I had no problem getting SLES8 up and running using the FTP/VNC method. I greatly reduced the size of the install footprint by deselecting gnome/kde from the detailed selection panel. YAST is now virtually identical to that on the PC. The move to comply to the LSB has resulted in the changes to where config files etc. live. You are right in that services like ftp etc. are not enabled by default. I'd recommend using chkconfig -l to check what is and use chkconfig <service> on to turn on those you are interested in. We have also received a new k_deflt that has proved very stable.
-----Original Message----- We have been using SuSE on our Z900 on an IFL running zVM. We have worked with S390 version 1, SLES7 and now SLES8. We did get their Premium support contract with SLES7 which gave us a upgrade to SLES8. SLES8 has not been going very well. The documentation they provide on CD1 is poor. It does not cover anything in any detail about the installation. We could not get the install to work using SAMBA, worked with their support and they had no idea how to fix it. We copied the image of CD1 and CD2 to another Linux server and tried the FTP install method. It went thru CD1 but never did CD2. The current install method has only 2 choices for what to install, the instance size now takes about 2 gb. We have been working with their support structure again but get poor responses and lots of questions, few answers. Even with their newest kernel (k_deflt) fix it abends after a few hours of operation. Their premium support says they guarantee 2 hour turnaround, 7 x 24, that all most never happens. YAST has been totally redone, the doc in the SLES8 Installation guide is only several pages. Lots of things that used to work by default, (ftp, kde, apache), do not anymore, no documentation at all. In my opinion SuSe has not gotten better, but worse. I have found out that IBM offers a support contract and we may pursuit that when this one runs out. I to am interested in Red Hat because we may even drop SuSe all together. If anyone has gotten SLES8 working I would like to hear about that also.
