Installation of Suse

8/6/2019 Installation of Suse

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Installation of suse

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openSUSE installation guide

When I wrote and published my extensive Ubuntu installation guide,I promised you many more step-by-step installation guides to come.Indeed, I have kept my word. You have had the Windows 7 guide

and the new dual-boot guide for Ubuntu and Windows 7. Now, it'stime for the openSUSE installation guide.

Currently, openSUSE 11.2 is the latest openSUSE release, which willbe the focus of our article today. We will learn how to choose the

right edition, download it to our computer, burn the image to aCD/DVD, and then install the distribution to hard disk.



We will do this two times:

The first time, from a full DVD edition, which comes both with

Gnome and KDE desktop, where we will default to Gnome desktop,since we have already seen openSUSE 11.2 with KDE in great detail

in my review a few weeks ago.

The second time, we will install openSUSE from CD, just like we did

in the review. Only this time, we will focus on the installation inmuch more detail. We will install openSUSE with KDE, after havingsuccessfully booted into the live session.

In both cases, we will install openSUSE on machines with otheroperating systems already present, so this will give us a great

opportunity to see how well openSUSE cooperates in dual-bootconfigurations. We will also talk about the GRUB bootloader.

During the installation, we will make references to other moderndistributions as well as the original SUSE install tutorial I've written

three years ago for SUSE 10.1. You will see what changes have

been introduced in the distribution.

So let us begin.

Installing openSUSE - Step by step



Preparations

Some things we need to do before we can install openSUSE.

Backup

If you intend to install openSUSE on a machine that had otheroperating systems installed and contains important data, please

make sure this data is safely backed up on external devices, likeother machines, CD/DVDs, external disks, etc.

Get openSUSE

openSUSE is free Linux distribution. Everyone can use it.The difference between openSUSE and the SUSE Linux EnterpriseDesktop (SLED) is in the official support from Novell for the latter.

On the openSUSE website, click Get It to download openSUSE.

You will now have several options for download.



4.7GB DVD is the full edition, with a very large collection of software. The full edition comes with both Gnome and KDE desktops

and lets you choose which one you want. It also allows you toupgrade previous versions of openSUSE.

Live Gnome desktop is a bootable live CD, furnished with theGnome desktop environment. It allows you to test openSUSE onyour machine without any changes, check hardware compatibility,

evaluate programs, and if satisfied, install to hard disk using a liveinstaller. This is something we have done numerous times with

virtually every single distribution tested here on Dedoimedo.



Live KDE is identical to Live Gnome, except it comes with KDEdesktop. This is what we used in our openSUSE 11.2 review. Please

see the article for more details.

Network installation is not suited for home users. First, it requires

an existing Internet connection, because you will be downloadingrequired packages from the web while installing. Second, it's a little

more advanced.

Other options you need to pay attention to are the two boxes on the

right side, the one titled Type of Computer, the other titledDownload Method.

Type of Computer defines the architecture of your CPU, either 32-bit

or 64-bit. Most modern computers since 2005 or so have 64-bitprocessors. However, if you have an older machine, you may need

the 32-bit version. Please note that 32-bit operating systems cannotsee more than 4GB of RAM.

Download Method defines the way you're going to obtain theinstallation image (ISO). Most home users will need only use thefirst two methods, Direct Link and BitTorrent. Metalink and Mirror

options are intended for more experienced users.

Verify and burn image to CD/DVD

After downloading the image, you will have verify it's not corrupt

and then burn it to CD/DVD. I have explained these steps in greatdetail in my Ubuntu installation guide, so please refer to it forassistance, if you need.

Moreover, we are soon going to have a dedicated article explaininghow to burn ISO images in Windows. You may also want to take a

look at my short tutorial explaining how to burn ISO images in Linux.

Once your CD/DVD is ready, we can begin the installation. See

below.

P.S. Notice the fact openSUSE website uses the same backgroundcolor like me. Simply staggering. Great minds think alike, eh.



Installation 1: DVD

We will first boot from DVD and install the Gnome edition of

openSUSE on a machine with another Linux already present. We willinstall openSUSE on top of that other distribution.

Make sure your machine boots from CD/DVD

You may need to change the boot priority of your hardware. This is

done in BIOS. Most BIOS menus are accessed by pressing F2 or Delbuttons during early computer startup. Modern BIOS also have a

separate boot order menu, which is usually accessed by pressingF12. This allows you to make sure your machine boots off a CD/DVDfirst.

GR UB menu

openSUSE GRUB menu has several entries.



Boot from Hard Disk will only be present if there are other operatingsystems installed.

Installation is what we want. We'll get there soon.

Repair Installed System is very useful if you suspect or know thatyour installed system is corrupt or damaged and you want to try to

salvage it. This will mainly work for installed openSUSE versions,but you can try nevertheless, if needed.

Rescue System allows you to boot in the so-called Rescue mode(Runlevel 1) and manually try to repair damages to installed

operating systems.

Check Installation Media lets you check the disk for defects. But we

did that when we burned the CD/DVD. If you're unsure, you canperform a second check now.



Firmware Test lets you test your hardware components and theirfirmware for possible defects. If you think your hardware might be

flaky, it does not hurt to check it.

Memory Test lets you test the machine RAM for problems.

You can also use the Function keys for extra options. F1 is thetraditional help, F2 lets you change the language, F3 allows you to

change the resolution, F4 lets you change the installation source, F5lets you change the kernel you're booting (only for experts), and F6

lets you install additional drivers, like for instance RAID drivers foryour disk array.

We want the Installation. Highlight the entry and hit Enter.

openSUSE will now start booting. Compared to the live edition (seereview), there's only one splash screen.



License agreement

The first step is to access the installation license. You can alsochange the language and the keyboard layout at this stage. Thelicense can also be translated, if you need.

System Probing

openSUSE will now probe and initialize all your hardware.



Installation Mode

You now need to decide what you want to do. The DVD installer letsyou repair or upgrade existing openSUSE installations, which is not

available for live CD. And you can also perform a full, freshinstallation, which is what we will do.



Select New Installation.

Furthermore, pay attention to the two checkboxes.

Include Add-On Products from Separate Media is useful if you haveadditional openSUSE software you wish to install, including possiblyproprietary programs. Most people will not need bother with this.

Use Automatic Configuration will auto-configure your system once

it's installed. This is the recommended setting and you should keep

it. Experienced users may want to manually configure theirsystems, but for the average desktop user, the default automatic

configuration is just fine.

Clock & Time Zone



Choose your Time Zone and set the time and date.

Desktop Selection

The next step is to choose your desktop. Like I mentioned earlier,since we're already seen what the KDE desktop looks like, we'llchoose Gnome this time. Do note that this makes no difference

whatsoever on the installation itself, which is identical all the wayuntil you log the first time into your newly installed system.



Partitioning

Now comes the tricky and interesting part.



There are two basic layouts: partition based and LVM based. Formost home users, the partition based is what they want and need.It's also simpler to setup and maintain. By default, openSUSE offersthe partition based layout. Furthermore, it creates a suggested

setup based on your existing data.

Indeed, take a look at the Suggested Layout created by the

installer. As I've mentioned in my openSUSE review, openSUSEprobably offers the safest and yet most practical recommendations

to users. In other words, not only does it take into account the

existing setups, it does that very smartly.

What do we have here?

First, let's see what we have. Our disk is not empty. It contains

another Linux on it, including sda1 (primary partition), sda5(logical) used as swap and sda6 (logical).



openSUSE recommends you reuse those partitions. It offers adefault separation of root and home, which means you won't use

your data when you reinstall or upgrade the system. Furthermore, itallocates the bigger partition to data.

You end upwith sda1 as home (/home), sda5 as swap and sda6 as root (/).

This is a very sensible and safe layout. We will see an even betterexample of how smart and safe the installer is when we install thedistro for the second time from CD. While here we are replacing the

existing system, in the second example, we will keep the originaloperating system, already installed and create a dual-bootconfiguration. We will also review the installer partitioning options in

the second example.

For now, less experienced users can rest assured that openSUSE

makes reasonable choices by default. This does not mean you canblindly click through. But there's a fair chance you will get an almostoptimal setup out of the box.

openSUSE offers Ext4 filesystem for its partitions.

Create New User

You now have to create your user. You should choose a strong

password. Furthermore, similar to the sudo principle in Debianbased distributions, you can use the same password for systemadministration. If you check the Automatic Login box, you will boot

into your desktop without going through the login screen.



Installation Settings

Time to review your settings. Please note that nothing has beendone yet. Your system has not yet been changed, so if you want to

go back and make adjustments or changes, you can do that. In fact,clicking on any of the sub-titles on the Settings page will take youto the relevant category. It even says so in the installer itself!



Bootloader

One of the important parts to pay attention to isthe Booting section. By default, openSUSE will not overwrite

existing bootloaders. This is a good thing, but new users might be alittle confused about this and may miss this option.

To have GRUB as your primary bootloader, it must be installed toMaster Boot Record (MBR). Therefore, you will have to change the

default settings.

Default

By default, as you can see in the screenshot above, StatusLocation is /dev/sda2 (extended). This is the Extended partition,

inside which sda6 is located, which is the root partition for our newopenSUSE installation.



This means that the bootloader inside MBR, whichever it is, won't betouched. This means that after first reboot, you won't see

openSUSE anywhere in the boot menu. In our case, this is evenmore problematic, because we intend to place openSUSE on top of

the original installation on our disk, which would leave us with anunbootable system.

Change bootloader options

So we need to change this and place openSUSE GRUB into MBR.

Therefore, under Change Location, enable the Boot from MBR isenabled option. Furthermore, you can also write GRUB to the rootpartition; that's the second option. This means that if you place

another operating system on your disk in the future and keep

openSUSE intact, you will still be able to use openSUSE bootloaderand won't have to add an openSUSE entry to another bootloader

instead.

This sounds a little complicated, but it really is not. The rules arevery simple.

y If you're installing only openSUSE on your machine and the

disk is empty, you have nothing to worry about.y If you're installing openSUSE on a machine that used to have

another operating system and its own bootloader, you willhave to force openSUSE to write its own bootloader to MBR.This is what we did just now.

y If you intend to use openSUSE in a multi-boot configuration,

then please consider which operating system bootloader isgoing to be used as the primary one. Whichever one it is, ithas to be written to MBR. For example, if you have Windows 7



and openSUSE and wish to use GRUB as your bootloader, thenyou need to set MBR as the GRUB location. If not, then you

can place it either in the Extended partition or the root (/)partition.

For more details, please consult my two GRUB tutorials and theopenSUSE review:

GRUB bootloader - Full tutorial

GRUB 2 bootloader - Full tutorial

openSUSE 11.2 - James Bond's choice (review)

Now, you can add extra software if you want. Scroll down for moreoptions. Other settings you can configure include default runlevel,firewall, SSH, and more. The default selection is ideal for most

home users.



Installing

The installation will now begin. Like Ubuntu, openSUSE 11.2 offers alovely slideshow, introducing the distro features and highlights, in a

very posh, stylish way.









Depending on your processor, disk and CD/DVD-ROM speed, theinstallation will take anywhere between 15 and 40 minutes. If youlike details, you can always click on the second tab, titled Detailsand watch the progress:



Automatic configuration

After a while, the installer will switch to Automatic configuration. Nointermediate reboots.



openSUSE installed

You will soon reach your new desktop. openSUSE 11.2 has beensuccessfully installed. Congratulations! You're now running a top of

the line Linux distribution.



Installed desktop

Reviewing the Gnome edition of openSUSE 11.2 is beyond the scopeof this article, but here's a small selection of lovely screenshots:









The Gnome desktop in openSUSE is absolutely staggering. Thegreens are magical. I'm wondering why I have not used it all theseyears in openSUSE. Now, let's see the installed from live CD, withKDE environment.

Installation 2: live CD (KDE)

By now, you know the drill. Download image, burn it to CD, boot

into live session. Whenever in doubt, please refer to my review formore details.

We will install openSUSE 11.2 side by side with Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic

Koala, paying attention not to destroy Ubuntu data and make sure

the two systems cooperate well. Since Ubuntu 9.10 uses GRUB 2,



while openSUSE uses GRUB legacy, this will also give us a goodopportunity to see how the two mix together.

Eventually, click the installer icon on the desktop to begin the fun.

License agreement

First, agree to the license.



Your next step is the timezone and then off to partitioning.

Partitioning

Here, we'll focus a little more than we did before.

First, let's see what we have:

y sda1 is a primary partition and it's currently empty.y sda2 is the Extended partition.y sda5 is the swap partition.

y sda6 is the Ubuntu root (/) partition.y sda7 is the Ubuntu home (/home) partition.

Now, here's the suggested openSUSE layout:



Like I mentioned before, openSUSE is very safe and very smart inmaking its partitioning choices. It offers to use the unused sda1 as

its root and place the openSUSE /home alongside Ubuntu home, ona partition already dedicated to this task. And while it recommendsto format sda1 with Ext4, it does NOT recommend formatting sda7,

meaning our data is safe! This is the smartest installer I've comeacross!

Basically, we need not do anything. Still, to show you the advancedfeatures in the openSUSE partitioning, we'll click on Edit Partition

Setup.

Edit Partition Setup (Experts only)



Expert Partitioner has everything you want or need when it comesto setting up disk layouts. In the left column, under System View,

you have a range of options and tasks you can setup,including RAID, Volume Management (LVM), Crypt Files

(encryption), device mapping, and NFS. Most home users will neverneed mess with any of these.

Rescan Devices button lets you refresh the view, e.g. if you connecta new external USB device, which you might want to use for theinstallation. Import Mount Points lets you reuse an existing layout

from other installations, so you don't have to manually recreate itevery time you install openSUSE.

Settings under System View lets you specify device/disk/partitionoptions. You can configure how the devices are labeled, by Device



ID or name, set the default filesystem and more. Again, most homeusers need not meddle with any of these.

One thing that is not intuitive is the Edit function. You have to rightclick on a selected partition to make changes. Let's say we're not

satisfied with our smart suggested layout and we want to makechanges.



The openSUSE partitioning setup offers quite a lot tweakability. Youcan set the Formatting Options, Encryption and Mount options for

any of your devices. You can also change the Filesystem Options,including regular system checks, Inode size, Block Size, Bytes per

Inode, and more.

If you do not know what these mean, don't touch them! The reason

I'm not explaining every single bit here is the simple fact that99.99% of all users, myself included, will be perfectly happy withthe defaults. What more, you really do need to know what you're

doing, and if you do, then you definitely do not need this tutorial.

The purpose of this little demonstration is to make you aware of all

the settings, not necessarily launch you into a high orbit of

unnecessary hacking.



Once you're done with your changes (if any), you'll be able to

accept or cancel them.



Create New User

Like before, no difference here.



Live Installation settings

Once again, you will have to review the installation settings andmake changes if necessary. Compared to the DVD installer, youhave fewer options.

Pay attention to the Booting section. In our case, this is veryrelevant, since we have two operating systems now. If you want to

use Ubuntu + GRUB 2 as your primary bootloader, then leave thesettings as they are; this means you'll have to make anotherchange inside Ubuntu to make openSUSE visible and selectable from

the boot menu. If you want to use openSUSE + GRUB as yourprimary bootloader, then enable Boot from MBR. This is explained inlong detail in the GRUB 2 tutorial.





Perform Installation

After this step, you can begin the installation. It takes about 15-20minutes to complete.



You will require additional 5 minutes spent after first reboot for theautomatic configuration. Unlike the DVD, the live CD installer cannot

complete the installation in one go and requires an intermediatereboot.



Desktop installed

Eventually, you'll get into your new system. Congratulations!

Differences between DVD and live

CD installationsLet's see what we learned today.

Live DVD installation looks better. It's more refined and polishedand the choice of colors is very smart. It's also more streamlined,



with no reboots at all. You just start and finish the installation inone go, all the way into your desktop.

Furthermore, live DVD lets you repair and upgrade existingsystems, allows you to choose different desktop environments and

installs a much bigger selection of software.

Live CD has fewer options, mainly regarding the desktop and

software choice. It also requires a reboot to get the job done.However, disk/partition and bootloader options are identical for both

editions.

Comparison to SUSE 10.1 from three

years ago

Well, the truth is, not much has changed. This is great, because if you've installed SUSE once, you can do it again, without any greatchange, shock or nasty surprise. On the other hand, openSUSE 11.2

installer is much nicer, more streamlined and with fewer steps,making for an all the more pleasant and efficient task.

Just for comparison, a few old screenshots:









R eference materialI have already bombarded you with links throughout this article, but

you may want all the relevant material in one place, so here you go:

Installing SUSE Linux - Full tutorial (SUSE 10.1 tutorial & review, 7

pages, from 2006)

openSUSE 11 - Review & Tutorial (openSUSE 11.0 article, November

2008)

openSUSE 11.2 - James Bond's choice (review from November, 2009)

The said articles offer insight into lots of stuff, including step-by-step installations and configurations, introduction to KDE3.5 and

KDE4 desktop, package management, adding extra repositories,setting up graphics drivers, games, Wireless, Bluetooth, Samba



sharing, Compiz, security, performance, laptop modes, and tonsmore. You really ought to read them, or at the very least skim

through them.



Other articles

Furthermore, you may want to check the following tutorials:

GRUB bootloader - Full tutorial

GRUB 2 bootloader - Full tutorial

How to configure RAID in Linux - Full tutorial

GParted partitioning software - Full tutorial

Conclusion

That's it, we're done. You now have a perfect installation guide,

which covers both the DVD and live CD, single and dual bootconfigurations, and KDE and Gnome desktops. It's everything you

could have asked for.

Best of all, you have the right tools to perform this task in the

future, without my help. You're now a Linux user with confidence

and skills to setup both simple and complex setups, including a mixof operating systems, bootloaders and filesystems.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this guide. Spread the word and havefun!

Cheers.

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