YaST online update fails
 

I have just reinstalled SuSE 9.0 from CDs, but the YaST online update just gives

Patch information retrieval failed

No matter which server I select.

I tried rpm --rebuilddb

but this didn't fix it.

I think that 9.0 is outdated and are not supported anymore so you won't be able to get any updates. Try using a newer version, although 9.1 will soon be out of support.

I actually downloaded the SuSE 10.1 disks and Iso burned them, and also the net boot disk.

All seems to start off OK, but either way I get

(from memory)

Failed to find SuSE installation disks

on a red screen. This has an option for manual installation, and is supposed to happen. However, my keyboard freezes so if I hit enter for OK nothing happens, and there is no mouse pointer.

That's why I gave up.

Perhaps I should download the 9.2 disks, but I would prefer to go straight to 10.1

Have you tried checking the disks for their integrity? there is an option for this before the installation starts, maybe one disk is corrupted and that can happen for big iso downloads.

Yes, the MD5Sums worked out fine.

Also, the net boot disk was pretty small, and that had the same problem. Maybe it's because of SuSE 9.0?

At what point you get these messages, I think you tried booting from the first one of the installation disks correct?

And at what hardware do you have?

Well there are two options, either use the net-boot disk or disk 1 of the set of 5 to start off with.

Either way, I get the SuSE 10.1 SuSE welcome screen
Then there are options, boot from hard disk, installation, etc

I choose installation

Then I get a loading linux kernel screen

After a short while I get a red box with

Could not find SuSE linux installation CD, activating manual setup program.
There is an "OK" box.

Form what I googled, this is what is supposed to happen.
At this point you are supposed to press enter, and then select language.
However, it takes no notice of my keyboard, and that is that.

Hardware, I am not sure what info you would need

Archetecture i386
cdrecorder and dvd rom
AMD Athlon 2000+ CPU
Disk ST380020A (80GB Hard drive)
And 250MB RAM

Ah,

Is it possible that it is because I burned onto CD-RWs rather than CD-Rs?

Sounds like a strange idea, but yeh, it might just be the case. Never tried a RW though...

This message clearly says that theres a problem with the cd. About the RW I installed many timed Linux from RW but please give a try to a blank CD-R(or if you have good bandwidth download the DVD image and boot from it) and try using not the maximum speed for the best efficiency of the data written to disk.

By the way, 250Mb of ram are not good for loading Gnome or KDE you need 512 for the desktop not to be bloating. But then you'll tell me you need to pass the installation to think about performance :)