I have SuSE 8.0 on a desktop and 7.3 on a laptop.

What is the best procedure for installing 8.0 on the laptop from the desktop? I have heard that there is a new utility to help with this, or I suspect that I can set it up as an NIS installation.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanx....

Has anyone any experience with this? Conectiva has this also.

LinuxPlanet in a discussion of how Conectiva fits into the UnitedLinux venture makes this quote here...

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/4274/2/

For example, both Conectiva and SuSE ship with drbd (Distributed Replicated Block Device), a High Availability kernel module that mirrors hard drive contents over a network, but Conectiva has shipped with drbd for quite some time while SuSE has only added it in version 8.0. This tool works in conjunction with the heartbeat package, which monitors machines within a cluster and notifies the setup when one of the machines within the cluster dies, allowing the box with the mirrored drive to take over.

Is this useful for what I am wanting? Or, am I reading this wrong?

It appears to me that this will mirror one drives contents over the network to another drive. Do the machines have to be in a cluster?

From SuSE, it doesn't appear to be the answer....

http://www.suse.de/en/press/press_re...nderstudy.html

So, the next question is: What happened to Alice?

I think I understand what is needed here.

When you install, you install from source. Once an installation is complete, it is no longer source but an installed binary. What I have here are installed binaries and not source.

The ftp installation draws source down from an ftp server on the web. An NIS installation requires a server to be configured with source, as does an installation via Alice. No source, no installation.

So, I am going to have to download from source if I wish to install 8.0 on my laptop, or buy the boxed set.

By the way, I have tried the upgrade via ftp. That is the main reason I am asking questions, because I am not satisfied with the results. It appeared to upgrade a number of files, but it was NOT 8.0 when I finished. It was 7.3.99

That's not exactly the case, because via Online Update I had already upgraded it to 7.3.99, but the point is my attempts to upgrade via ftp did not download any new files and left me with essentially the same system as before.

With one exception - Online Update no longer works, probably because it cannot tell if it is 7.3 or 8.0 Arggh! Upgrades are not always what they are cut out to be.

Anyway, I highly recommend SuSE 8.0! It has all of the features I look for in a distribution -- a polished look and feel and a cutting-edge installation. It is easier than ever to configure and contains more applications than you can find in any one place on the planet!

It is great! Can you tell I am an enthusiast?

Have a lot of fun!!

You have a little semantic flip-flop there. What SuSe needs to install is packaged binaries, in this case packed in RPM format. Source is the raw C, C++, etc. code that would then be compiled into binaries that are then installed. The confusion easily comes from the problem that a lot of the distros refer to their packaged binaries as "source media".
Offhand Gentoo is the only Linux system I know of to install truly from source; Linux From Scratch of course does it as well, but you need a working linux distro on the same machine to compile LFS.

SuSe is easily installed via FTP. Not as an upgrade, but as a straight installation. Its almost, but not quite as easy as OpenBSD's net-install.

The installation method you've been mentioning going about is actually NFS, which would require that you download all of the RPMs onto some local machine and then use the floopy boot system to boot the laptop, mount the local machine's hard drive, and then install off of there.

Cheers,

Finegan

I see the difference.

I have been planning to rebuild my laptop anyway, as I wanted to install both SuSE and Mandrake (for comparison and for the learning experience). I also have Windows 2K Pro installed on the first partition.

So, I have decided to start the ftp install this weekend and rebuild the SuSE part. Then, I can think about how I want to install Mandrake. I may just borrow the CDs from a friend.

I really like SuSE. When I first started, I found SuSE to have the best hardware support. That was important to me, because I have a couple of exotic devices in my desktop (secondary IDE, IDE floppy and NVidia graphics card). Afterwards, I decided to install on the laptop, because that is where I do all my work, and that would free the desktop for the family. As you know, laptops also have exotic hardware.

I am proud to say that I have all of my laptop hardware configured and working -- including the winmodem.

Someday, I would like to try Slackware, but I am not ready for that. I need to get Mandrake and Red Hat under my belt. I did experiment with an older version of Red Hat before I came to SuSE. I also downloaded an ftp install of Debian, but it choked on my video card when configuring 'x'. And, I liked the Caldera installer.

Still, SuSE has been the most complete distro for me.

Thanks for the response. As you can see, I discovered some of the answers myself. I find that exciting. I am heavily experienced in all versions of Windows. This Linux thing is fairly new to me, but I have worked almost exclusively on Linux since the first of the year. My goal is to move my family to Linux.

See ya'

If you've cut your teeth on SuSe, and you learn Mandy, then you pretty much know RedHat. Debian is in the stone ages for potato, which is why your vid card was ignored. Skip to Slack. The old adage went, when you know RedHat, you know Redhat, when you know Slack, you know Linux.

Offhand, hardware support is 99.9% kernel, and SuSe 8.0, RH 7.3, Mandy 8.2, and Slackware 8.1 all use 2.4.18, so they all have the same hardware support. Debian Woody does too... The only real difference is that Mandy uses the external ALSA sound modules and no one else does. Slackware is still on pcmcia-cs and not in-kernel pcmcia. That's it... after a while the difference in distros will just be minor for you.

Luck,

Finegan

Since I have now found a new board to interest me, I will probably check in from time to time. I don't know why it is, but this stuff fascinates the stink out of me.

We have computers laying all over the house, with a small network, and it seems like all I want to do when I am home is mess with another box. I am touched in the head, I guess.

Anyway, great board! I will be back, and thanks for the comments. I will get to Slack one of these days.