.slitaz.org/> When it runs, the 25 MB compressed CD
image expands to about 80 MB, so any computer with 128 MB of RAM will
be able to load it fully into memory, ensuring blazing fast program
execution.

–
palladium

#7

Thank you for the info on those distributions, I’ll check them out, as long as the mentioned devices work, then it’ll be ok.