Installing SuSE 10.3

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Revision as of 18:46, 14 January 2008 by Matt (talk | contribs) (→‎Software)

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Installing SUSE 10.3 on AO linux computers.

First and most important step:

Be prepare to trash your computer and lose everything stored on it.

So make sure you know what software you installed on it before you decided to update the system, also make sure you know what every other user installed on it. Look in /etc and /local for evidence of non standard software (eg matlab, comsol, cadence, coventor etc and locally produced software such as c_scan, BNS, etc and check in /etc for evidence of configuration files eg /etc/stages /etc/andor etc).

Back up anything you might need - files, programs, data, configurations etc.

However, if you are on the AO linux network your personal files and data are most likely stored of the server (anything in /home is on the server).

  • If in doubt ASK someone in the know *

Second step: Your computer

  • What kind of processor? (arch)
  • What disks / partitions does it have? (df, /etc/fstab)
  • what is the hostname? (hostname)
  • What are your network settings? (ifconfig)
  • What is the root password? (you should know)
  • What cards / screens / gadgets does it have?

Third step:

Get hold of the SUSE 10.3 install DVD for your computer. If the arch is i386/i586/i686 (32 bit machines) you will need the i386 disk. If the arch is x86_64 (64 bit machines) you need the x86_64 disk. If you are unlucky enough to be using a PPC machine you need the PPC disk and a lot of patience.

Fourth step: The install

Stick the DVD in the drive, reboot the computer, follow the instructions:

UK English keyboard UK timezone

Partitioning:

If your computer has been properly setup in the past you should have:

  • A swap partition (rought twice the size of your RAM)
  • 20Gb "root" partition
  • A remainder partition (normally mounted on /eee)
  • You may also have a large data partition and a windows partition.

You should be able to relate the info here to the information about your disks you found during your preparation. Assuming all is well all you need to do is follow the custom partition settings to reformat the 20Gb "root" partition and mount it as "/". You can leave the rest untouched and anything on the other disks will be preserved. You should set the mount points of the other partitions / disks here.

ASSUMING YOUR COMPUTER DOESN'T MATCH THIS:

Ask for advice before proceeding. There are very good reasons for switching to a root + other partition scheme.

The you can proceed and your disk and data will be wiped and the new system installed on top of them. This could take the best part of an hour so go and get a cup of tea or fix this page on the wiki...

Step five: Configuring your computer

There are a number of steps in the SUSE install to follow and then a number of steps to configure your computer for the local environment:

Root password: You should know this - use the previous one. Check install: Just reports errors nothing for you to do. Hostname: This is the name of your computer - use the previous one. The domain is eee.nottingham.ac.uk Network settings: You usually only have one network card and if you have two either know what you are doing or ask for help.

  1. General network settings: leave alone.
  2. Firewall: open SSH
  3. Network interfaces: Edit this
    1. Overview:Config:Address Select static IP and enter your IP address (from your notes), Subnet mask 255.255.0.0, Hostname and Domain name (eee.nottingham.ac.uk).
    2. Hostnames/DNS
      1. Set Hostname and Domainname as before
      2. Names servers are 128.243.40.192, 128.243.40.194, 128.243.21.19 Domain search eee.nottingham.ac.uk
    3. Proxy: Set the first box to http://optics.eee.nottingham.ac.uk:63367
    4. Next the install will try to test the net setting - if there isn't a good reason for this to fail it should work!
  4. Registration: just click next and allow it to attempt this - it sets up repositories if it can - but these will be overwritten later anyhow so you can ignore any failure here, it simply doesn't matter.
  5. Users: selct NIS
    1. NIS domain name applied_optics
    2. NIS servers 128.243.74.2 128.243.74.4 separated by a space
    3. Select start automounter
  6. Ignore release notes unless you are interested
  7. Hardware config: Mainly gets it right but sometimes selects a lower screen resolution that you want or gets the monitor wrong (you usually want 24bit colour).
  8. Machine reboots here and if all is well you can now log in as usual!
  9. Log in as yourself - if this doesn't work seek advice. Then become root and cd /home/share/suse_hacks/10.3 and run the appropriate script for your location: std_suse_10.3_hacks_ao, std_suse_10.3_hacks_ibios, std_suse_10.3_hacks_sios, std_suse_10.3_hacks_vlsi etc. There isn't a huge lot of difference except for local stuff like default printers. The script deletes some SUSE irritations (eg beagle), sets up some useful stuff (eg locate) and installs dead useful software such as compilers, latex and xfig.

With any luck all you have to do now is install the local software that you use yourself, eg c_scan, matlab, comsol etc but that is beyond the scope of this page!

Software

  • Steve / Roger - a wiki page for setting up matlab, comsol, cadence etc would be dead handy linked here

yast2 is apparently good enough to use now (although it seems painfully slow to me when compared with smart). You can use this to install additional software in the SUSE repositories and update everything. Someone needs to add to the wiki here to explain how to do this.

  • Steve, is there a c_scan howto;?

Finally

you should have a working system now and hopefully you won't suddenly remember that something important was installed on one of the disks you wiped. Please fix errors in this wiki.

Cheers,


Matt

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