My first (and last) attempt using suse

bill.peter_at_gmail.com
Date: 08/08/04 

Date: 7 Aug 2004 19:31:28 -0700

Here is my sad story :-)

I've been using Linux ever since 1995, rolling my own Slackware
distributions, setting up my network and samba shares using text files
instead of wizards. In recent years, because of lack of time, I no
longer work on my car engine nor do I like to waste time installing a
new kernel or window managers.

So for the past few years I have been using Redhat. Recently, Redhat
shoved most of its users to Fedora (which I decided not to use), so I
decided to try a new distribution: SUSE.

A few days ago I bought SUSE Professional 9.1 at CompUSA. I installed
it on my Athlon-based ASUS motherboard with 1.5 GB of memory, only
wishing to update the root and boot partitions (i.e., wipe them clean
from Redhat and then install SUSE 9.1). I wanted to keep /home,
/usr/local, and /opt untouched.

The installation went great until it came to "creating initrd" and
then it hung with the installation "62% completed". I googled this
error, saw it mentioned a few times in certain Linux sites and once in
this newsgroup (with no solution in sight), so I wrote to
support@suse.de. I got back a form message saying I had to register
in the SUSE portal to get a real answer.

OK....

I filled out the form with a login name, and SUSE emailed me back a
password so I can login to the portal. The login/password combo
didn't work. Then I asked for a new password. That didn't work
either. I asked them to verify my login name. Yes, right login name,
right passwords, but I couldn't login to the portal!

I wrote to SUSE again to ask them to please give me a working password
so I can log on to the portal so I can get some support as to why the
9.1 won't install.

I don't have the time to go figuring out why it didn't work. I have
rather standard hardware, and shouldn't think that could be a problem.

I would rather just go out and buy the new Mandrake 10.0 then to waste
hours on a distribution I am beginning to have serious doubts about.

Comments, anyone ?

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Should I dump Suse?
    ... and use KDE or Gnome only if absolutely required. ... My first step with any SuSE install since 6.4 is dump KDE default as user ... I just installed SuSE 9.1 on a couple of testbed desktops. ... add it easily to the X-session menu on the X login manager. ...
    (comp.os.linux.misc)
  • Search for a different distribution...
    ... I'm looking for a new distribution to install on a machine. ... out and was a complete turkey, switched to SuSE at the time and stayed with them ... Trevor-Hemsley at dsl dot pipex dot com ...
    (comp.os.linux.questions)
  • Re: Suse Benefits? Which distro?
    ... What is special about OpenSuse? ... I also see that Linspire plans to include Suse in it's CNR ... benefits are in the 'long' history of the distribution, ... One of the MOST important things is to be able to install new software via ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • Re: Suse Benefits? Which distro?
    ... What is special about OpenSuse? ... I also see that Linspire plans to include Suse in it's CNR ... benefits are in the 'long' history of the distribution, ... One of the MOST important things is to be able to install new software via ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • Re: Search for a different distribution...
    ... I'm looking for a new distribution to install on a machine. ... running SuSE 9.1 Pro on one of my machines and as that's come to the end ... Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, postfix and Samba (as both client and server) - ...
    (comp.os.linux.questions)