Despite being a SuSE user since 9.1, I thought I'd post some observations of installing SuSE 9.3 Pro on a machine already running SuSE 9.2 Pro. That is, I decided to install SuSE 9.3 Pro as a new installation.

Hardware:

ASUS A7V Deluxe
Onboard Marvel gigabit card
Onboard VIA sound
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
1024MB DDR 400 memory

ELSA Gloria III nVidia Quadro 2 AGP video card DVI/VGA
Samsung 172T monitor DVI/VGA inputs
2 IDE disks (120GB and 40GB)
Logitech 3 button wheel optical
104 key keyboard
HP 1320 laserjet
NEC DVD R/W
Plextor CD RW

The DVI port of the videocard was connected to the DVI input of the monitor

After inserting the DVD and starting the machine, the first decision I had to make was whether to install the 64 bit version or not. I chose the 64 bit version.

All the hardware was detected except for the LCD monitor. The monitor has always given me problems in sax, so I wasn't surprised.

After formatting /, /boot and /opt and selecting the packages (Custom), the installer installed about 2000 packages in 2 hours. As usual, it rebooted after installing all packages. So, here's the first question to anyone reading this:

1. Why does SuSE not post a warning message that after rebooting, no action should be taken and that the system should be allowed to boot SuSE from the hard disk. After all this time, you'd think that someone would have thought it useful to warn people about this. A friend of mine who also installed SuSE went back through the installation thiking he had done something wrong. SuSE should flash a message saying "When the machine reboots, please boot SuSE from the hard drive and let it complete the installation" or somesuch.

After rebooting, the installer set up networking and then connected to an update server. It asked me if I wanted to do a security update. I typed, "Yes". The installer hung on "Receiving updating information (17%)" and I had to figure out what to do. Finally, I typed "Ctrl - Alt - Backspace" to get out of X and then the system proceeded with the installation at the command line.

2. Why is this allowed to happen? Why can't SuSE allow me to gracefully exit YOU if it hangs during the installation. If someone else facing this didn't know how to exit X, they'd have hit the power switch and most probably would have had to repeat the installation.

3. I had asked SuSE to boot into level 3 (full multiuser and network). I brought up YaST in ncurses mode and tried to configure the monitor (1280x1024 at 60Hz). The monitor database had Samsung 170T but not Samsung 172T (two years old now). Not good. I setup the geometry manually (320x240) but I shouldn't have to do this. In contrast, Linspire Live 5-Oh detected my monitor perfectly.

4. After setting up sound, audio would not play except as root. I'm talking audio CDs and not mp3s. Knowing SuSE's idiosyncracies, I added myself to the audio group and was then able to play audio CDs. Bad choice of defaults here. I should mention that I manipulated the audio settings using kmix first thinking that was the problem. I've downloaded all the multimedia packs, so hopefully mp3s play now - haven't checked.

Overall, not a very good experience. You have to really know what you're doing with SuSE 9.3 in contrast to Windows XP and Linspire. Also, there doesn't seem to be any interest in improving the installer since most of the issues reported here were also encountered in SuSE 9.2 Pro.

Anand

Although I haven't installed 9.3 yet, I definately agree with a few of your issues. It seems like everytime I've installed SuSE, it reboots and I forget that I need to allow it to boot from the HD. So, I end up re-installing everything a second time for no reason. What a hassle that is. My monitor, a CRT, is a few years old and I still had to configure it manually. Overall, SuSE seems pretty newbie friendly, or has been for me. However, there are a couple things that can really mess you up if you're not paying attention. Just wanted to add my 2 cents...

I would have to agree to about the auto installer. I had 2 modems that were auto detected in Linspire 5.0 and 1 of them did in Mandrake and 1 didnt but in SuSE neither were detected and has been a nightmare trying to get setup. I like SuSE but the auto installer could definately be better.

It still amazes me that SUSE 9.x and Windows XP don't clearly tell you to remove the CD / DVD for the reboot to boot from HDD. It got me one of the first times I installed XP (I've now installed it about 5-6 times, hopefully for the last time!).

They definetely should tell you too take out the dvd, but at least they give you the option instead of launchin another installation like xp. But if you do it enough times you remember, i've installed windows xp at least 50 times (home/prof). If you use a "one time boot menu" and your main hard drive is set as first boot device by default, you select the dvd/cd drive to boot, it installs, and then on reboot you boot from hard drive as it is the first boot device, thus you can leave the disc in after with no worries...

Way better then old days of having to use a floppy to allow booting of os install disk, that was annoying! Motherboards have gotten alot better thankfully .

A fair point, but selection of the boot device has only come in (to my knowledge) in the last 1-2 years, so you could still have a 2GHz system without this option.