Opensuse 10.3 and SLES 10
 

Hello,

I heard that Opensuse is like a SLES distribution (but free). Someone also mentioned that SLES 10 (patch 2) is based upon Suse 10.1 (created back in 2006). So, the drivers are not up to date.

Does anyone know when Opensuse 10.3 was created? Would this have the most up-to-date drivers? I am looking for a good up-to-date driver that supports SATA CDs.

TIA

If you like to use opensuse why not opensuse 11.0 , it is out now a few weeks ago.
You can use KDE 4 or kde 3.5 or Gnome or any other GUI , it just what you like to install
My self start with KDE and install GNOME afterwards , so I can use them both
All modern distro support sata CDs

Thanks for the info. Would it be possible to use opensuse 11.0 with JRE 1.4? Yes, I know it is an old version of JRE (I think the most recent is 1.6 or so) but in order to install this software, JRE 1.4 is a requirement.

Also (i know it is not part of this thread - but -since you mentioned SATA CDs)

When I used SLES 10, I got the items listed below (when running 'dmesg' I suppose). But it seems as though the STAT CD is not being picked up - but - the SATA HD is being picked up (I think).

The machine is HP Pavilion a6500f. I thought the problem was with SLES 10 (hence my try with Opensuse). In other words, I am thinkint it is faulty software. Do you think that it could be a problem with the machine and if so, I should work on taking it back instead?

TIA

ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 Cmd 0x9F0 ct1 0xBF2 bdma 0xF700 irq 201
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 Cmd 0x9F0 ct1 0xBF2 bdma 0xF708 irq 201
scsi0: sata_nv
ata1: SATA link up <unknown> (SStatus A3229F03 SControl 0)
ata1.00: ATA-8, max UDMA7 976773168 Sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32)
ata1.00: ata1: dev 0 multi count 16
ata1.00: Drive reports diagnostics failure. This may indicate a drive
ata1.00 fault or invalid emulation. Contact vendor for information
ata1.00 configured for UDMA/133
scsi1: sata_nv
ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 0)
ATA: abnormal status 0x7F on port 0x977 Vendor: ATA Model : SAMSUNG HD501LS Rev: CR10
Type: Direct-Access
ANSI SCSI Revision: 05
SCSI device sda: 976773168 512-byte hdwr sectors (500108MB)
sda: Write protect off

Hello again,

I found the old thead:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ostics+failure

which says to run "smartctl -a" on the device.

Is there a way to access the command prompt with installation software?

TIA

The modern distros come as a "Live CD" version. This gives you all the normal functions, including a terminal. You can also get a terminal in just about any Linux environment using "ctrl-alt-F1".

Well, it didn't work with the SLES 10 (level 2) but maybe it will work with Opensuse.

Thanks though :)

Often an installer will have a virtual terminal available. Pressing [ctrl][alt][F2] (or maybe another Function key) should bring it up.
]

A newer version of a distro will usually have newer versions of libraries that the packages are built with, however, drivers (kernel modules) are a function of which kernel you have, not which distro. A newer distro may be based on a newer kernel, but due to security fixes, the kernel version tends to be more current than the library versions in /usr and /usr/lib. For example, the names of some modules have changes between kernel versions. IDE hard drives now have device names like /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda because a different kernel module is used to control them.

Thanks for this piece of information. I Googled OpenSuse 1.3 against SLES 10. I saw that the kernel versions of OpenSuse 1.3 was higher. Again, I also heard that OpenSuse was a type of SLES. So, I downloaded, hoped and tried it.

It worked :-)

Just to be sure that I did not do anything wrong with the CD creation, I burned the CD1 for SLES 10 again (using NERO and speed 10x). I burned the CD (the only one) for OpenSuse at 12x.

The SLES 10 did not work - yet again.

Now to try to install the Windows software (get the dual booting feature - GRUB - working) and the software.

Thanks to all for inputs. They helped!

SLES 10 uses the same packages as openSUSE 10.1.