Hello, I've just this morning discovered this mailing list. I'm a total newbie to Linux, so I don't know if this is the appropriate list to write to, if not please tell me to toddle off. I've been looking at Linux for a few weeks, reading up on it and studying all the distros. I have Red Hat 8 on 2 CD's that came with the 'Linux for Dummies' book I bought, but I've also been heavily contemplating Lycoris, which seems to be very user friendly for total idiots like me. But today i received an email from Cnet with info on Suse's new version and I found myself following the link to their site and liking what i read. Can you honestly tell me if Suse is OK for a complete newbie? The installation is the part that scares me the most, I've tried hard to check all my stuff against hardware compatibility lists, Suse page for this seems to bugger up a lot, while trying to check burners it would suddenly start showing printers or sound cards. Some opinions or help as to ease of install would be very much appreciated. At the moment I am using Windows 98SE, I have a 5 year old IMB Aptiva with a second hard drive added, the original is 4 gigs and the second one is 3 gigs. The memory is upgraded to 160. I'm thinking to do a duel boot for a while, if I have enough room for both. (Drive One = 1.38 used/2.61 free/ Drive Two = .821 used/ 2.14 free.) (Drive Two can fluctuant a lot depending on digital camera images and music being and not yet transferred to disc.) Thanks for any tips or support offered:O) Maureen.
On Thursday 25 September 2003 08:30, Maureen Crothall wrote:
Can you honestly tell me if Suse is OK for a complete newbie?
The installation is the part that scares me the most, I've tried hard to check all my stuff against hardware compatibility lists, Suse page for this seems to bugger up a lot, while trying to check burners it would suddenly start showing printers or sound cards. Some opinions or help as to ease of [stuff deleted] Maureen.
Hi Maureen I just went through the first newbie install a couple of months ago and I can say that SuSE has by and large, been great. Here is a link to a journal item I wrote about my experience: http://slashdot.org/~adoll/journal/43584 I chose SuSE because of the free automated update facility (I can't possibly track all the updates that are out there) and because it is a nice blend of desktop and server without being too much server (Red Hat?) or too much desktop (Win98). And I do dual-boot Linux with Win98. Hope this helps. -AD -- ------------------------------------- Alex Doll alex.doll@agdconsulting.ca IT Consulting - Mineral Process Engineer http://www.agdconsulting.ca ----------------------------------------
On Thursday 25 September 2003 15:30, Maureen Crothall wrote:
Hello,
I've just this morning discovered this mailing list. I'm a total newbie to Linux, so I don't know if this is the appropriate list to write to, if not please tell me to toddle off. I've been looking at Linux for a few weeks, reading up on it and studying all the distros. I have Red Hat 8 on 2 CD's that came with the 'Linux for Dummies' book I bought, but I've also been heavily contemplating Lycoris, which seems to be very user friendly for total idiots like me. But today i received an email from Cnet with info on Suse's new version and I found myself following the link to their site and liking what i read.
Can you honestly tell me if Suse is OK for a complete newbie?
Hi, Yes, it is. That's how I started, and while I still don't know much I can get around mostly.
The installation is the part that scares me the most, I've tried hard to check all my stuff against hardware compatibility lists, Suse page for this seems to bugger up a lot, while trying to check burners it would suddenly start showing printers or sound cards.
I've not used this myself, but if you have a cd burner you should check out http://www.suse.de/en/private/download/suse_linux/index.html and look at the section Live-Eval. Find a suitable Canadian mirror to download the image from to avoid a long wait. You should be able to run a 'live' install from CD without affecting your hard disk, and get confirmation of whether your hardware is going to work. Having decided to go ahead, you should be able to resize your win partitions with ease, that was certainly my experience, but of course back up any data you care about first ... I found it took me a month or two to start really working on Linux, but I now boot Windows only if I absolutely have to - at home that hasn't happened for many months now. I hope you will find this list handy too, it's usually friendly and helpful. NB SuSE 9.0 must be due out any time now if you are thinking of spending your hard-earned cash.
Some opinions or help as to ease of install would be very much appreciated.
Very easy with 8.2 on the machines I've tried. Easier and a good deal faster than Windows, indeed. You get plenty of warning before it actually modifies the contents of your disk, so as well as trying the Live-Eval you could proceed a good way into the install without committing yourself ... HTH Fergus
At the moment I am using Windows 98SE, I have a 5 year old IMB Aptiva with a second hard drive added, the original is 4 gigs and the second one is 3 gigs. The memory is upgraded to 160. I'm thinking to do a duel boot for a while, if I have enough room for both. (Drive One = 1.38 used/2.61 free/ Drive Two = .821 used/ 2.14 free.) (Drive Two can fluctuant a lot depending on digital camera images and music being and not yet transferred to disc.) Thanks for any tips or support offered:O)
Maureen.
-- Fergus Wilde Chetham's Library Long Millgate Manchester M3 1SB Tel: +44 161 834 7961 Fax: +44 161 839 5797 http://www.chethams.org.uk
I've not used this myself, but if you have a cd burner you should check out http://www.suse.de/en/private/download/suse_linux/index.html and look at the section Live-Eval. Find a suitable Canadian mirror to download the image from to avoid a long wait. You should be able to run a 'live' install from CD without affecting your hard disk, and get confirmation of whether your hardware is going to work.
That's interesting to know. I did that with Knoppix and found it a wonderful peek into Linux. I didn't realise I could do it with SUSE. I'm off to try it now, thanks very much. Maureen.
On Thursday 25 September 2003 10:30 am, Maureen Crothall wrote:
Hello,
I've just this morning discovered this mailing list. <snip> Can you honestly tell me if Suse is OK for a complete newbie?
I'd have to say yes. I was in your situation two years ago(?). One of the main reasons I chose SuSE was this list. Compared to some of the red hat user groups and lists, the people here seemed far more eager to help out the newbies.
The installation is the part that scares me the most, I've tried hard to check all my stuff against hardware compatibility lists, Suse page for this seems to bugger up a lot, while trying to check burners it would suddenly start showing printers or sound cards. Some opinions or help as to ease of install would be very much appreciated. At the moment I am using Windows 98SE, I have a 5 year old IMB Aptiva with a second hard drive added, the original is 4 gigs and the second one is 3 gigs. The memory is upgraded to 160. I'm thinking to do a duel boot for a while, if I have enough room for both. (Drive One = 1.38 used/2.61 free/ Drive Two = .821 used/ 2.14 free.) (Drive Two can fluctuant a lot depending on digital camera images and music being and not yet transferred to disc.) Thanks for any tips or support offered:O)
All should go fine. I remember being frightened for my first install. You may have to go into the expert or manual partitioning section during the setup because Yast2 likes to take as much space as it can get. So it may try to gobble up all the free space available. IMHO I'd do a minimal graphic install with gnome on your first hard drive and leave the space on the second disk for your pictures and stuff. If you want to do a full install it maybe worthwhile to see if you can add a bigger disk or another disk. SuSE can install a lot of stuff for you to play with.and you may lose all your free space. But you can worry about that later. -- Franklin Maurer Using SuSE 8.2 Pro
I'm thinking to do a duel boot for a while, if I have enough room for
both. (Drive One = 1.38 used/2.61 free/ Drive Two = .821 used/ 2.14 free.) (Drive Two can fluctuant a lot depending on digital camera images and music being and not yet transferred to disc.) Thanks for any tips or support offered:O)
I would move all the windows stuff to one drive and install SuSE on the other. Not because it will be any easier, or work any better, but for future upgrades. Sooner or later you will want to fit a bigger drive, get rid of windows or try another OS, and at that stage it starts getting confusing if things are spread around too much. Good luck.
I would move all the windows stuff to one drive and install SuSE on the other. Not because it will be any easier, or work any better, but for future upgrades. Sooner or later you will want to fit a bigger drive, get rid of windows or try another OS, and at that stage it starts getting confusing if things are spread around too much.
Thanks very much for that tip, that is a question I had planned to ask. I think that is the way I'd like to go. With my bios I cannot go higher than a total of 8 gigs, I was given a 4 gig hard drive a little while ago, presently have 4 gig and 3 gig. I've wondered weather the fiddle farting would be worth it for one extra gig but if I'm moving stuff anyway I might get it swapped. As you will learn, reading my letters, I'm not very techy at all. Maureen.
On Thursday 25 September 2003 02:20 pm, Maureen Crothall wrote:
I would move all the windows stuff to one drive and install SuSE on the other. Not because it will be any easier, or work any better, but for future upgrades. Sooner or later you will want to fit a bigger drive, get rid of windows or try another OS, and at that stage it starts getting confusing if things are spread around too much.
Thanks very much for that tip, that is a question I had planned to ask. I think that is the way I'd like to go. With my bios I cannot go higher than a total of 8 gigs, I was given a 4 gig hard drive a little while ago, presently have 4 gig and 3 gig. I've wondered weather the fiddle farting would be worth it for one extra gig but if I'm moving stuff anyway I might get it swapped. As you will learn, reading my letters, I'm not very techy at all.
Maureen. ===========
Maureen, Welcome to the SuSE list and hopefully soon to SuSE Linux. What are the specs on your IBM Aptiva? CPU, graphics, etc. type things. I know you mentioned it had 2 drives, 3gb & 4gb and 160mb of ram. It might be that you can update the bios in the machine from IBM to have it work with larger hard drives, although I am not sure that Linux would need a bios update to see, say a 40gb drive. If a bios update is possible, I would just to help bring the thing up to date. RAM should be adequate and everything should be supported. As many of the others have mentioned, a larger hard drive would be nice. With a single 40gb drive, you could have your dual boot on one drive, although I am not so sure I wouldn't keep the Windows drive, install on the second, larger drive, so that SuSE will have the whole drive. Later, you'll be getting rid of Windows anyway! ;o) I am a 2+ year newbie myself, but when I installed SuSE, it was pretty painless then. Things have come a long way since and I think you'll find it a nice install now with 8.2 at your disposal. The 4 gb drive you presently have will be enough space to install a minimal setup, but with all the programs available, you'll soon fill it up. Good luck and as the SuSE slogan says: Have a lot of fun! Lee -- --- KMail v1.5.4 --- SuSE Linux Pro v8.2 --- Registered Linux User #225206 On any other day, that might seem strange...
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 21:16, BandiPat wrote:
Maureen,
Welcome to the SuSE list and hopefully soon to SuSE Linux. What are the specs on your IBM Aptiva? CPU, graphics, etc. type things. I know you mentioned it had 2 drives, 3gb & 4gb and 160mb of ram. Not disagreeing with any of the suggestions made, I just want to add another angle. Assuming the drives are standard IDE drives of their time, (i.e. not too fast), it might make sense to put linux on the one drive, but swap partition on the other.
It might be that you can update the bios in the machine from IBM to have it work with larger hard drives, although I am not sure that Linux would need a bios update to see, say a 40gb drive. If a bios update is possible, I would just to help bring the thing up to date. RAM should be adequate and everything should be supported.
put /boot on the first drive, and don't let the bios try to detect the larger drive. It'll work. Hans
On Thursday 25 September 2003 20:20, Maureen Crothall wrote: Hi Maureen,
I would move all the windows stuff to one drive and install SuSE on the other. Not because it will be any easier, or work any better, but for future upgrades. Sooner or later you will want to fit a bigger drive, get rid of windows or try another OS, and at that stage it starts getting confusing if things are spread around too much.
Thanks very much for that tip, that is a question I had planned to ask. I think that is the way I'd like to go. With my bios I cannot go higher than a total of 8 gigs, I was given a 4 gig hard drive a
Just a note. I have an older machine such as yours. The latest bios update was so that the machine would recognize drives up to 8 gig. Now, that being said, linux doesn't care too much about the bios. Right now I've got a 30gig, and a 20 gig installed in that machine. Linux runs just fine. It sees the both drives entirely, and they work just fine. DMA isn't there, but heck, it's only a dual Ppro machine. ;-)) You will find that there are lots of little things like this that linux does that Windows won't. Mike -- Powered by SuSE 8.1 Kernel 2.4.19 KDE 3.1.1 Kmail 1.5.1 For SuSE Mondo/Mindi backup support go to http://www.mikenjane.net/~mike 9:27pm up 6 days, 45 min, 5 users, load average: 2.11, 2.01, 2.09
On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 21:31, Mike wrote:
Just a note. I have an older machine such as yours. The latest bios update was so that the machine would recognize drives up to 8 gig. Now, that being said, linux doesn't care too much about the bios. Right now I've got a 30gig, and a 20 gig installed in that machine. Linux runs just fine. It sees the both drives entirely, and they work just fine. DMA isn't there, but heck, it's only a dual Ppro machine. ;-))
You will find that there are lots of little things like this that linux does that Windows won't.
Actually, if you just add a large disc (one that's too large for bios), and NOT have the bios detect it, windows will be able to see it too. Linux, as can be expected, too... :-) Hans
Yes find a local lug group for help On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 10:30, Maureen Crothall wrote:
Hello,
I've just this morning discovered this mailing list. I'm a total newbie to Linux, so I don't know if this is the appropriate list to write to, if not please tell me to toddle off. I've been looking at Linux for a few weeks, reading up on it and studying all the distros. I have Red Hat 8 on 2 CD's that came with the 'Linux for Dummies' book I bought, but I've also been heavily contemplating Lycoris, which seems to be very user friendly for total idiots like me. But today i received an email from Cnet with info on Suse's new version and I found myself following the link to their site and liking what i read.
Can you honestly tell me if Suse is OK for a complete newbie?
The installation is the part that scares me the most, I've tried hard to check all my stuff against hardware compatibility lists, Suse page for this seems to bugger up a lot, while trying to check burners it would suddenly start showing printers or sound cards. Some opinions or help as to ease of install would be very much appreciated. At the moment I am using Windows 98SE, I have a 5 year old IMB Aptiva with a second hard drive added, the original is 4 gigs and the second one is 3 gigs. The memory is upgraded to 160. I'm thinking to do a duel boot for a while, if I have enough room for both. (Drive One = 1.38 used/2.61 free/ Drive Two = .821 used/ 2.14 free.) (Drive Two can fluctuant a lot depending on digital camera images and music being and not yet transferred to disc.) Thanks for any tips or support offered:O)
Maureen.
-- Hans hans007@prexar.com registered Linux user 289023 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin
participants (9)
-
Alex Doll -
BandiPat -
david stevenson -
Fergus Wilde -
Franklin Maurer -
H du Plooy -
Hans Krueger -
Maureen Crothall -
Mike