Re: [tlug] InstalFun/SuSE/RedHat

[xian <ccd@example.com>]

On Sunday 09 February 2003 16:34, Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon wrote:
> February 9th, 2003
>
> After buying SuSE Linux 8.1, I installed it in two computers - one a
> Hitachi 300MHz/10GB/256MB, and the other a Dell Dimension C
> 565MHz/20GB/512MB.  The Hitachi began with high resolution, but after
> installing, the monitor wouldn't display anything and my efforts at
> adjusting the settings were not successful, so I gave up on having SuSE
> in the Hitachi and put RedHat 8.0 back in (no problem with RH-8.0).

Sorry to drudge up the past. I just got back from a week's respite Stateside. 
During the initialization sequence -- you should read GRUB in the upper-left 
corner, then there should be a screen of pretty blue and white. At the 
bottom, there should be a line of "buttons" indicating which F* button you 
should push to start the OS in which resolution. I believe I had problems 
with that, as well. It might not be enough to make you want to go back and 
try SuSE again, but I hope it might.

> I then put SuSE 8.1 into the Dell, which worked, but while the automatic
> install is easier in some ways than RedHat, I wasn't able to control it
> the way I had wanted and ended up with a light install.  One reason I
> bought it in the first place is that with the eight disks, I figured I'd
> do a full install and then have a lot of things to play around with.
> Whatever - it's in (only slightly over 1GB of it though), and I aim to
> go over the manuals and see how to tweak things.

Good luck on that tweaking thing. You've got to be a YaST guru to figure a lot 
of SuSE's stuff out. You can bypass the automatic install of SuSE, though, 
and determine which "packages" (sorry, using Slackterms) you'd like to 
install. It's rather intuitive. I believe I used the "Workstation" option and 
had to click a "Custom Install" button or something like that a la M$ (which 
is both a good and bad thing) It's disappointing you had a rough ride with 
SuSE. I had an awesomely easy time, played around with runlevels and such 
other gooey system stuff.. since my Linux-inception, I've used Slackware, 
with a couple chance 48 hour run-ins with RedHat and one installation of SuSE 
8.1.. SuSE was the only one that set X up for me that actually stuck on any 
of my systems. My only real disagreements with SuSE are:
-the (pseudo)mandatory use of YaST
-default of Kinternet over KPPP (yeah, I use dialup)
-default uber-pretty setup of KDE3
-their support (hey, it came with the $40 price tag, i tried it out) are tres	
reticent about any serious system-tweaking info
-and by god, if you're used to a command line, you can't find squat unless 
you're familiar with the SuSE layout. i STILL don't know where the kernel 
source is on my SuSE box. (it's not in my manual, and tech support won't tell 
me, either! ;)
-GRUB. I don't understand GRUB. I like LILO. Call me old-fashioned.

But, SuSE is the only distro I'd feel comfortable letting my fiancee, with all 
her Linuxphobia, use. She's mad happy to have a copy of the GIMP to play with 
;)

Hm... done babbling. Hastas.
-X