Teething Trouble: OpenSUSE 11.4 32-bit only picking up on one Drive..?

English Open Chat
#1

Hi
This in connection with my 1st post: Just Looking at the Water ~ Not even Dipping in my Toes

I have an old Sony laptop VGN-S3 (2004) and intended to install the Suse DVD there. The DVD didn’t pick up on its drive at all, but Ubuntu 10.10 picked up straight away. The Suse DVD picked up straight away on my little HP ultramobile using the external DVD drive, but I can’t install Suse on that. I’m suspecting that I need to get Suse 11.4 in CD’s? I really want to try it on that machine!

Suggestions welcome.
Kind regards

John

#2

On 06/04/2011 11:06 AM, andavane wrote:
>
> Hi
> This in connection with my 1st post: ‘Just Looking at the Water ~ Not
> even Dipping in my Toes’ (http://tinyurl.com/3t2gsfh)
>
> I have an old Sony laptop VGN-S3 (2004) and intended to install the
> Suse DVD there.

does that laptop meet 11.4’s minimum recommended (not just the
minimum) resource requirements of here:
http://en.opensuse.org/Hardware_requirements

> The DVD didn’t pick up on its drive at all,

that could be the result of a slightly misaligned reader, or burner…i
didn’t see where or how you got your disk…if self burnt, search for
the “Download Help” link on the download page at software.opensuse.org

> but Ubuntu 10.10 picked up straight away.

a more precisely burned disk, maybe…

> The Suse DVD picked up straight away on
> my little HP ultramobile using the external DVD drive,

so, it is more likely a slightly off alignment in the “old” Sony…

> but I can’t
> install Suse on that. I’m suspecting that I need to get Suse 11.4 in
> CD’s? I really want to try it on that machine!

i’d suggest you download and burn a 32 bit Live CD…the Desktop
Environment is yours to make…as you know *buntu used Gnome2 and that
is available in 11.4, but may not be in 12.1 (that will probably be
Gnome3 which has as many haters as does Unity)

AND, i highly suggest you RUN it before you install it…and, by the
way, Sony is not the maker who provides the best hardware
experience…so, check out: http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Hardware

and, since your experience in *buntu does not teach you everything you
need to know to run openSUSE, have a look here:
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/unreviewed-how-faq/459700-when-you-converting-ubuntu.html
which is not fully ripe, but well worth checking out…

and, when you become a full-fledged recent convert please post to that
thread any improving comments you feel are needed (that way, you become
an instant contributor, brother.)

–
dd CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP via openSUSE 11.4 [2.6.37.6-0.5] + KDE 4.6.0 + Thunderbird 3.1.10]
Dual booting with Sluggish Loser7 on Acer Aspire One D255

#3

Thank you Sir for your detailed and informative response which I am digesting in chunks :))
My hardware on the “Old Sony” exceeds the min requirements.
I’m fine about the Smolt thing & don’t mind it collecting info on my system.
Am downloading the gnome CD.

Good to know that the updates on Suse aren’t as gigantic as in Ubuntu.

Had a bad experience with Suse 1995 ~ it took ages to boot up & you could chose desktops from a little box on bottom left.
It all went very odd indeed.

PS: Reg your CAVEAT, the “old Sony” is my spare test machine, so probs there, even if it all goes up in smoke! :wink:

#4

DenverD wrote:

> On 06/04/2011 11:06 AM, andavane wrote:
>>
>> Hi
>> This in connection with my 1st post: ‘Just Looking at the Water ~ Not
>> even Dipping in my Toes’ (http://tinyurl.com/3t2gsfh)
>>
>> I have an old Sony laptop VGN-S3 (2004) and intended to install the
>> Suse DVD there.
>
> does that laptop meet 11.4’s minimum recommended (not just the
> minimum) resource requirements of here:
> http://en.opensuse.org/Hardware_requirements
>
>
>> The DVD didn’t pick up on its drive at all,
>
> that could be the result of a slightly misaligned reader, or burner…i
> didn’t see where or how you got your disk…if self burnt, search for
> the “Download Help” link on the download page at software.opensuse.org
>
>
>> but Ubuntu 10.10 picked up straight away.
>
> a more precisely burned disk, maybe…
>
>
>> The Suse DVD picked up straight away on
>> my little HP ultramobile using the external DVD drive,
>
> so, it is more likely a slightly off alignment in the “old” Sony…
>
>
>> but I can’t
>> install Suse on that. I’m suspecting that I need to get Suse 11.4 in
>> CD’s? I really want to try it on that machine!
>
> i’d suggest you download and burn a 32 bit Live CD…the Desktop
> Environment is yours to make…as you know *buntu used Gnome2 and that
> is available in 11.4, but may not be in 12.1 (that will probably be
> Gnome3 which has as many haters as does Unity)
>
> AND, i highly suggest you RUN it before you install it…and, by the
> way, Sony is not the maker who provides the best hardware
> experience…so, check out: http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Hardware
>
> and, since your experience in *buntu does not teach you everything you
> need to know to run openSUSE, have a look here:
> http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-
forums/unreviewed-how-faq/459700-when-you-converting-ubuntu.html
> which is not fully ripe, but well worth checking out…
>
> and, when you become a full-fledged recent convert please post to that
> thread any improving comments you feel are needed (that way, you become
> an instant contributor, brother.)

Small addition: burn the CD/DVD at the slowest available speed, especially
if you intend to use it with multiple and/or older readers.

–
Will Honea

#5

I have taken my “First Dip” in the water of SUSE.
Although the “Old Sony” wouldn’t pick up the DVD, it downloaded and burnt the SUSE gnome CD fine, so I don’t feel it’s malaligned.
What I did next was disconnect the dropbox and the ubuntu one from that machine, then boot into Gparted. I shrank the partition with the Ubuntu on it and made one ext4 partition of about 30 GB and a swap partition of about 3GB.

I put in the DVD, booted from cold and away she went.
All very satisfactory, quick and tidy.

I found things a little confusing, but expected that.

Some things, and the “feel” I prefer to Ubuntu, however thus far there are a few niggles.
In Ubuntu while downloading packages, I can see the download happening, what percentage is left and the download speed. This is important to me as our broadband is erratic to say the least, and I do like to have some good feedback about how the download is going. In SUSE, I had no idea.

When I installed, I didn’t appear to be given any information about what was already there on other partitions.

I’d need to be able to dual-boot Windows as I may end up having to use Dragon Speak to help with my typing of text, and there isn’t any Open Source speech to text software that I’m aware of.

I’m probably missing things here, but need to investigate dual booting.

#6

On 06/04/2011 08:06 PM, andavane wrote:
>
> Thank you Sir for your detailed and informative response which I am
> digesting in chunks :))

welcome…

> My hardware on the “Old Sony” exceeds the min requirements.

but, does it exceed the recommended requirements?

-Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or higher or any AMD64 or Intel* EM64T processor

-RAM of 1 GB

-More than 3GB of hard drive (i believe that is about one-third of
minimum rational for the root directory, and another 30 or so for a
modern /home with music, photos, videos etc etc)

-1024 x 768 or higher graphics

cite: http://en.opensuse.org/Hardware_requirements

> I’m fine about the Smolt thing& don’t mind it collecting info on my
> system.
> Am downloading the gnome CD.
>
> Good to know that the updates on Suse aren’t as gigantic as in Ubuntu.

did i say that?
i think it takes a big pile of updates to get from the CD image to a
fully patched, up-to-date running 11.4, a BIG pile of updates…hundreds…

> Had a bad experience with Suse 1995 ~ it took ages to boot up& you
> could chose desktops from a little box on bottom left.
> It all went very odd indeed.

the first S.u.S.E. was released in '96

> PS: Reg your CAVEAT, the “old Sony” is my spare test machine, so probs
> there, even if it all goes up in smoke! :wink:

good…the problem that often happens is those spare machines are often
from the XP era and when you load a modern 11.4 on it and it doesn’t run
as fast as XP you might get a “very odd indeed” feeling about it, and
forget that it is far more powerful than Win7 but will RUN where Win7
can just barely crawl…(i know, Win7 came on this machine and it is
SLOW!!!)

–
dd
http://is.gd/bpoMD

#7

On 06/19/2011 10:06 AM, andavane wrote:
>
> In Ubuntu while downloading packages, I can see the download happening,
> what percentage is left and the download speed. This is important to me
> as our broadband is erratic to say the least, and I do like to have some
> good feedback about how the download is going. In SUSE, I had no idea.

what kind of packages are you downloading?
i mean, most applications are probably available in the openSUSE
repos…and, if you use YaST to install those you will see what
percentage is left…download speed, no…but, most FLY down…most
rpms are so small that on broadband each goes in seconds…

oh! i guess you are talking about the downloads during the initial
install…yep, i usually walk away from the machine for 15 minutes or so
at a time…it can take a broadband hour or two to get all the updates…

> When I installed, I didn’t appear to be given any information about
> what was already there on other partitions.

you mean during the initial install?
the install gives you a recommended install solution and asks if you
agree with it…you must agree or it will not install…

before you agree you may inspect what is on which existing partition
and set up your own custom partition layout…

you do all of that customizing on this screen:
https://picasaweb.google.com/caf4926/114_DVD_Install#5581714689939673330

>
> I’d need to be able to dual-boot Windows as I may end up having to use
> Dragon Speak to help with my typing of text, and there isn’t any Open
> Source speech to text software that I’m aware of.

i think there are several http://tinyurl.com/5soeovw

and, i even found this line “Platypus is a open source shim that will
allow Dragon NaturallySpeaking running under wine” here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition_in_Linux

so, maybe your ‘investment’ in Dragon is not lost…

> I’m probably missing things here, but need to investigate dual booting.

here are a couple good places to start:

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/advanced-how-faq-read-only/451831-install-opensuse-alongside-win7-vista-guide.html

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/how-faq-forums/unreviewed-how-faq/454535-opensuse-dual-booting-windows-7-loading-service-pack-1-windows-7-a.html

–
dd
http://is.gd/bpoMD

#8

In fact Yast Software manager does show the package download speed at the bottom of the screen, between parenthesis I think. It’s not shown all the time, it takes some buffering first at intervals.

To the OP: See if you can get used to update/install using yast modules instead of the updater applet and such. These are minimal front-ends that won’t give you much info.

Also notice that the package sizes reported are the installed size, download size is usually about 1/3 of that, as it is automatically compressed - or much less when you’re doing an update consisting mostly of patches.

#9

Also note that’s in KDE4, I suppose gnome’s Yast is the same.