(my own personal experience, siga.txt file of exact system configuration available upon request)
Suse 9.2 Linux Professional Edition Install notes: This installation was Suse 9.2 Professional edition over the top of a Red Hat 9.0 Shrike edition. The /var /opt /tmp /usr and / (root) partitions were all cleaned of data before the install, but the / (root) partition kept the usual linux labels. �The video card is a NVidia RIVA TNT2 Model 64. INITIAL INSTALL: 1. Had to scrub the 'root' / disk area on initial install of any folders or files. �This error was severe, preventing install of run level 5 X-window managers and window screens. �It was assumed that Suse Installer would not be bothered by pre-existing folders or mount points, but this turned out to not be the case. Once during an initial install session, under the choice "update system", the CD Rom device was installed as /mnt/cdrecorder after the base system build from CD #1 and the data become unavailable to the installer which expected the /dev/cdrom device to complete the system build from CD's 2-5 GRUB bootloader was worthless, it failed to build a bootable MBR. �Fortunately using the KNOPPIX disk and saving a previous copy of lilo.conf kept the system bootable. �IT IS STRONGLY SUGGESTED TO SAVE THE lilo.conf file and vmlinuz and initrd images before beginning a new install or distro change. 2. All previous linux partitions mounted as volume label. This turned out to be wrong, they all needed to be mounted as a mount point in custom partition manager. See #1 above. YAST2 ONLINE UPDATE: 3. Had to establish symbolic link after severe errors occurred when /var partition was full from YaST Online Update session. The patch files are written under the folder "/var/lib/YaST2/you/" specifically under the ../mnt/i386/update/9.2/rpm area. This file location from ../mnt downwards is handled by the YaST2 manager and is erased at will, pending completion of patches. There was no note of the suggested partition size for the /var partition, it was set at 396.623 megs on the machine, but the downloaded patches clearly exceeded this size and caused a rather severe system crash. (no new X-term sessions could be initiated, nor could critical logging information be written) (filesystem snapshot after /var partition was fixed) �Filesystem � � � � � 1K-blocks � � �Used Available Use% Mounted on �/dev/sdb3 � � � � � � � 396623 � �199101 � �177040 �53% /var To fix the problem, two temporary symbolic links were set up to point to another disk partition /new/Suse, in order to hold all the rpms and all available rpms move to this new location. �YaST2 online update had to be run several times, to successfully recover all patched rpms. symbolic links: �/var/lib/YaST2/you/mnt/i386/update/9.2/rpm/i586 ��������symbolically linked to /new/Suse/i586 �/var/lib/YaST2/you/mnt/i386/update/9.2/rpm/noarch ��������symbolically linked to /new/Suse/noarch After these symbolic link were made, YaST2 was able to update patches successfully except the NVidia video driver patch. 4. Had many problems trying to pull the 1.0-6111 package from NVidia via a web browser or YaST2 connection. Most reliable way appears to be by ftp. �ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-6629/ is the latest �ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-6111/ 5. NVidia video driver update does NOT install if run directly as a shell command. The updater complains about no nvidia.ko kernel module being installed. The actual module is nvidia-agp.ko This was from using NVidia's own installation instructions YaST2 placed the NVIDIA shell installer in a unique location: � �linux:/usr/share/doc/nvidia # ls -adl * �-rw-r--r-- �1 root root � 22751 Feb 12 14:02 EULA.html �-rw-r--r-- �1 root root �409600 Feb 13 02:14 NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1.run �-rw-r--r-- �1 root root 8725221 Feb 12 20:55 NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run 6. An older linux NVidia driver is being installed. The newer version is 1.0-6629. �See #5 above. However copying the version 6629 to 6111 and running YaST online update fooled the patch installer into believing that the download completed, so it went ahead and patched NVidia-RIVA TNT2 Model 64 graphics card with full 3D acceleration. ERROR! -this completely blew up X11 windows. The NVidia_drv.o module was made for some type of version 4.0.2 kernel, not the Suse 9.2 6.2.8 kernel version. ��������HAD TO UNINSTALL THE 3D - GPL support using YaST run level 3 siga no -x11 was the correct way to determine what went wrong. see /tmp/siga/siga.txt The install scripts for 1.0-6629 are apparently missing? HAD TO FTP DOWNLOAD THE 1.0-6111 pkg and place in the /usr/share/doc/nvidia/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1.run location to fool YaST2 into believing that the online update had successfully loaded the patch, and let it install the patch correctly. Lost about 4 - 5 hours time with attempted downloading the patch via YaST2 Online Update or even an http port connection to http://download.nvidia.com OPERATIONAL QUIRKS: 7. sendfax does not work properly. �CapriFax is for ISDN setup. 8. Cannot set screen refresh rate on run level 3, it is an annoying flickering 60 hz, it needs to be bumped to at least 72 hz or higher (suggested 85 hz) (does anyone know how to change this video refresh rate?) 9. Ordinary Clock does not set background color. �Calendar does, however. 10. gpg-agent is not terminated from run level 5 to run level 3 transition �randall �10828 � � 1 �0 13:11 ? � � � �00:00:00 gpg-agent --daemon --no-detach --keep-display ssh-agent /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc �root � � 10996 � � 1 �0 13:12 ? � � � �00:00:00 gpg-agent --daemon --no-detach --keep-display /bin/bash /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc 11. YaST under run level 3 does NOT correctly run the System runlevel editor at first. The tab stays inside the gui box. �Hitting alt-tab to backup was finally was able to force the active cursor from the gui box to be able to pick other options as needed. NEEDED: 11. YaST2 needs an X-windows rebuilder module that makes the complete X-windows manager scripts. �Conditions forced a "new installation" at least 5 times, from the Suse Install CD's vols 1-5 when X11 failed to build. 12. For some reason, running YaST in a window on run level 5 or directly from run level 3 causes selections, particularly in the System level to be picked very slowly, not permitting easy scrolling to other items. �Each cursor move by the up or down arrow had to be laboriously single clicked up by up or down by down waiting for the system to acknowledge the movement. �Why? 13. Cannot set the font color of the desktop icons under KDE. �This is bad, when black font disappears on a black background (such as astronomy pictures background) �There should be some way to change the icon font color on the KDE 3.3. desktop. Installer's Comments - Lost about 40 hours of time trying to get Suse 9.2 to correctly install. � Found all the information above the hard way. �One benefit, now intimately acquainted with Suse's methodology and structure of the linux system and the re-install gotcha's changing distros. The $80 purchase price of Suse 9.2 mandated that the system be installed and functional, thus the expenditure of time. -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-newbie
