I'm itching to get my feet wet in Linux, but the bux for a separate machine

just ain't happening. I went to LinuxISO and read that SUSE has a feature

that will automagically partition your drive for you, and let you boot into

either Suse or Winblows.

I went to Suse's site, and their YAST tool screen shot seems

impressive. They are also supposed to have an Eval version that will run

from CD, although I haven't located it yet.

My questions are:

1. Has anyone heard anything about the partioner - any bad experiences? At

this point, I'm still married to big bill, and if anything happens to my

Windows setup, I am beyond screwed.

2. Has anyone heard, or better yet, used Suse? How does it compare to

RedHat? I was all hot and bothered to try RH9, but it doesn't seem to have

compariable dual boot/eval capabilities. Thanks!

Hi Vincent!

Red Hat 8 had dual boot, it is a good bet that RH 9 does also. I didn't

like RH 8 because I couldn't get it to print and I couldn't get Wine or any

of the database stuff to work. The dead-tree manual with it (Red Hat 8

Bible) was no help. I emailed the author and he didn't have the answers

either. Not only that, RH 8 would not connect to the web from my notebook

unless I used a serial modem that was almost like carrying another

notebook! Red Hat support is no help at all unless the problem is in the

plugging in the power cord category, in my opinion.

Printers, scanners, modems, display and sound cards are all Linux flash

points. There are hardware compatibility lists that are *supposed* to tell

you what works with what. Yeah, right. If it gets much worse, setting up

Windows XP, XP Pro, NT or 2000 will actually be easier than setting up

Linux. Of course, most people never do this because these Windows flavors

come pre-installed with the box when you buy the box. There are places that

sell pre-configured Linux boxes, but you say that is not your plan.

I installed SuSE 8.2 and it also has failed to satisfy me. The dual boot

defaults to Linux, not cool for someone married to the Great Satan. The

worst thing about SuSE, though, is that it made the whole drive read only,

very not cool at all. Fdisk and re-install everything "big bill" or

otherwise. My friend installed SuSE 8.2 and had NO trouble - everything

worked great and he loves it. His wife took to it too! Go figure.

In addition, I tried Mandrake 9.1 and that, contrary to some reports, is

not ready for prime time, unless you are a software genius. Chet loves it,

but Chet is a software genius. I guess with all of these you install it and

if it works you love it, if it doesn't work, no one will be able to supply

a work around. You fdisk and start over.

Back up *everything* on removable media before you start and make sure you

have all your old OS and old program set up media handy, including all

drivers. Be ready to buy new stuff such as modems, printers, CD and hard

drives if your old stuff won't work. It most likely won't hose your hard

drive, but you might have to fdisk and reformat. You could also find that

less than optimal bios and jumper settings tolerated by windoze don't work

with some flavors of Linux.

Right now my ISP/Linux Guru is setting up Gentoo 1.4 for me on a new P IV

that cost me a leg and an arm. He is almost done and he even has the

printer printing. I had him do this after I tried to do it myself for a

month. It required broadband until last week, and I have only dial-up. The

nice thing about Gentoo is that it self updates, both the kernel and the

application packages. However, he has been at it for two weeks and he is a

Gentoo expert. This machine will not have any M$ on it.

This last week Gentoo has come out with a 2 CD self-install set for $15.

($18.50 with shipping <http://store.gentoo.org/>). You may be able to

download this if you have a fast connection. Downloaded it is free,

<http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/mirrors.xml>. If you are patient you could

maybe even get it with dial-up. This is the first time Gentoo has offered a

self-install, the build my ISP/Linux Guru is doing for me is an all-manual

build. If you have an old box, this self-install also comes in flavors for

old boxes. How old? 486 DX with 64 meg, is that old enough? Look at the

install directions here: <http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-install.xml>

In a week or two I will try the Gentoo self-install CDs on a couple of old

boxes around here.

Regards,

Pete

At 09:31 PM 8/6/03 -0400, you wrote:

>I'm itching to get my feet wet in Linux, but the bux for a separate machine

>just ain't happening. I went to LinuxISO and read that SUSE has a feature

>that will automagically partition your drive for you, and let you boot into

>either Suse or Winblows.

>

>I went to Suse's site, and their YAST tool screen shot seems

>impressive. They are also supposed to have an Eval version that will run

>from CD, although I haven't located it yet.

>

>My questions are:

>1. Has anyone heard anything about the partioner - any bad experiences? At

>this point, I'm still married to big bill, and if anything happens to my

>Windows setup, I am beyond screwed.

>

>2. Has anyone heard, or better yet, used Suse? How does it compare to

>RedHat? I was all hot and bothered to try RH9, but it doesn't seem to have

>compariable dual boot/eval capabilities. Thanks!

>

>

[excessive quoting removed by server]

Vince Teachout writes:

> I'm itching to get my feet wet in Linux, but the bux for a

> separate machine just ain't happening. I went to LinuxISO

> and read that SUSE has a feature that will automagically

> partition your drive for you, and let you boot into either

> Suse or Winblows.

Check out Knoppix as well. It boots off the cd - no need to=20

install it at all.

--=20

Paul McNett

I seem to remember either RH or Mandrake 9 being able to boot from CD. Am I

remembering wrong?

----- Original Message -----

From: "Paul McNett" <p@ulmcnett.com>

To: "ProLinux Email List" <prolinux@leafe.com>

Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 11:52 PM

Subject: Re: [ProLinux] Anyone have experience/comments on Suse?

Vince Teachout writes:

> I'm itching to get my feet wet in Linux, but the bux for a

> separate machine just ain't happening. I went to LinuxISO

> and read that SUSE has a feature that will automagically

> partition your drive for you, and let you boot into either

> Suse or Winblows.

Check out Knoppix as well. It boots off the cd - no need to

install it at all.

--

Paul McNett

[excessive quoting removed by server]

Chet Gardiner writes:

> I seem to remember either RH or Mandrake 9 being able to boot

> from CD. Am I remembering wrong?

I don't know. Knoppix is the one I saw, and its based on Debian.=20

Really slick stuff. Imagine bundling your kiosk app on a=20

Knoppix OS CD and sending it off to your client. The CD is=20

preconfigured to detect the hardware of any modern computer,=20

boot up, start KDE, start your application, all from the CD.=20

Hard drive only used for swap space and temp files.

A great way to see the Linux desktop without committing to it.

http://www.knoppix.org, which is in German but there's a link to=20

convert to English.

--=20

Paul McNett

Hi Vince,

>>2. Has anyone heard, or better yet, used Suse? How does it compare to =

RedHat? I was all hot and bothered to try RH9, but it doesn't seem to =

have=20

compariable dual boot/eval capabilities. Thanks!<<

Don't know how SuSE compares to RedHat, but I guess they are pretty =

close

featurewise. I'm using SuSE 8.2 and it's running just fine. I don't know

about the partitioner, though, as I've given up dual-boot Windows/Linux

machines almost a decade ago (whew, I'm getting way too old <g>).

>>They are also supposed to have an Eval version that will run=20

from CD, although I haven't located it yet.<<

Not sure what you are looking for. This is the complete distribution:

ftp://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/suse/i386/8.2/

And here's an ISO image you can burn on a CD and boot in order to =

evaluate

SuSE:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/live-eval-8.2/

--=20

Christof

=20

At 12:39 AM 8/7/03 -0700, Paul McNett wrote:

>A great way to see the Linux desktop without committing to it.

>

>http://www.knoppix.org, which is in German but there's a link to

>convert to English.

Any problems with documentation, instructions, etc. being in German? My

highschool Deutsch is pretty rusty.

At 11:52 PM 8/6/03 -0700, Paul McNett wrote:

>Check out Knoppix as well. It boots off the cd - no need to

>install it at all.

Will do - thanks. I saw mention of Demoix (or something) on LinuxISO, that

said it would do the same, but when I went to it's site and read around,

the last update on anything was 7/2002, and it was created by "we 3 guys",

the FAQ listed some fairly major problems, and parts of the site were in

French. All in all, I didn't get the warm fuzzies.... :-)

At 01:28 AM 8/7/03 -0400, Pete Theisen wrote:

Ok, first of all, Wow! Thanks for the book! (and I mean that

appreciatively, not sarcastically)

>Red Hat 8 had dual boot, it is a good bet that RH 9 does also.

At this point, I've located the Suse Eval8.12, which will run off of CD,

and am in the process of downloading it. Thank god for FTP resume! I

figure I should have it by tonight. This will let me get my feet wet

without the scary part of having to partition.

>The dead-tree manual with it (Red Hat 8

>Bible) was no help. I emailed the author and he didn't have the answers

>either.

I went looking around both the RH and Suse websites last night, and as much

as I wanted to use RH (mostly because I know a lot of people here use it,

and I figured that would make it easier for me to leech info off of you

all), their site didn't give the warm fuzzies. The Suse site was friendly,

and geared to beginners, with plenty of obvious links to software. The RH

site wasn't friendly, and seemed more geared toward trying to get you to

buy a copy.

>I installed SuSE 8.2 and it also has failed to satisfy me. The dual boot

>defaults to Linux, not cool for someone married to the Great Satan.

I was wondering about that - as often as Big Bubba reboots ("oof! Thank

you, Bill! May I have another!), I would want the option to set the

default OS on reboot. One point against them.

>The

>worst thing about SuSE, though, is that it made the whole drive read only,

>very not cool at all. Fdisk and re-install everything "big bill" or

>otherwise. My friend installed SuSE 8.2 and had NO trouble - everything

>worked great and he loves it. His wife took to it too! Go figure.

This initially scared the crap out of me, but then I thought - hang on -

what the hell use would a read-only drive be? Why would Suse (or anyone)

do that? I figured you must of screwed something up. :-) I might, too,

though. :-(

>In addition, I tried Mandrake 9.1 and that, contrary to some reports, is

>not ready for prime time, unless you are a software genius.

Very much the same impression I got from others, as well. I'm sure the

Mandrakians sneer at those of us who use hand-holders, (much as I, in my

DOS days, sneered at Windows people), but I am doing this in my "spare"

time, and anything that gets me up and learning faster is a plus.

>Back up *everything* on removable media before you start and make sure you

>have all your old OS and old program set up media handy, including all

>drivers.

Will do, if/when I move from CD to dual boot. Thanks.

Right now, I'm in the process of downloading the live Eval Version of Suse

(lets you run from CD) and hope to be using it by tomorrow night if all

goes well. I'm also going to check out that Knoppix as well.

Thanks, all!

Vince Teachout writes:

> >http://www.knoppix.org, which is in German but there's a

> > link to convert to English.

> Any problems with documentation, instructions, etc. being in

> German? My highschool Deutsch is pretty rusty.

I don't know, I'm downloading Knoppix as we speak. I saw it=20

demoed at a Linux user group meeting. The person demoing handed=20

me the cd, I put it in my computer and booted. Within a couple=20

minutes I had a full Linux desktop booted completely off the=20

CD. The only snag was it didn't detect my wireless=20

keyboard/mouse so the desktop wasn't usable.

There are "command line switches" you can pass to Knoppix at=20

boot. If you just press Enter or wait a specified number of=20

seconds, you get default boot options. I'm sure there was an=20

option to make my wireless stuff work.

--=20

Paul McNett