Hey guys! I am brand spanking new to linux and this board and
I need some help. I am taking a linux class in school right now, and we are using SUSE linux 11.0. I went out and bought an Acer Extensa 4420 tonight to use as my "experimental" school machine. I got a great deal on it at bestbuy so I am pretty excited. The first thing I want to do is put linux on this machine so that I can learn and play around with it. I want to utilize all of the visual effects and things present in SUSE that I can use in VMWare, so I want to go ahead and do a real install on this machine. I have been scouring the internet tonight and it seems that I may face some problems trying to put linux on this machine. I have a fresh copy of Windows I can put on this machine so I am going to go ahead and wipe the hard drive on it. I have been reading on the net though that I may have some problems with going back to windows one day if I decide to, and that SUSE may not work right on this machine...i.e. my wireless won't work and stuff like that. Unfortunately I cannot find alot of information about people trying to put SUSE 11.0 on this machine, but I did find this link in my search. I'll post a link to my laptop on best buy's site, and I was hoping if maybe someone on here could take a look at the machine and tell me if SUSE will on it smooth if I format the drive, or if there will be some issues I'll face. I really know nothing about Linux, but I am very impressed with it so far and may just leave this machine a linux machine if I can learn to use it as well proficiently as I can with Windows. Could anyone offer me any help...or tell me what I need to do before I do this tonight. I would like not to brick my laptop and not be able to go back to windows if I can't get SUSE working right. I read in some Unbuntu forums that people couldn't get their notebooks (this model) to boot to a Windows CD after trying to install Unbuntu. Thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer me. I really don't know what to do about drivers, or where to get them, or if it is even necessary. Sorry about the wall of text. Thanks again.

Forgot the link...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1211587727715

Just to give you guys an update:
My first install attempt froze on a status bar at the install customization screen. My second install attempt allowed me to get to the point where the install began to shrink the windows partition, and that just completely errored out and went to a bios looking screen with a choice menu. In my third attempt, I deleted all visible partitions, created a primary partition and 2gig swap file, and then begant he installation again. Apparently something about linux didn't like the idea of sharing an HDD with Windows because now it was working. I waited, and waited, and waited...class ended...and I still waited. I had an estimated time of 4 minutes and some change for the 2gig swap file to finish being created....and BAM! The battery on my computer died. I have not had a chance to work on this project since then yesterday. I will keep everyone updated. I am surprised this post has no responses...a little dissappointing.

Hi. I bought the Acer 4420-5963 from Best Buy in Sept. and installed Open Suse 11 along with Vista.
My only problem was in partitioning it the way I wanted, but I think this was my own somewhat lack of knowledge.
Anyway, installation went fine and I was able to dual boot either Vista or OpenSuse.
As for wireless, it seems to be the main problem with Linux these days. There is a program called WIFI radar that you can download and install. It installs the driver for your card and detects any networks available. But I did have intermittent problems with it, so i installed Ultimate Linux (a derivative of Ubuntu hardy Heron) on it and things work fine. I have to connect manually to our secured router every time I boot into Linux, but it does it with problems.
Hope this helps

well maybe you should have tried instaling it on a virtual machine using vmware to try it out if it works. it would have probably worked it the battery hadn't died and finished the installation so maybe you should try doing it again. oh and under posted a good program for wifi called wifi radar that i personaly use to connect to my college routers.

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