rblog

It has been about 8 years since Andy Romeril first started bugging me about the importance of Linux - and I have finally taken the first faltering steps towards becoming Linux-aware. Today the installation began (and this is my brief log in case I needed to do it again).

First decision - which Linux? I figured I would stay pretty mainstream, so it was Red Hat vs. SuSE. I almost went for Red Hat because of that very cool fedora that I would then be entitled to wear. But, as a customer of ours is using SuSE, I figured I had to go with that. I still may get the hat - which would be the only the fifth fashion item I have ever wanted (1968 - wristbands; 1974 - silver ID bracelet; 1988 - leather jacket; 1994 - Microsoft DataLink watch).

So, how to install SuSE Linux 9.0 (for free of course) - in a brief nutshell....
1. SuSE site for information on the download. For some reason, IE would not function as an FTP client, so I had to get a temporary FTP client. Eventually I was able to download boot.iso.
2. Create a CD containing the image in boot.iso. Since I was using Roxio 5, this was not as simple as copying the boot.iso to CD - but rather finding the special "Create CD from Disk Image" (full instructions).
3. Then I went to the target computer, put the CD in, and restarted. Of course, it just booted into windows. But after changing the boot order in the the BIOS to have the CD, it actually booted into the Linux install.
4. Following some instructions here, I installed the network drivers (after guessing what my network card was) and chose the network install (via) FTP with the IP address of 194.199.20.114 and the server location of linux/6/SuSE-Linux/i386/9.0 and the basic install (part 1) began.
5. Eventually (about an hour later) YaST2 was on my screen and a little later it was blowing away everything on my hard drive (which was fine with me). And then it began the real installation. I am told this takes hours. So I started this log. More to come....
6. FTP dies, causing a restart. But I find a faster site. So two hours later I get to the next step - a variety of configuration tasks - including users and passwords. One note of concern is that a test connection to the internet failed. But the reasons weren't clear - and since we installed everything over FTP, I have some reason to hope that it will work. And this configuration is not very time consuming, because within 15 minuts or so - I have logged in! And indeed we have internet.
7. One note - SuSE did not provide Gnome as a choice as a desktop GUI - I wonder if that is a flaw. So, instead, I will start with KDE. But now it is time to get the kids from school!