SuSE 10.1 on 64 Bit Systems

Date: 5/13/06

Introduction:

This article describes how to set up SuSE 10.1 on a 64 bit motherboard system.

System Specifications:

Biostar K8M800 Motherboard
Athlon 64 3000+ processor
1 GIG DDR memory
Viewsonic VA902B 19 inch LCD monitor
GeForce MX400 video card
D-Link DWL-G650 wirelesss network card
Western Digital WDC WD3200JD-00K sata hard drive
Maxtor 6B250S0 sata hard drive

Installation:

I downloaded the 5 Cd set of SuSE 10.1 and burned them to CD-R media. The burn speed was 8X, the slowest that K3b was able to handle my CD-R media (rated at 52x).

SuSE gives you the option to checkthe validity of the installation media. This is always a good idea, to make sure that your media have been burned properly and that you got a good download of the ISO inages. I skipped this step, having confidence in my downloads and buns of the media. I do not reconmend this for everybody.

I popped the 1st CD into my DVD drive (the DVD version of SuSE 10,1 was not available at the tine of this installation). At the SuSE Welcome screen, I chose to install to the hard drive. The installation proceded normally.

Because I have a multiple OS system consisting of Windows XP and various Linux distros, at the initial Summary screen, I elected to partition my driove using expert mode. I had previously formatted a partition on one of my sata drives for installing SuSE. After choosing to make my preformatted partition the root for SuSE, I also elected not to have a bootloader installed, as I have a complex booting system for my other operating systems. I went on.

Being a Linux junkie, I elected to maually chose packages to install. I kew that I would need the kernel source (not installed by default) to comile options for my wireless card later on. I also chose to install tk and tck, as I have a favorite card game, Spider Solitare, that I enjoy playing, that needed these packages. I also knew that I generally don't play many games, so these packages were needed.

The installation added all the default packages. One thing that SuSE doesn't tell you, is that the system self-boots before installing packages from the rest of the CD set. I allowed the system to reboot. This is where the trouble began.

On reboot, SuSE complained that it could not start the graphical interface, either because the monitor and video care were nopt configured, or packages were missing to start the graphical interface. SuSE then defaults to the non-graphical interface for the remainder of the installation. This problem is a headache for Linux newbies.

I fudged my way through the non-graphical interface and completed the rest of the installation. I elected not to set-up my network cards at this point, given the difficulty in navigating in this interface. My DVD drive seemed to be working overtime at this point, trying to install all the packages that I selected. The system was acting like I had too little memory, which was not the case. The initial installation screen stated that the installation would take about 1 hour 15 minutes. After the reboot and interface problems, the packages all installed in about 1 hour and 35 minutes. I'm not sure what the problem was at this point, but I moved on.

Happily, the installation completed without error and KDE 3.5 came up. of course, SuSE complained that my monitor was not set up correctly, a problem that is easily solved.