I can not install Suse 10.2 because my USB keyboard is not recognized at the opening screen. My BIOS does not have an option for legacy keyboard support. In addition, my motherboard does not have a PS2 port. My keyboard works just fine when I installed BLAG 50002.

Would an old PS2 keyboard and a PS2 to USB adapter solve the problem?

Would this be a DELL?
http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Desktops/Dell

Anyway, check the compatibility list, you may need a BIOS downgrade.

I specifically purchased this computer because I do not want Microsoft to get a dime of my money for Windows Vista.

Of course, you have the option of installing a distribution which does enable the usb hid drivers during installation. Though I understand that OpenSUSE was one of the distros DELL was considering pre-installing.

I have been seeing a lot of this sort of thing on the change from 10.1 to 10.2, apparently 10.1 installed fine (but had trouble detecting sata drives). This is kinda strange as 10.2 is much improved in general.

The E520 is a good choice - all the hardware is fully linux compatible.

I visited the library and checked out a book with Suse 10.0 on the inside cover. The keyboard was automatically recognized.

I would not recommend this desktop for GNU/Linux users. I had to go to Fry's electronics to purchase a Ethernet PCI card for $6 dollars because the onboard card failed to work. In addition, every distribution except BLAG and Fedora failed to recognize the DVD RW drive. However, this is a question for another thread.

Fortunately, BLAG is my favorite distribution. Nevertheless, I would like to try out some of the other distributions to see if much has changed with them during the last year.

I supose that us early adapters will need to suffer a little to assure that future generations will enjoy the freedoms of GNU software.

Thank you for solving this problem.

The network card likely just needed a kernel upgrade to work. Of course, if your internet is via ethernet, this is a pain.

Can you point to a webpage for the specs of your box?

Did you check for a bios legacy mode for sata?
Note: if the installer uses the drive fine, but the installed distro cannot see it, this is tres strange. But usually it is the other way around and you end up installing in legacy mode (or using a spare ide or usb device).

There has been a few gotchas in the past few months when a change in vendor hardware trends occurred just after a round of new linux releases. This results in a 6-8 month wait for out-of-the-box clean installs to newer hardware.

The nature of open source is still, wait for the hackers to get the latest hardware, then wait for the drivers etc to make the next kernel build. Only because manufacturers will not release the specs - linux remains mostly behind the industry. The best HW support on the planet is no comfort if the box in front of you right now won't go.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...=DDCWAN3&s=dhs

This is the computer that I purchased.

"There has been a few gotchas in the past few months when a change in vendor hardware trends occurred just after a round of new linux releases. This results in a 6-8 month wait for out-of-the-box clean installs to newer hardware."

In the big picture of things, 6-8 months is not a big deal for me. At this exact moment, the computer works great with BLAG and Fedora. I will try the other distributions in a few months. I am just happy to learn that my computer will eventually work with the other distributions.

I looked at the BIOS and it seems to support booting from external CDROM drives. Thus, I will look around for a cheap CDROM drive.

Thank you for the advice about new hardware not being recognized. I went to www.distrowatch.com and looked for distributions with the most recent Kernel and my problems with my DVD drive disappeared.