I wrote this after spending several hours installing the net install version of SuSe for the second time. I wanted a "reference" for myself so it didn't take so long the next time and I had my "notes" handy. I thought this might be of use to someone here, as I saw some SuSe threads lately.
Perhaps this will save someone some time, and headaches. If you see any glaring errors, feel free to point them out. The word "newbie" in the subject line was refering to me
I'm new at SuSe, but like what I'm seeing so far.
Screenshot here:
http://www.techimo.com/photo/showphoto.php?photo=4454
Artical originally posted on:
http://www.usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=2208
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This is my newbie guide for the net install of SuSe 8.2
Read through this entirely so you can familiarize yourself with the steps, and get the data you need to finish your install.
Since SuSe doesn't offer free iso download versions of SuSe, I decided to write this guide on how to do an ftp install (net install) of SuSe 8.2 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.
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/downl...t_mirrors.html and selecting the closest location to you. I choose the
ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/SuSE-Linux (Massachusetts, Boston).
Once I had that page up, I browsed to the
ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/SuSE-Linux/i386/8.2/boot/ directory and downloaded the boot.iso file. Exact url to the boot iso :
ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/SuSE-Lin.../boot/boot.iso (File Size 19.7 MB so that shouldn't take too long.)
After I had the boot iso downloaded, I burned that as an image. (I won't go into detail here, but there are many helpful tutorials on the net if you need help with that.)
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
Installation
Choose
Installation --- then hit the enter key.
You should get a
{Loading Linux Kernel...............} and then proceed to the next screen.
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 card modules. Choose your network cards modules and load it.
If you need to load other modules do so here before proceeding. When that's done go back to the main menu and choose
START INSTALLATION. Then Start Installation again....... hmmmmmmm
Then choose the source medium
(NETWORK). Then choose
FTP. 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 on a dsl 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.rpmfind.net FTP server. Using the dig command :
dig ftp.rpmfind.net returns two IP addresses.
216.254.0.38 and
194.199.20.114 Enter one of these numbers 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 rpmfind.net ftp server the correct entry would be:
linux/6/SuSE-Linux/i386/8.2/
You should then see a small screen that says
"Loading data into ramdisk (45800 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.
The net install once it begins does take some time, even with fast connections. The servers are all running and alot of time are running at full capacity. My connection, installing KDE and the rest of the default install, takes about 4 hours or a little more. I set it up to start downloading the packages right before I go to bed
Wake up and finish the install, setting root password, users, graphic card settings, and that's about it. Reboot and you get rewarded with a SuSe 8.2 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.
I hope this short tutorial was useful to you. If so, let me know
Main Download Page
http://www.suse.com/us/private/downl...nux/index.html
SuSe Mirrors Page
http://www.suse.com/us/private/downl...t_mirrors.html
The installation guideline
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/current/README.FTP 
). Since I have searched all the previous posts you've written here, to get there, I want to say thanks to you guys for teaching me. Without it I'd still be a slave to unstable MS versions...lol.
Linear Mode
