Hello Linux world.

I am running Suse 9.2 with KDE Desktop here at home and also on an "experimental" system at work.
I am very impressed with Linux after all the problems I have had with Windoze since the MSDOS days!

For home use, I purchased Win4Lin, because I have plenty of MS Windows CAD applications which are either not available yet in Linux, or are too expensive for me to renew.

However, as I was at work when I purchased my Win4Lin, I decided to install it on the work's Linux only PC.
Wow! It is wonderful. What a pity Bill didn't know these people when he set about flooding the world with Windoze.

I am running Win98SE, and there has not been one program to date, be it an Atmel AVR compiler using 2 Com Ports, or a Chip Programmer using bi-directional LPT Port, that has not worked. I am very impressed.
Furthermore, I have copied part of the Company's server files to a directory in the Win4Lin "partition" and have set up Samba shares to our other MS-Windows client PCs.

At home, my PC is dual boot Win98SE
I would like to re-install Suse 9.2 on a new, larger, Hard Disk, discarding the dual boot configuration.
Can I, as I used to do with MS-Win systems, install Suse on the new HDD and then hang the original HDD on the IDE cable, as Slave, and copy the relevant directories/files from the Slave drive to the new Master/System drive?
I am particularly interested in restoring the Kmail folders and their data and the Firefox and Konquerer Bookmarks.

I have one other question.
How should I set-up YOU (Yast Online Update)?
If it is enabled for automatic update, I always get dependency problems.

I am sorry if I these questions have already been asked and answered.There is so much info available, I find it difficult to track it down.

Thank you in advance, Ross

yeah you can do that if you want. Ultimately what you should already have though is a dedicated /home partition. if you do then it's normally a simple case of copying that /home partition over any normal installation (as long as the users implicit in /home are recreated.

If you weren't moving harddrive, and instead reinstalling on the same device, then you are typically able to simply install right over the top of everything else, but tell the installer to leave the whole /home partition untouched. so once you boot to your brand new shiny installation, all your old user data is still there for you, instantly... no need to copy old drives around here and there....

Thanks Chris. Sadly, I need to install onto a much bigger HDD, else I would try as you suggest. I do have Norton Ghost which says it good for Linux. If it works, I could copy the existing HDD to the new one and re-instal onto that.
I will get around to it sometime soon.

I am more concerned about the yast online update, YOU. No matter how I configure it to run, when I goto system update, I find load of dependency errors requiring manual intervention. What am I doing wrong?
Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you, Ross

I will second Chris' recommendation about having a separate partition for /home, and personally I make that partition the majority of the disk and leave just enough room for the OS on the / partition. As for your dependency problems, are you manually selecting the packages during install, or using a default configuration? If you manually select what packages to install, make sure you use the "check dependencies" button frequently and resolve any problems before install. You can also boot off of the CD and do a system repair, which will check all the base packages; but that can get a little messy. From a clean install you shouldn't have any dependency issues with YOU. Another thing I prefer to do is skip the on-line update during the install, and do that as a separate step later; but that is probably just me being paranoid.

I only really said that to prove how flexible linux can be compared to windows really, in your situation i would say install a brand new install. then create your users, and simply make sure they have the same UID and GID as your old user (although even that doesn't really matter) and copy the whole directory across... splat.

I have no idea why, but I've had a major problem.
I had a message during boot-up about the Kernel being confused and not able to sync.
Well, to cut a long story short, having tried all the recovery options on the DVD, I gave up and did a complete re-install.
I didn't put my home directory in a separate partition as you suggested because I didn't know how, but I did skip the online update.

As soon as the installation had completed I changed the screen resolution & font sizes to one that enabled me to see and read the information - I have pretty lousy eyesite.
Then I ran the online update. I removed the "manually select packages" option, as I thought that YOU was supposed to sort out the dependencies etc.

When that completed I looked in system update and found a load of dependency problems that needed manual intervention.
Why does this happen? Have I set something up incorrectly, or should I select the "manual select packages" option and do my own dependency check?

I saved the conflicts list & pasted it here:

#### YaST2 conflicts list - generated 2005-07-08 10:45:53 ####

kernel-default 2.6.8-24 conflict
Required by:
kernel-default-nongpl requires kernel-default = 2.6.8-24
Conflict Resolution:
( ) Downgrade kernel-default-2.6.8-24.16 to Version 2.6.8-24
( ) Remove the Referring Package
Delete kernel-default-nongpl
( ) Ignore Conflict and Risk System Inconsistencies
mailman 2.1.5-5 conflict
Broken Dependencies of Installed:
mailman requires python-xml
Conflict Resolution:
( ) Downgrade mailman-2.1.5-5.6 to Version 2.1.5-5
( ) Ignore Conflict and Risk System Inconsistencies
samba 3.0.7-5 conflict
Required by:
samba-vscan requires samba = 3.0.7-
Conflict Resolution:
( ) Downgrade samba-3.0.9-2.3 to Version 3.0.7-5
( ) Remove the Referring Package
Delete samba-vscan
( ) Ignore Conflict and Risk System Inconsistencies
samba-client 3.0.7-5 conflict
Required by:
samba requires samba-client = 3.0.7-
Conflict Resolution:
( ) Downgrade samba-client-3.0.9-2.3 to Version 3.0.7-5
( ) Remove All 2 Referring Packages
Delete samba-vscan
Delete samba
( ) Ignore Conflict and Risk System Inconsistencies

#### YaST2 conflicts list END ###


Any help would be most gratefully received. There is a beer or two for solving my problem!

Regards, Ross

That is definitely weird. I always use the manually select patches, and just get the ones I want; but not doing so shouldn't cause dependency issues. Also, YOU is supposed to only look for updates for installed packages, so if their are updates for packages I don't use (or didn't know I had installed) and don't need, I then go remove them after the update. This keeps my system a little more organized & the number of updates to a more respectable level the next time I run YOU. You can always not install a particular update if it causes problems. I've also been running 9.3 for a while, so I don't remember if I had to manually fix things after the 9.2 install; but I don't think so. Did you get the dependency issues resolved? If not, try using the manually select patches option, and don't install the ones that have caused you problems in the past. This should get everything else up to date. You can then run YOU again and try the problem patches one at a time if they are something you need. This might make resolving the dependency issues a little easier to manage. That is more work than an update should require, but something is definitely not quite right with your system. As a final note, where there any error messages regarding package dependencies during install? Don't give up yet, most Linux installs usually aren't this frustrating.

I have no intention to give up on Linux, I like it.

The PC that I have just done the re-install on is a spare one at my place of work. It is handy because I can "play" with Linux there, when the work load is low, and then come home and implement my requirements at home without messing up my own system!

Saying that, the PC at home has exactly the same problems as that at work and it is a totally different machine.

If I download Suse 9.3, how do I install it? Does it go on over the top of 9.2, or do I have to start from scratch? I do have two hard disks here, so, if I do anything major, I do it on the other HDD, and am not completely system-less.

BTW, I tried to compress my Home folder in an attempt to back it up to one CD. It nearly completed when it hit a problem with "arts-write.raw". Any idea what that is, and where it came from? Only thing I can think of is printer data. This box is dual boot, Win98se and Suse.

I will most likely copy the home directory over the network to another PC. The file has a lock symbol on it, as if it it important, so I don't want to chuck it away yet.

Thanks for your help.

Regards, Ross

Sorry, should have answered your questions:

No, I haven't resolved the dependencies yet, but will get back to it on Monday,
and No, I didn't get any error messages during install.

I have been installing off the DVD as it's easier, but interestingly, I have been using the same DVD on both systems.

Ross

It's possible there is a problem with the DVD, but unlikely. You can "upgrade" from 9.2 to 9.3, but most people prefer to do a clean install. It usually is a lot smoother. That is why you will see people make a separate /home partition. It can then be left untouched during the install. You have make your partition table manually to do this, but it is not that difficult. You should be able to find a detailed howto somewhere on this site, or from Suse. You can do a network install of 9.3, but I've never tried that. Or you can download a DVD image and burn the DVD, or CD iso images and burn CDs. Personally, I just order the CDs only. www.distrowatch.com has Suse 9.3 listed for $7.95 on CD. No hassle, and I can be pretty sure I'm getting disks with no errors. I don't know what arts-write.raw is, but I've seen .raw files from digital cameras before. Good luck.