Suse 9.2 Pro Eval edition install: Good, bad, and ugly
 

I recently installed Suse 9.2. I used Suse 7.2 a few years back, but I have been using Mandrake lately. I was using standard and somewhat old hardware, so I wasn't expecting any problems. I had Win98 already on the first HD and installed Suse on the 2nd. I just wish it was that easy.

First the good. The boot manager works perfectly, letting the default boot into win98 flawlessly. I can access and copy files on the windows disk without any trouble. It looks nice, and has a pleasant theme.

Now for the bad. It doesn't have Latex, tetex, or tex installed by default, and I could not find them on the DVD through yast. Latex (kile in particular) was my main reason for installing it, so I was quite perturbed. I downloaded and installed the packages from TUG in the /usr directory. However, it wouldn't execute Latex, even when I was in the same directory as the executable. I had to give the whole path to get it to run. I guess I need to Export the directory to PATH, but shouldn't the entire /usr directory be in the executable path? Frustrating.

It would probably be much easier to use online update, which brings up my next problem. I have a USR *hardware* pci modem, not a winmodem. USR has a RPM for Redhat, and I thought it would not be hard to get it working. A previous version of Mandrake was able to see the modem, but I can't get Suse to even see it. What's worse, I have an Nvidia video card. The recommended method for installing the Nvidia drivers? You gessed it, online update. It won't work unless my modem is. GRRRRRR!

Finally, for the ugly. When I used Suse previously, it booted into your typical KDE login screen, which also has the option to shut down the computer. When mine boots up, it gives a command line. Further, startkde doesn't work. I use startx to get into kde. What is up with that?

I'm thinking of getting a different distro, even though I wanted to try Suse again. At this point in time I didn't think it would be difficult to get it working right. Anybody have any advice?

Thanks.

Suse doesn't have kile?

Hmm
kim@kim2p3lin:~> uname -a
Linux kim2p3lin 2.6.5-7.145-smp #1 SMP Thu Jan 27 09:19:29 UTC 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
kim@kim2p3lin:~> kile
kim@kim2p3lin:~>

Wow, it's there, and I'm still running Suse 9.1! ;)

(remember to select what you want in YaST. If you don't select the package, unless it's one of the default ones, "you ain't gettin' it!")

just use the USR rpm and install it with YAST.if the modem is going to work,that will do it (i always used an external serial modem).
the NVIDIA driver can (and to use the newest,should) be installed from runlevel 3.nvidia has SuSE specific installation instructions on their site.
after the modem is working,configure YAST sources (stickey thread explains it all) and install kile.

What modem drivers do you need with a USR hardware modem? I don't understand why you would.

I have Suse 9.2, I popped in a USR 2977 and it recognized it and even supplied me with the port thru yast / network / modem. A first for everything I guess.

On my machine in the next room I didn't have as much luck. Didn't detect the exact same modem. It works but I guessed the port as usual.

I thought as long as you put the correct port into wvdial.conf you could connect to the net with it. I often go from ttyS1 - ttyS15 to find the correct one and after I find it nothing else is needed.

Have you tried my simple and stupid method yet?