I’ve just updated a fresh openSUSE 11.1 install to a factory install by adding the oss and non-oss factory repositories, and then running “zypper up”.
Having rebooted, the system freezes whilst loading susefirewall. How do I actually go about reporting this?
Or am I biting off more than I can chew, testing at such an early stage of development, considering I have no idea how the system boots?
Your last question: YES. We all want the latest and greatest. And when we have the Ferrari, we want the testversion of their new Formula 1. And then it disappoints us, because we don’t even make it till the end of the street.
openSUSE warns people like us, but we do go ahead.
Do yourself a favour, reinstall and stick to that. Looking for newer? Then take the KDE4:Factory packages for 11.1 and install these. When you’ve reached the point of knowing how a stable system is booting/working you can start experimenting with Factory, knowing you’ll get it running somehow.
I made this mistake too. 
Had an SDHC card with a redundant 11.1 on, so decided to upgrade it to see if I could find the 2.6.28 kernel with improved support for my touchpad.
What did I learn?
It’s broken (read: it requires more technical expertise than I have).
It doesn’t have the kernel in (read: I should have read the instructions first)
Here’s the way I play with new Alphas & Betas.
1st, I have a production system, say 11.1 x86-64 which I keep up to date with updates recommended by YOU & the recommended repos @ Welcome to openSUSE-Community.org - openSUSE-Community. I also have a separate VFAT (32-bit FAT) partition to save config files – set that up to be auto mounted during the install or with the YAST partitioner.
Next, I create a separate root “/”, /home & swap partition using Parted Magic LiveCD
Then, I copy some key files from my production install to the VFAT partition – /boot/grub/menu.lst from 11.1 being one.
I install the Alpha, say http://widehat.opensuse.org/factory/iso/openSUSE-Factory-KDE4-LiveCD-x86_64-Build0016-Media.iso into the partitions I created in step 2.
After the install & 1st boot, the 1st thing I do is to edit, as root, the new install /boot/grub/menu.lst to include the 11.1 section from the 11.1 /boot/grub/menu.lst I saved on the VFAT partition – now I can boot both.
I do that with all my OSes & can easily boot 8 OSes.
Just remember that the last OS installed, that is the active Grub and the one that has to be edited.
Aside, if I want to “play” with 11.1, I do a separate install as above and try all the experiments KOTD, KDE4++, etc there. Keeping my production install “pure”.
My last advice is that any time you go messing with your production install – backup your important stuff 1st – I find a usbHDD most valuable for that. And, when I’ve done the backup, I turn it OFF.
Hope that helps a little,
Jim
Yeah, I’ve never really kept a “production” installation, because I only have enough room on my hard drive for two linux installs and a home partition, and I’m an engineering student, so my computer is not much more than a toy…
At the moment I have openSUSE 11.1 with KDE4:Factory installed, which is shiny, and kubuntu 9.04alpha6, which is JUST like my openSUSE distro except there is no sysinfo kio slave, and some other problems (which is good because for a second I got very sad that openSUSE wasn’t the ace-est distro).
I also have an EeePC, so when both installs are broken, I use that, but sometimes I’ve messed that one up too :).
I like the idea of keeping scripts though. I’ll definitely do that. I’ve got my music backed up as well.
Just curious - how do you manage to boot from SDHC ? Or did I misunderstood something?
A more general question - (since I guess many people are already sick of CDs as such and prefer smaller-faster-reliable usb sticks or memory cards) - how does one install a system (preferably a live-cd-iso) on a USB stick? Didn’t find any SIMPLE and working way to do that…
I read some tutorials on installing a Live CD on a USB stick but it somehow didn’t work for me 
What i did recently is i installed on a USB stick (pain in the ass, slow like hell but hey, something happens i can recover from a backup right using the stick right ?
The way I installed to SDHC was to use these instructions;
EeeUser ASUS Eee PC Forum / openSUSE onto SDHC without CD drive -> STUCK!
The first part (the actual installation) has now, inexplicably, stopped working for me, but I strongly suspect if you do this;
Easiest way I’ve found to get SUSE on a netbook is to use unetbootin to install the Live ISO to a usb stick, then delete config.isoclient in the root of the stick, and replace it with config.kde.isoclient or config.gnome.isoclient depending on which you’re using (i.e. copy appropriate file and rename copy config.isoclient).
Trying to install on netbook - openSUSE Forums
Then chroot into the new system and reinstall the bootloader as per the first link, it’ll work. There’s certainly an element of luck here - different people find different things work for them.
As to getting a live CD onto a USB stick, it can be done with kiwi, but I have no idea how.
Easier way would be to download the unofficial KDE 3 openSUSE liveUSB image - you can install that directly with unetbootin.
Otherwise, there’s no reason that I know (which isn’t saying much, cos I’m new ;)) that the above instructions wouldn’t work for installing from one USB to another - of course, if you’ve got a CD drive, you should be able to install from the CD to the USB, then fix it using the chroot bit.
Just remember in all of this that running from external flash media is REALLY slow. I mean REALLY slow - as in, you can install Zenwalk 6.0 to a modern PC in 20 minutes. It took over 24 hours to install to a class 6 SDHC on my eee, and then it didn’t work. You can use these things for experiments and system recovery, but little else - and if you want system recovery, go for the KDE 3 image, because its resource usage is so much lower.
Sorry to keep replying to myself - gosh darn vanishing edit buttons.
I was unclear here. The post I made with the first set of instructions will (hopefully) get the Live image onto a USB stick. Apparently, with Kiwi, you can make a persistent custom USB image - and I really don’t know whether following the instructions I’ve given makes for persistence because I’ve only used them to install. The unofficial KDE 3 image is persistent, as far as I know.
Just remember in all of this that running from external flash media is REALLY slow. I mean REALLY slow - as in, you can install Zenwalk 6.0 to a modern PC in 20 minutes. It took over 24 hours to install to a class 6 SDHC on my eee, and then it didn’t work. You can use these things for experiments and system recovery, but little else - and if you want system recovery, go for the KDE 3 image, because its resource usage is so much lower.
Should add here that SUSE isn’t quite this slow, but you’d need to leave it overnight in a subnotebook.