Installing Suse from a DVD on a PC with no DVD
 

Hi

I have a DVD that came with a magazine with OpenSuse 10.2 and I'd like to install it.

The PC I want to install it on currently has CentOS on it, but it doesn't have a DVD drive (it has a CD drive only) It also has USB ports if that helps with any ideas. I do have an external DVD drive I supposed I may be able to hook up.

It is networked on my local network, and I have Windows's PCs that have a DVD drive.

What are my options? Is there a way to install it over the network from a DVD drive on a Windows PC?



Thanks
Nat

You could get, if SuSE offers (honestly I don't know) somekind of "base system", (usually small, less than or at most one cd) install that and then add the rest of the software from the DVD. Or you could copy the DVD onto harddisk as an image (you could use some other machine than this, one with a DVD drive), move that to the machine you're installing on (you'd need an extra partition for this), then boot the installer from a floppy or something if SuSE setup allows you to, mount the image from your HD and ask the installer to use that as the media. I'm not familiar how much you can "tweak" the installation of SuSE, it could be that you can't do much because it's supposed to be "easy". But many other distributions' installers let you tell where the media is (harddisk, cd/dvd, ...), use a small base system to install the system and then fetch the rest from the net or from a disc (for example copy over network), or some allow you to install over network also. It depends a lot. I'm pretty sure SuSE's documentation should cover these methods if they're (easily) possible.

EDIT: best way probably if you can hook up the external DVD.

Hi Guys

Ok an update, I set Windows to manage the virtual memory on it's own, and it's either the same, or worse, but definitely not better.


---> wow I'm amazed this saved in firebox! while I was typing the above, my laptop completely crashed with a BLUE SCREEN with the error:

Hardware Malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
NMI: Parity Check / Memory Parity Error
** The System Has Halted **

:confused:


Ok that sucked, but finally a real error message has emerged! So I logged into Dell Support on another PC and got on live chat, and told them the error and about the memory problems I've been having lately.

They had me reboot and run diagnostics (the kind that take 30 min or more, they had to call me back). Everything passed (including the memory tests)

So Dell is now saying it must be something software related that caused the hardware error, because it passed the diagnostic memory tests.

I argued for a while that 'a hardware error is a hardware error', and that it's intermittent so it makes sense that it may have passed the test (not sure if I'm right or not)


Anyway, then they had me clear up my Windows "prefetch" folder, and do a Accessories->System Tools->Disk Cleanup and told for me to play with the system for another full day and see what happens. They are going to call me back tomorrow afternoon.


Can a software/os problem cause a hardware error like that?


Nat

parity error? you have error checking memory?

ok maybe you don't, maybe someone else has a better idea, but...

i think your memory died. download MEMTEST86+, and loop it for a couple of rounds of tests (there are i think 9 tests a round).

sometimes the first round can't find an error, and these tests take hours.

http://www.memtest.org/

>>did u ever upgrade your memory? how old is your system

ps. SUSE does offer a cd that does a network install (but i have never used it...).