Ok, so on my main workstation I have 2x 200GB HDD's and a lot of free space. I also have a SuSe 9.1 Pro DVD and a 10GB partition I created to install SuSe. Being the crazy Linux guy that I am...I like to try out new distros all the time...and I wanted to try SuSe.

So I boot it up, and the installer fires up just fine. I am presented with a menu option "Start new install" so I choose that. Now it doesn't give me a choice _where_ to install...Suse wants to overwrite my existing linux installs!!! I see the messages...something like "Scanning /dev/hda2" which is the root partition of my main gentoo install...so I quickly abort this action and try "repair existing install" so I think maybe I can fool Suse into installing it to the empty partition I created for Suse. Here it craps out with "No fstab found"

So what the hell? Why can't I install Suse in an empty partition along with my other distros? Geez, even windows will do this...

Maybe I'm just missing something.

I am currently triple booting gentoo, FreeBSD and Slack with no problems...why is SuSe being so difficult?

There are plenty of options in the installation menu. Click custom or expert, I can't remember which, but it is there. You may need to use a partition tool first if the other distros are making it too difficult. All installers have their limits I suppose.

my suggestion...dont abort it when it scans your drives....suse doesnt format, or write anything do you disk until it brings up a dialog box telling you this....just let it do its thing, and youll be able to tell it where to install

Hello, thanks for the replies.

I tried it again...and found an option in the initial text menu for "manual installation" and picked that. This takes me to the same gui menu I saw before...which is basically a pop up with these choices:

1. New Installation
2. Update existing installation
3. Repair Installed system
4. Boot installed system.
5. Abort

The thing is, on the left there is a description for all these options...and for New installation it says (paraphrasing):

Choose this if you want to install SuSe on the entire disk or install overtop of an existing Linux Installation.

Now, I don't want to do either of these...and none of the other choices were right either, and this is why I was confused...anyways, because I was doing a "manual" install, I supposed it would give me a choice where to install, and it did. It seems you have to click on the "partitions" section to edit it...this was not there when I tried the first time (using the regular "install" option from the text menu).

So anyway... I got it installed now.

I just think it is _very_ counterintuitive to have to pick a menu option that is decribed as exactly what you _don't_ want to do, to do what you do want to do...

Does that make any sense?

Thanks again guys...

You don't have to do a manual install to choose your own partition, that can be part of the standard install. You can choose Custom under partition setup and from there, if necessary, you can choose expert and direct SuSE to use partitions you have already created. I use the expert partitioning option and change the location of the boot loader on every install.

Hey, quit worrying about it.

Here's how it goes: The CD boots up and gives you a grub style menu. From there you are given several options on a blue list. From there the install loads 50 MB from your installation medium to memory (this is obvious, you can't miss it).

Immediately following that it opens YaST (Yet another Setup Tool). This is where the real configuration comes in. After the menu that you saw, it will give you many options concerning how you want to configure your system. This is where you tell it which packages you want, where to put the boot loader, and, here it is: where to install to (among other things).

It is ONLY after you click "Finish" in the bottom right corner of YaST that it does ANYTHING to your hard drive. It even warns you explicitly that it is getting ready to start writing (It's in a big green box with accept/decline buttons).

Don't worry, your other distro's are safe.