On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:33:09 +0200
J G Miller wrote:

>Although it may be heretical to suggest such a thing in this
>particular newsgroup, what you could do to avoid this is to install
>Debian on this particular machine.
>
>The reason for this is because in a Debian installation one can first
>install a minimal working system (without an X11 windowing system),
>then once that is up and running, then install all the extras,
>according to your choice, be it icewm, or fluxbox, or other low weight
>window managers, and then any other extras you so desire.
>

You *can* do the same thing with openSUSE. A non-X Window system is the
first install I do with any new version of openSUSE, to verify all the
base components are compatible (and it is very fast, of course!). Then,
I either re-install with X and one or more desktop/window managers or
add them bit by bit via YaST.


--
Kevin Nathan (Arizona, USA)
Linux Potpourri and a.o.l.s. FAQ -- (temporarily offline)

Open standards. Open source. Open minds.
The command line is the front line.
Linux 2.6.25.11-0.1-pae
8:24pm up 2 days 0:13, 16 users, load average: 2.58, 2.04, 1.34

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:33:09 +0200, J G Miller wrote:

>On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:14:09 +0000, Bert Hyman wrote:
> > I don't want to spend a lot of time loading things I'll
> > just remove later.
>
>Although it may be heretical to suggest such a thing in this particular
>newsgroup, what you could do to avoid this is to install Debian on this
>particular machine.
>
>The reason for this is because in a Debian installation one can first
>install a minimal working system (without an X11 windowing system),
>then once that is up and running, then install all the extras, according
>to your choice, be it icewm, or fluxbox, or other low weight window
>managers, and then any other extras you so desire.
>
>The other alternative would be to look at distributions which are
>geared towards less powerful machines eg Puppy linux, or perhaps
>something such as Arch linux or Frugalware.
>
>Take a look at the various distributions and their features at
>
>
>
>to decide which best meets your needs.


Or one could DL the new Knoppix Live DVD and only install the parts one
wants, or simply boot and run the live DVD with a local fast swap file.
I even have one I boot from a USB drive.

On 20 Aug 2008 13:51:29 GMT, Bert Hyman wrote:

>miller@yoyo.ORG (J G Miller) wrote in news:1219239189_8665@vo.lu:
>
>> On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:14:09 +0000, Bert Hyman wrote:
>> > I don't want to spend a lot of time loading things I'll
>> > just remove later.
>>
>> Although it may be heretical to suggest such a thing in this
>> particular newsgroup, what you could do to avoid this is to install
>> Debian on this particular machine.
>
>I was thinking of OpenSuse mainly because I use SLES at work and
>already have an OpenSuse 11.0 system running on a "real" box at home.
>I'm getting too old to learn the ins and outs of yet another OS :-)
>
>If I was to wander away, I'd actually be inclined to look at FreeBSD
>again; I have an antique FreeBSD system (FreeBSD 4.4) at work that's
>been running a news server for years. It's built out of an old HP
>Vectra which has a P-II 400 and 256MB RAM.


OpenSuSE 11 runs on a PS3 and it only has 256MB RAM, and not all of that
is even available, IIRC.

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:50:15 +0200, J G Miller wrote:

>On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:37:55 +0000, Unruh wrote:
> > Disk space is cheap. So what if you disk has an extra
> > 2GB of junk on it. It does not do anything except take up space.
>
>Are you recommending that the original poster replace the 10GB disk
>in their laptop?


Heheheh... I would. 10GB ain't ****, and it is likely an old, dog slow
drive as well.

In news:lr93b41aaphhn2410136l0oqb42hguntqc@4ax.com AnimalMagic
wrote:

> On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:50:15 +0200, J G Miller
> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:37:55 +0000, Unruh wrote:
>> > Disk space is cheap. So what if you disk has an extra
>> > 2GB of junk on it. It does not do anything except take up space.
>>
>>Are you recommending that the original poster replace the 10GB disk
>>in their laptop?
>
>
> Heheheh... I would. 10GB ain't ****, and it is likely an old, dog slow
> drive as well.

Just happened to have a 40GB drive left over from when I put a 60GB
7200RPM drive in my current laptop (R51). It's dog slow too, but so's
the machine it's in :-)

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

Kevin Nathan a écrit:


>>You *can* do the same thing with openSUSE. A non-X Window system is the
>>first install I do with any new version of openSUSE, to verify all the
>>base components are compatible (and it is very fast, of course!).

What tests are you running to do your verification ?

thank you in advance,

T0M

Bert Hyman wrote:
> Just happened to have a 40GB drive left over from when I put a 60GB
> 7200RPM drive in my current laptop (R51). It's dog slow too, but so's
> the machine it's in :-)

I just recemtly removed my 27GB HD and replaced it with a 30GB. :-D
I also have replacen my 10GB with a 40GB.

I have one 160GB which is where my main data is. Still plenty of space
left there. I think some 10GB at least and then there are some 60GB in
movies I have not seen yet and will delete when I have.
--
houghi http://www.houghi.org
My experience with SuSE Linux 9.1

> The businessworld is like prison and M$ made everybody their bitch.

vieprivée@fra.invalid (T0M) wrote in
news:ii14b4106p5h1cvajkcdk3ro0gbbcfq5ml@4ax.com:

> Kevin Nathan a écrit:
>
>
>>>You *can* do the same thing with openSUSE. A non-X Window system is
>>>the first install I do with any new version of openSUSE, to verify
>>>all the base components are compatible (and it is very fast, of
>>>course!).
>
> What tests are you running to do your verification ?

For me, the "test" was just being able to install and then reboot.

There's a lot of folklore out there about how to get around all the
peculiar hardware interactions you'll run into, especially if you're
installing on a laptop.

It took the better part of an afternoon for me to find the magic
phrase to get openSUSE 11.0 to run on my Thinkpad 600E:

apm=on acpi=off pnpbios=off

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN | bert@iphouse.com

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:39:54 -0500
T0M wrote:

>Kevin Nathan a écrit:
>
>
>>>You *can* do the same thing with openSUSE. A non-X Window system is
>>>the first install I do with any new version of openSUSE, to verify
>>>all the base components are compatible (and it is very fast, of
>>>course!).
>
>What tests are you running to do your verification ?
>
>thank you in advance,
>
>T0M

No specific 'tests', just make sure network, video, sound, USB, etc.,
all work. Once I know I have network/internet and sound, I install X
Window and a small window manager (twm or icewm) and verify I can get
the desired resolutions and such. Then I setup Online Update and get
all the updates (how ever many times I need to run it) installed. The
last thing I do is add Packman repository (and either nVidia or ATI
depending on which box I'm on) and then add KDE, XFCE and others and do
any more updates as needed.

Sometimes, I take a chance and do the KDE install first. But I don't
add any additional repositories until updates are finished. Regardless
of how I do the install, I make sure all the programs I normally use
install and work fine before I ever mount my current /home partition;
this way, I know I have a working /home directory in my root partition
install in case something in my /home partition causes problems.

One thing I like to do if I have a long weekend for the install is to
first install literally *everything* selectable at install time, just
to see if it works. Then I wipe it and start with the minimal install.
I've often had problems doing that, but 11.0 seemed trouble-free with
that which kind of surprised me. However, I still went back to a
minimal install afterwards. Just something I like to do! ;-)


--
Kevin Nathan (Arizona, USA)
Linux Potpourri and a.o.l.s. FAQ -- (temporarily offline)

Open standards. Open source. Open minds.
The command line is the front line.
Linux 2.6.25.11-0.1-pae
6:34pm up 1 day 5:23, 16 users, load average: 0.47, 1.02, 0.86

Thank you very for your detailed answered.

T0M

Kevin Nathan wrote:
> No specific 'tests', just make sure network, video, sound, USB, etc.,
> all work. Once I know I have network/internet and sound, I install X
> Window and a small window manager (twm or icewm) and verify I can get
> the desired resolutions and such.

Mmm. I just look at my hardware and know what I can get. In all my years
of using SuSE and openSUSE I have never had a resultution that my
hardware was able to get, not been able to get.

> Then I setup Online Update and get all the updates (how ever many
> times I need to run it) installed.

I do this during the installation.

> The last thing I do is add Packman repository (and either nVidia or
> ATI depending on which box I'm on) and then add KDE, XFCE and others
> and do any more updates as needed.

Basically I will start with a standard installation.

> Sometimes, I take a chance and do the KDE install first. But I don't
> add any additional repositories until updates are finished. Regardless
> of how I do the install, I make sure all the programs I normally use
> install and work fine before I ever mount my current /home partition;
> this way, I know I have a working /home directory in my root partition
> install in case something in my /home partition causes problems.

I mount it. I just see that I do a backup just before I do the install.

> One thing I like to do if I have a long weekend for the install is to
> first install literally *everything* selectable at install time, just
> to see if it works. Then I wipe it and start with the minimal install.
> I've often had problems doing that, but 11.0 seemed trouble-free with
> that which kind of surprised me. However, I still went back to a
> minimal install afterwards. Just something I like to do! ;-)

These are things I do with alpha/beta testing.

The way I do my install is as follows:
1) See that I have an empty partition for / . All other things will be
mounted once the system is up and running /home also, but no
formatting.

2) Start with a standard installation. The reason is that that will
select KDM as login which is easier to configure and has the nice
feature that I only need to enter the password. At the software
installation I then add GNOME and Windowmaker and some CLI programs that
I want. Also several other things, like Apache, MySQL, VNC client and
server and NFS client and server. Oh and build things.

During the installation I also do the updates.

I log in and see if all is well. I add several repo's, like Packman and
VideoLan. I also do some installs from
http://software.opensuse.org/search and obviously installe the NVidia.
All done with the one click installer. Then I configure the screens.

After that is done, I will start mounting the partitions one by one.

Then I will start by reconfiguration of crontab. That will show me what
all the scriots are that I have forgotten and need to be transfered to
the correct place.

I will test each and every script in crontab, as often things need to be
re-written for one reason or another.

About that time I am going out for a beer. :-D

houghi
--
This was written under the influence of the following:
| Artist : Santana
| Song : Soul Sacrifice
| Album : Santana Jam