New subject: [opensuse] Re: I used my laptop to "surgically" install on old desktop

11 Jul 2008

      Hello OpenSuSE... This message describes what I believe to be a very
unusual method of installing OpenSuSE (and Sabayon as well) And to
introduce myself to the list...

But first a couple of questions about list subscription options...

1) I'm not yet sure if this list is what is mirrored on gmane.org's news
   server as gmane.linux.suse.opensuse.user or not. But if so I'm curious
   if I can suspend delivery to my actual inbox while I do my reading
   from the gmane server without losing posting privileges?

2) If not, is there a digest option? And how would I select or unselect
   it.

And now let me tell you how I came to use my laptop to "surgically"
install OpenSuSE & Sabayon on an old pc that couldn't be installed on via
the installation dvd's...

After many failed attempts to install (opensuse 11.0 or 10) OR (fedora
core 8 or core 9) OR (sabayon 3.5 loop3 r1 or 3.5 loop2 r2 or 3.4f) on
an old recycled amd with ide drives and monitor and rage 128 video card
salvaged from the Pentium 3 on which I used to multi boot 4 linux
installations and win98se and caldera's Dr Dos until it's mainboard went
kaput, I hit on the idea to use and ide to usb external drive box to use
my gateway amd turion64 laptop to install both opensuse 11.0 && sabayon
(loop3 r1) to an old ide drive which I then used an pci ide card to add
to the old athalon without disturbing the *working* kubuntu installation
that had survived the p3 crash ( It was the only ext2 file system that
wasn't actualy mounted when the tired p3 ground to a halt...)

In both cases once I got them to boot I didn't have X until I copied
most of the xorg.conf from the kubuntu installation to replace the
input/output device info that their respective installers had put in the
new installation xorg.conf reflecting the 'laptops' touchpad, lcd screen,
and built in video card...

With opensuse, I was unable to get my existing grub partition to boot it.
[In part I think to the fact that opensuse was inclined to refer to (hd0)
as /dev/sda, (hd1) as /dev/sdb but (hd2) {which is attached to the
pci-ide card} as /dev/hda.] But after I used the opensuse install dvd to
help me rescue the installed opensuse's  grub boot loader which was
installed to it's / partition, and much editing I was able to chainload
it's own bootloader from mine.  I get a warning about "(hd2,4): file not
found" then I get an plain looking grub boot menu that resembles the
one you get when a winbox offers you the safe mode boot option. Then
opensuse boots without further errors.

In Sabayon's case I had been able to copy the kernel and initrd files to
my grub boot partition on the 2nd hard disk which kubuntu's fdisk -l calls
hdc (Sabayon and suse both refer to it as sdb). Then I edited my
grub.conf and sabayon's /etc/fstab files to indicate it was on /dev/sdc7
on (hd2,6) and it booted just fine with only one boot time error message
which was actually only a warning about "/etc/modprobe.devfs has not been
automatically generated". and the suggestion that "Use update-modules
force" to force (re)generation. (Though this doesn't actually regenerate
that particular file...) 

Could somebody give me a clue why none of the above linux installation
dvd's can complete an install on this (admittedly *low end) old amd
machine even in text install mode and or with any combination of "safe
mode" kernel options that I could find an example of in any of their
installation help files, yet once I used my laptop as an install
mechanism (and after much editing of grub and fstab & xorg.conf files)
Both sabayon 3.5 loop3 r1 and opensuse 11.0 run kde fairly well on them.
Is it just the memory, or are today's installers fussier about the bios
and such than are the linux's they install??

 * NOTE: it's an AMD Athlon at 1000MHz with only 256MB of ram... 

Now I hope I haven't given the impression that I think I really
understand what's happening. I simply have several years of installing,
updating and replacing various linux to multi-boot computers, while
trying to find time to remember what I wanted to use the durned things
for before I got so busy installing and configuring... 

There are many holes in my knowledge. Some because I haven't found the
time to make an in-depth study of all those things I'm only going to use
once.  And some because I find it difficult to retain information I don't
use every day. I try reading a good how-to book then find out that to
make some example in chapter 3 work I need to read another book which
leads to yet a third book, and by the time I can come up with the 2 lines
of code I needed to make that example work, I've forgotten the point to
the example and need to reread the first book from page one. Hoping that
by the time I get to chapter 3 I can still find my crib-notes with the two
line example (the existence of which will be all I can retain from the
other two books...) I call this 'CRS syndrome'
{(C)an't (R)emember (S)hi^H^Huff }
Yet some things I 'can' remember, especially if I can find my old crib
notes on what the heck some man page is talking about... or some bash
script fragment to give me the syntax I have trouble extracting from said
man page...) Or, mostly those things I've done the very same way every
day for a very long time.  

-- 
|   ---   ___
|   <0>   <->	   Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
|	^		J(tWdy)P
|    ~\___/~	     <>
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[opensuse] I used my laptop to "surgically" install on old desktop

J(tWdy)P

Sunny

Joe(theWordy)Philbrook

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