SuSe 9.2 Pro, Inspiron 8600, confused
 

Hey everybody. I took what turned out to be some pretty good advice on here these past to days and have decided to try SuSe as the first distro I learn on. I'm very bogged down by getting it up and running though. I've been reading all types of stuff, but everything is using terms I've never heard before. YaSt is brand new to me.

I managed to find a download for some Nvidia.com drivers for linux, but I do not understand the installation of them. There are guides here, at online suse documentation, and more places, I just can't grasp it yet. I'm wondering if someone can help me out in getting the essentials of my system running and adapting to my new environment. Thanks for any help, Newbie J. Sabott

There are other distros that would perhaps better suit a complete newbie, such as

Mepis

or

Ubuntu

both of which usually work right off the bat, even on laptops, and both of which have LiveCDs available that let you test it all. Here is a good recent review of many distros you might find useful:

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl...147254&tid=106

Good luck!

nvidia drivers can be installed through yast using the online update.to run the newest drivers though is fairly easy.....
i create a folder called "downloads" for root.just move the nvidia driver into this folder as root from the current location.
then reboot....before it times out,enter "3" as a boot parameter.(3 will show on the line below the bootloader choices) this takes you into a cli runlevel (no gui)
#1 cd /root/downloads <----the location of the nvidia driver on my system,yours can be different
#2 modprobe agpgart
#3 sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-7664-pkg1.run -q <---the newest driver version, -q tells it to remove any older existing version
#4 sax2 -m 0=nvidia <---starts the sax configuration utility and loads nvidia as module 0(zero)
3d is enabled by default so there is no need to try that part of the configuration

*all this needs to be done from a root login

Ubuntu Live
 

Well, thank you Jerry. I had been told about ubuntu too. I'll get the live version and try it out. I figured out my Nvidia problem and the linux version of the device manager on SuSe. I can see I have a ways to go and am looking forward to it. I am, like I said, definately going to get ubuntu now. But I'll stick with SuSe for a bit. Thanks again.

PisciKeeper, thank you for that, but I honestly don't know what half of it means yet :confused:. I have a feeling much of it is just different names for fairly familiar things, and I can actually follow somewhat, but I just don't comprehend yet. Are you a SuSe User yourself? And Jerry?

Btw, I saw many things like wine and gaim shown off during the installation, but I don't seem to have either of those, and apparently a lot of other apps. I'm in KDE, I don't know if certain desktops show certain apps or what not. ha ha, my topic title really is proving to be to the point. I am so obviously confused. Screen is really pretty though heh.

I have a new question though. All of my fonts and buttons and all, though I'm running at 1680X1200 resolution, seem like text from a much smaller resolution, or as if I have the fonts enlarged through a huge dpi or something. everything is big. how do you configure this? I'll start clicking, but I'll be back, thanks.

EDIT: The configuration of SuSe is designed immaculately. it's beautifully put together. I figured it out, now I'm trying to figure out how to find the 3500 apps they were talking about, but mainly I'm looking for information on how to install apps. Do you use yast to find new apps? I have no idea at the moment how to install something outside of the things listed in yast...

<<<<<<< SuSE......amongst others.read up on the stickey thread about configuring yast sources.there is a big difference between online update and add remove software with properly configured sources.

Where is the sticky at? I cannot find it. Any suse links would be much appreciated too. and say, the best linux package sites? I think I'm getting it. Going to reboot to nix, see you soon.

bump :(

sorry for the delay,haven't been around for a while........
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=253645
this is the stickied thread from the suse/novell forum....just follow the steps in posts 1 and 10 to add to yast sources.