Newbie guide for the net install (ftp install) of SuSe 9.1

[crouse]

This is my newbie guide for the net install (ftp install) of SuSe 9.1

Read through this entirely so you can familiarize yourself with the steps, and get the data you need to finish your install.

A few of the nice "new" things about SuSe 9.1

Linux kernel 2.6
KDE 3.2.1
GNOME 2.4.2
Samba 3
KDevelop 3.0
Gimp 2.0
and much more.

Since SuSe doesn't offer free iso download versions of SuSe, I decided to write this guide on how to do an net install (ftp install) of SuSe 9.1 since that is something that they do offer for free, but don't offer support. They do offer a "guide" to installing SuSe from the net, but it lacks detail and seems intentionally cryptic to me. I wanted to write a step by step guide to make things simpler so others don't have to search and search for hints on how it's done. This is my third article on SuSe's ftp install, the first one was for SuSe 8.2 and the second one was for Suse 9.0 You can find these older articles here:
SuSe 8.2 Net Install http://www.usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=524
SuSe 9.0 Net Install http://www.usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=8161

The first thing you need to do is select a place to download the boot.iso from. You can do that by searching here : http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html and selecting the closest location to you. I choose the ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/ (Chicago, IL). When searching for a mirror, it is very important when looking on the SuSe mirrors page to select a COMPLETE mirror. It just saves you headaches.

Once you have a mirror from SuSe open, you can find the directory where the boot.iso resides.
This is different than the other versions. The boot iso WAS in the ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/i386/current/boot/ directory, however this time it's in the ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/i386/9.1/boot/ (this may be because the mirrors are not completely updated as of this writing, I'm not postitive) The file your looking for is:

boot.iso 23744 KB

Now you can download the boot.iso file. Exact url to the boot iso I used is: ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/i386/9.1/boot/boot.iso This iso file is a few MB's larger than the older 9.0 boot.iso file.

After you have the boot iso downloaded, burn the boot.iso file as an image to a blank cdr. I won't go into detail here, but there are many helpful tutorials on the net if you need help with that. Here is a good place to start though: http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/howtoburn.html

Next, simply insert the disk into your computer, and reboot. You should be rewarded with a screen that displays some welcome message and then be forwarded on to the boot options screen. At this screen you should be able to choose from Installation

Choose Installation --- then hit the enter key.
It will say something like "Can't find cd - entering manual setup")
You should get a {Loading Linux Kernel...............} and then proceed to the next screen.

You should get a screen that lets you choose your language and keyboard map.... mine were both English, the defaults.

Then you should get to a MAIN MENU screen. Several options there. Starting with Settings. System Information. Kernel Modules. Start Installation. Exit/Reboot. Power Off.

Choose Settings first. Make sure your Language selection is correct.
Then choose KERNEL MODULES and then select Load network (ethernet) card modules. Choose your network cards modules and load it. It is important that you know what network card you have as this step needs to be correct in order to continue.

If you need to load other modules do so here before proceeding. IE: if you have more than one network card installed, load that module also. When that's done go back to the main menu and choose START INSTALLATION. Then choose the source medium (NETWORK). Then choose FTP. If you have more than one network card installed, here is where you have to tell the installer which card to use also. Then to enable your card to access the internet you need to choose AUTO CONFIG VIA DHCP or do it manually. I choose auto, since I'm using a router that does DHCP.

Next is the hard part. You have to enter the IP ADDRESS of the FTP server. It took me several trys to figure this out. But after a little research, I found that the IP address can be had via the DIG command on Linux.

You must use the dig command in a terminal to find the IP address of whatever FTP server your using. I was using the ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/ FTP server. Using the dig command : dig mirror.mcs.anl.gov returns one IP address. 140.221.9.138

If you must use windows to get the ip address, try going to some web site, such as http://network-tools.com/ or similar. If you use http://network-tools.com/ select the Express lookup. Simply type in "mirror.mcs.anl.gov" in the blank space just under the first big box of choices on the screen. After pressing "Enter", it will resolve a traceroute to "140.221.9.138", and there you have the address. This method works in any browser in any operating system.

Enter this number into the box asking for the IP address. After hitting enter it asks you if you want to specify a username and password, just say no. Then it asks if you want to use a Http proxy. Say NO again.

If things have went right so far it should say "trying to connect to ftp server". Once connected it says "Please enter the directory on the server"

For the ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/ ftp server the correct entry would be: pub/suse/i386/9.1/

You should then see a small screen that says "Loading data into ramdisk (53300 kB) WOOT..... the hard part of the install, getting connected, is over!!

After that data is downloaded into the RAM disk, you will be greeted with the YaST Installation and System administration program.

The first thing you get to do is choose your language again. Then Yast detects hardware and checks to see if you want to load those drivers/modules. Choosing yes to detected hardware seems like a no brainer to me... so choose yes. The rest of the installation seems fairly straightforward and should be easy. The YaST installer has a very NICE partitioning tool.

At a minimum, you should probably have these partitions.

/boot small 50 mb
swap 500 mb unless you have alot of ram
/root 2+ gigs at least
/home the rest of the hard drive...or dedicate more to other partitions and root.

NOTE: You can let SuSe auto-partition your drive for you. I decided to go that route this time and ended up with a 1 gig swap partition and a 5 gig root partition on my 6 gig test drive. While I'm not sure that's the best setup, it did work fine.

The net install once it begins does take some time, even with fast connections. My 9.1 install took 1 hour and 15 minutes start to finish using the above method. That's the fastest I've ever did a net install, so I doubt that it was an average time. The servers are all running and alot of time are running at full capacity. Your milage may vary of course, and depends on your connection speed, and how busy the mirror is when your doing this. I usually set it up to start downloading the packages right before I go to bed Plan on taking at least several hours to complete this on a fast connection. If I were on dialup, personally, I wouldn't even attempt this type of install. It would be much less painful to just pay for SuSe 9.1 in my local computer store, or order it online.

Once the packages are finally downloaded, you get a nice menu with Yast to choose different programs if you desire something besides the default setup. Working with Yast and configuring you system are beyond the scope of this artical, but I doubt you'll have many problems if you made it this far

Then it's time to finish the install, setting root password, users, graphic card settings, and that's about it. Special note, check your RESOLUTION SETTINGS here carefully, sometimes the installer sets them to high. I usually just change mine back to 1024x768, but you may want different settings. By default the installer usually sets the resolution to it's HIGHEST possible setting for the graphics card/monitor combination, sometimes this results in makeing the monitor run out of sync. Reboot and you get rewarded with a SuSe 9.1 Linux Desktop workstation !! I'm very impressed with the ease of use of the SuSe enviroment. I look forward to using it more and more.

On another side note, if you have several computers that you want to install this to, you can download the entire directory tree and do this install from your own network. (That to is beyond the scope of this article, but isn't to difficult to do.) This would be much quicker than installing via ftp from a remote server every time. I don't see much benefit to downloading the entire tree if your just going to install this on one machine though.

I hope this short tutorial was useful to you. If so, let me know

Things you might want to write down BEFORE you start the install:

1. The ftp mirror URL:

_________________________________________________
2. The boot iso url:

_________________________________________________
3. The IP address of the ftp server your using:

_________________________________________________
4. The directory address on the ftp server:

_________________________________________________
5. The names/model #'s of your network (ethernet) cards:

_________________________________________________
6. If you don't use dhcp for your network you may need

Static Network Address:
Subnet Mask:
Gateway/Router Address:
ISP primary DNS server address:

(note, I use a cable/dsl router and it uses dhcp to take care of this for me)

Main Download Page http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/suse_linux/index.html

SuSe Mirrors Page http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html

The installation guideline ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/9.1/README.FTP

Most current version of this article:
http://usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=24250

Special thanks to :Everyone that emailed me on previous articles and offered additional tips.

By Crouse
http://www.usalug.org
USA Linux Users Group

[DocZayus]

Thanks Crouse!

_________________
Sabayon
Vista

[crouse]

Hope it helps

[cunokyle]

gonna give it a shot tonight

[cunokyle]

Nice! I am in the process of downloading my packages right now!

[Cope57]

This is the best installation instructions I have read for the SuSE installation. Most I have read seemed to complicated to understand. I just might try it out, or at least print it out and give it to friends.

_________________
This block is for DISTRO information ONLY, all other information will be removed by the Site Administrators.
Debian GNU/Linux testing - Linux 2.6.32-4-amd64

[cunokyle]

Worked great! Thanks for teh very helpul write up!
Now to get everything to work correctly in SUSE!

[avitali]

crouse,

Thanks for the help.

I, myself, am a complete n00b to Linux, despite using computers for about 23 years (since my Commodore VIC-20).

I would like to try and install SuSE Linux via the net install, but I cannot find a network module for my wireless PCMCIA card (I am installing it on a Gateway laptop), which is a Netgear MA401.

Is there anyway of installing SuSE via an ftp site with this card?

Thanks
Ariel in TX

[Germ]

Hi avitali. Welcome to USAlug.

I'm not much into networking, but I know someone here has an answer for you.

_________________
Laptop: Mandriva 2010.1 PowerPack - 2.6.34.2-tmb-laptop-1mdv
Desktop: Mandriva 2010.1 PowerPack - kernel 2.6.34.2-tmb-desktop-1mdv

[crouse]

I'm not sure if this driver is in the list of cards but if it is...... try it :
[orinoco_cs driver] [x86,axp,ppc,smp]

This link may be of help also.........
http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/

I know when you can't find your card listed or driver listed in the suse setup that it asks for ANOTHER disk.... I haven't had to use that yet, but I assume it's refering to another list of diskettes for network cards ...... the disks are here i believe.... (not positive as i haven't used them, but it's worth a shot)

ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/suse/i386/9.1/boot/

[acc4899679]

after inserting my boot disk, and rebooting, i get the following message "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER". My O/S is winXP. Can someone help me? thanks.

[Xeroid]

Sounds like a bad burn or bad download.

Did you check the MD5 sum of your boot disk download? http://www.md5summer.org/ is a program you can use in windows to check the integrity of the download.

http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/howtoburn.html lists information on how to burn an ISO disk.

Welcome to the USALUG, acc4899679!

[michael.park]

Help!

Everything seemed to work until "Loading data into ramdisk" ... The bar fills up completely, but then does nothing?? I used the IP address printed in this guide, and followed the recommendations made to the letter.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[crouse]

How much ram does your machine have ? Perhaps not enough ram ??

[michael.park]

I have 768MB installed. very frustrating. does anybody have any other suggestions?