How do I install Linux on a hard drive with no OS?
 

How do I install SuSE Personal 8.2 on a computer with a new, clean hard drive from CD-ROM? Is this even possible?

yes..just boot with the bootable suse personal 8.2 CD and create partition at the time of installation

make sure you have to create two partition...

one is linux ext2 and another is linux swap

then install linux at linux ext2 partition...

Yeah, I'd echo romel that it's not only possible, but probably the best, easiest way to install. However, I'd recommend ext3 or reiser or something for your root partition fstype. I use reiser. Then again, I'm not sure what SuSE 8.2 supports.

-- Oh, and make sure your computer's bios is set to boot from cd, of course.

Suse will likely suggest the ReiserFS (don't quote me, as I haven't installed Suse, but they $trongly $upport its development). I would as well. Its stable and fast and, coming from a rural area where the power fluctuates (and goes out more often), its better for unexpected shutdowns.

BTW, you have the best situation - a whole disk for your OS :D The partitioner may have an "auto" feature. You may want to go with that (unless it suggests a 10G+ / partition. Shrink it and choose more for /home ;))

Do you have to use grub if you have the Reiser file system. Doesn´t lilo have problems with ReiserFS?

Not that I know of. I've never touched grub and generally use reiser and never had any problems.

-- It vaguely occurred to me what you might have meant so I went and found it:

lilo is known to have problems with the reiserfs intro-
duced with the 2.2.x kernels, unless the file system is
mounted with the 'notail' option. This incompatibilty has
been resolved with reiserfs 3.6.18 and lilo 21.6. reiser4
introduced with the 2.5.x kernels requires lilo 22.5.2 or
later.

Not an issue as long as you've got the right versions and even then there's a fix.

Thanks guys for all your help! I got it now!