A few Linux questions before install...

Hello everyone.

I am a a complete no0b to Linux, but I will be installing it very soon. I will make it a Dual-Boot with Windoze XP-Pro. I have downloaded the five installation discs of SuSE 10.1 and also the Live-DVD of SuSE 10.1.

I ran the Live-DVD and found SuSE quite interesting. Though I had no idea how to perform simple tasks, the Live-DVD did not stop my intentions of going through with Linux.


My question is:

Is my hardware compatible? There's a lot of talk about "is my PC's hardware compatible with Linux?"

Does "hardware compatible with Linux" simply mean "hardware that also has Linux drivers for download" ??
Or is there another degree of "compatibility" that needs to be addressed beyond the need of Linux-hardware drivers??

The Live-DVD of SuSE 10.1 works (almost) perfectly on my PC. Does that mean all of my hardware is "compatible"??


Thanks in advance!!

You should not have any issues. I run Suse 10.1 also on my alienware/ Dual Boot. No problems at all

Thanks for your reply. I guess I'll find out for sure after I'm up and running.

Now I have another question (sorry!)...

Gnome or KDE desktop? I know many who recommend and prefer Gnome over KDE or KDE over Gnome.
What I want are your honest opinions which one you prefer and recommend (and a reason too please!). So once again, Gnome or KDE?

i'll go with gnome, if i would want a macish look, and if you want a desktop manager that is hevily themed.
i'll personally go with kde, because it has more eyecandy, and it's more easy to customize. Kde also has an office suite. it's also the one's that is closer to looking to windows xp.
both are good, you just need to decide yourself.

Oh, just shove the disk in and give it a go.

The worst thing that will happen is that something in your machine will be completely incompatible and it won't boot. In which case, either go back to Windows or try another Linux distro. I seriously doubt that it will come to that, so just try it. Linux is a lot better than it was even a couple of years ago so its quite unlikely you will have to go to the lengths of troubleshooting that was necessary in the past (and is the subject of some of the (probably now out of date) posts in this forum.)

Its really not a big deal, just go for it. That's how we all learned.

Thanks for all your input. I plan to install it later today.

I'm not that worried about drivers now. I know that Windows would completely crap-out on you with BSODs and crashes if you have something wrong regarding a driver. But seeing as Linux is not Windows, I guess I have no worries.

I tried both Gnome and KDE on the Live-DVD. I did find that KDE has more eye-candy and looks great. Gnome is OK but it lacks the switchable workspaces that I like. I can switch between Gnome/KDE anytime after the installation, right?


I have a wireless USB network adapter for my PC and that is how I get my internet. It is the D-Link DWL-G132 and D-Link does not provide Linux drivers for it. I am currently google-ing solutions for this, but I might try that wrapper program, "ndiswrapper" was it?

If you install both Gnome and KDE, then you can easily choose which one to use in the graphical login window.

Gnome does have switchable workspaces too... Just make sure you install both Gnome and KDE like nodsu said. I personally like Gnome WAY better, it runs faster and just gives me a cleaner workspace.

I use gnome

First of all, Oh crap...

I just finished (trying) to install SuSE 10.1

Many things to mention:


- It did not let me choose both Gnome and KDE desktops to install. It let me check the box for one or the other, not both, so I just went with Gnome.

- I downloaded and burned five installation CDs for SuSE 10.1. I did a check for them all with that Linux CD checker at the beginning of the installation, and they were all fine. The thing is, my installation only used three of the CDs, and that's all it asked for...

- I didn't do as much selecting as I have expected to. The installation gave me "suggestions" and I just went with them. For example, it picked GRUB bootloader and picked Graphical Login for me, without ASKING me or INFORMING me in ANY way that it has made that decision. It also completely laid out my hard drive in a format/partition suggestion (which I used).

- There was a suggestion for Hardware Configuration. The suggestion was set to configure my graphics card at 16-bit and 1024x768. I wanted to change the 16-bit to 24-bit, but when I did that, it suddenly said "ERROR: No suggestion" under the graphics card section of the suggested configuration page. The suggested configuration for my soundcard and other hardware was still there, just the graphics card suggestion had that "error" there.


Then I just clicked Next for finalization, and booted up into SuSE 10.1. This is my problem now. Once I boot into SuSE, the whole screen is rainbow-colored and is basically what you see when there's a problem between the graphics card and OS. I could hardly make out anything, but was able to log into my account. The desktop was all fuzzy with visible rainbow-coloured lines all throughout. I could hardly see anything at all except my mouse cursor (which is pink...) and the SuSE lizard picture on the background. I restarted and booted into Windows now.


So basically: HELPPPP!!!

What should I do? Should I try to install again and NOT change 16bit to 24bit, and just go with the suggested hardware configuration for my graphics card?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Try to get into the control panel if possible and set the color to 16bit and check the refresh rate.

If all else fails press alt+F1 or cntrl+F1 or shift+alt+F1 or cntrl+F7 etc. etc. just try combinations of the F keys.

One of these should get you into the terminal mode, and you will need to log in, then open Xorg.conf with nano to fix the display settings.

type

Code:

cd /etc/X11/
nano xorg.conf

Code:

Section "Screen"
  Identifier  "Default Screen"
  Device    "S3 Inc. ProSavage KN133 [Twister K]"
  Monitor   "Generic Monitor"
  DefaultDepth  24
  # Skipping some text to improve readability
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth   24 */ << change this */
    Modes   "1024x768"
  EndSubSection
EndSection

(nano is a text editor btw.)

Sorry that this is a bit confusing, I know this is hard to understand when you don't understand how Linux works. PM me and I would be happy to walk you through it if I can.

look here for help

Seems like you have a video setting problem. Same problem with me, but i somehow managed to fix it, though i don't remember.
If you want to install it again, then i would recommend you just go with the preselected options, becasue the OS checks your system, to find anything that is compatible, and selects it for you.
I would go with Boogityboo04's seggestion, as i am not very educated in the command line.
If you selected gnome, you can still have a lot of fun. If you want the virtual desktop switcher, then you can right click on the task bar on the bottem, and hit add button, or fucntion. Then a window comes up, and then you can choose the workspace switcher, and it add. Then it pops onto your taskbar.
If you want to install kde, then you can type apt-get install kde in the command line, after you insert your install disc.
You have five install discs, but the only reason, the installer used 3 is that it does not install everything. if it did, then you would have to wait a long time, before it is done, and then some programs, you still would not use. The install discs are for extra aplications, that you might use later.
Good luck:giddy:

By the way, if you really want to learn how Linux works, you should compile Gentoo Linux from scratch, that way you will be able to fix anything that goes wrong because you set up the entire system. And you get a great sense of achievement

Again I'd be glad to walk you through it.

Ok, I printed out the instructions you gave me and booted up in SuSE again. The rainbow colored screen greeted me. I logged in.

I went to the control panel from the taskbar, and clicked graphics settings or something. It was already 16bit. I set it from 16bit to 24bit, and after it switched, it was still all messed up. It still had the rainbow colored stripes, so I clicked no when asked if I want to keep these settings.

Another thing, it was pretty weird on that screwy desktop. If I run my cursor to the right edge of the screen, it will emerge out from the left edge of the screen, all while still moving my mouse towards the right. If I drag a window to the right edge of the screen, the part of the window that is cut off at the end will start emerging from the left edge of the screen. Wow...

Anyway, I did Ctrl+Alt+F1 and it got me into terminal mode. I typed in the initial command:

cd /etc/X11/
nano xorg.conf

I scrolled down until I found the right section. I copied it down. Here is exactly what it said:

-------------------------

Code:

Section "Screen"
   DefaultDepth 24
   SubSection "Display"
      Depth    16
      Modes    "default"
   EndSubSection
   Device      "Device[0]"
   Identifier  "Screen[0]"
   Monitor     "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

----------------------------

I didn't change anything, because my info there was different than the example you gave me so I didn't know what to do. The interface of terminal mode was also foreign to me so I wanted to get out before I accidentally nuke my hard drive in a few wrong keystrokes...

But hopefully this new info will help diagnose my problem further. Because it seems that it was already set to 16bit instead of 24bit...

Thanks!

Don't worry, as long as you aren't root user you can't do too much damage in terminal, and you should get used to it, it is often the most efficient or only way to do stuff...

Well, the settings look ok in the Screen section, try this:

DISCLAIMER: This could mess a bit of stuff up and take a while to finish correctly, so if you don't want to spend time tweaking, just try a reinstall.


Now you need to log in as root, so be careful what you do, but if you don't go around deleting stuff you'll be fine

Code:

su

now type in your root password (you did set one right?)

Now do:

Code:

Xorg -configure

This will generate a new Xorg.conf by asking you a few questions about your hardware.
Look at the last lines it prints to make sure there was no errors.

Now test it with:

Code:

X -config /root/xorg.conf.new

If it works you should see a B/W pattern and your mouse.

If it is working copy it over to be your new config file like this:

Code:

cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Now when you restart it should at least give you some sort of graphical interface that works correctly, and I can help you from then on.

From what I understand, I must do some tweaking for a viewable screen first, and then from there it needs further troubleshooting to make the graphics card work...

Erm. Nah. That would be ridiculously inconvenient compared to just re-installing.

I guess I'll just try to install it again. Do I have to uninstall the current messed-up Linux first?
Can I do this by using the Windows Disk Management tool and just delete the Linux partitions?

How am I supposed to go about removing it?

Thanks so far for all the help!

Maybe you did not pay much attention in the SuSE installer (it is a bit.. untraditional). I have installed 10.1 myself and you can set up everything manually if you pick the right (advanced) options. Including getting both Gnome and KDE, manually partitioning and graphics configuration.

Ok, I'll make sure I have a look through the advanced options and expert configuration settings next time.

But still, how do I remove the messed-up installation that I currently have? Can I just delete the Linux partitions (turn them into un-partitioned space) ??
If I just delete the partitions, will it delete the Linux installation, the GRUB bootloader, and everything else?

Thanks in advance.

Just start the installation again (choose to make a new install, not an upgrade). In the partitioning part you can redo/format all the partitions.