Issue with burning ISOs of SUSE 10.0 OSS
 

Hello all. I thank you in advance for looking at this post.

I am a new user to Linux and to this message board as well.
:Pengy: I have been having problems with burning SUSE 10.0 OSS ISOs. I have tried burning the CD and DVD versions with Nero and another piece of software called ISORecorder at the slowest speeds (to ensure no data corruption/loss) but to no avail! They burn fine, but when I put them into another machine or even the machine I have just burned them on, they don't boot at all. Nothing, nada. I can explore the CDs and everything else, but they won't boot. I've tried booting from the ISOs in DOS as well. I am getting tired of burning coasters, should I just buy the retail version? This will be my first dive into Linux, I am excited and ready to get started, hopefully you guys can help! :)

I am running Windows XP Pro SP2, if you need any hardware specifications I will be glad to post them.

THANKS!

First make sure your BIOS is set so that it boots first off CD/DVD drives. Second, if those discs still aren't burning, try to burn and boot another OS. If mandriva isn't working, try Fedora or Ubuntu. If that still dosen't work, burn them on another machine, maybe your CD-burner is broke or something. If you ever get one to boot, be sure to run the check to make sure its a valid install disc, all linux OSes i've played with include such a tool. Lastly maybe you've downloaded a bad ISO, try to download another one from a different server.

See if any of those suggestions help. There is usually no need to buy a copy unless you want donate some money to a good cause!

There's more to burning ISO's than burning the .iso file to a CD. That won't work. This will be much simpler once you have your first Linux installed. Then all you have to do is double click the .iso file and k3b does what it needs to. My first install of Linux was off a purchased CD -- costs less than $10 depending on where you order it. Baring that you will have to figure out how to burn a bootable CD from an .ISO file. Logically its similar to having to unzip before you can execute one of the files in that zip package. When an .ISO is properly burned, the resulting CD will be bootable and have many directories and files on it.

Oh, wait, you didn't just burn the iso as one big file to the CD as fragos suggested did you? Thats a no no. You need to use Nero or something to properly unpack the iso and put it on the CD for you.

Thanks for the quick response guys, I took into consideration that the money goes back into the project so I have decided to purchase SUSE 10.0. I would also like the documentation that comes with it since I am a newbie Linux user.

Good choice!

Ralzius, if you haven't bought it yet, I'd suggest holding out for a month or so, for SuSE 10.1.

Kimvette, is there a plus to waiting for 10.1? Does SUSE not update itself from version to version?

If I may answer the second part: An update from 10.0 to 10.1 will require a complete new installation of every installed package, so in a way it makes sense to wait a little if you want to avoid the downloading/burning troubles.

And take into consideration that if your hardware does not boot from the burned CD/DVD, it may not do it with the retail version either. Maybe you should do some further research what went wrong with your ISO images. Where did you download them? Did you compare md5 checksums?

Retail is a great way to go for "noobs" as you get free support when you get retail, installtion support and problems/upgrade support for a year as I recall.

10-10.1 has some massive updates in my opinion. You get the latest in all software packages and the kernel. You get the benefit of a kernel with NTFS read and write enabled(since 10.1 will use a kernel post 2.6.15) not to mention the speed and driver updates from the 2.6.15 and 2.6.16 series. You get the latest in FF 1.5.01, and Thunderbird(which wasn't in 10.0), KDE 3.5(I believe 3.5.1 is under consideration for the 10.1 final), Amarok 1.3.8 and other things. All of this makes for a more functional and up to date OS. Sure all these could be downloaded and upgaded or compiled seperately, but that is a lot of extra DLing and extra work which you won't need to do here at the end of Feb.

I would also mention you get some brand new features, like the suse network manager, which is not a bad little toy for those with normal ethernet/broadband needs. This and a couple other goodies cannot be merely downloaded as additions from SuSE, you need the new version 10.1 to get them.

On the note of the images... did you md5sum test the iso before burning, then test the cd after burning? If they are misburned, or burned incorrectly, the md5sum will not match. The download must also have been perfect and an md5sum will tell you whether that worked or not. Then, as others have said, check the bios boot order, to make sure CDs load before HDs, otherwise SuSE will not boot. Then you have to be there, the default option on the install disc is a 20sec timer on "boot from hard drive" so if you power up and come back later, it won't be the installtion you see.

I apologize if I'm redundant regarding your knowledge but this seems worth a mention in case this isn't known. Press Del during boot to get to the BIOS. There you can set a boot order to CD first and HD second. I just bought a Motherboard and the BIOS came from the factory, Floppy 1st - HD 2nd - CD 3rd.

You know, they should make motherboards boot Floppy, CD, HDD, or CD, Floppy, HDD. Why is it never like that? My new motherboard came just like yours did.

I think its an artifact from the past -- CD is the new guy on the block and comes last. I have also seen IT departments disabling boot from CD so that the demon penguin can't sneak into their Windows boxes.

Don't fret fragos, even with all other options disabled, you can still load from USB jumpdrives, most IT departments don't even consider that one, still.

But Penguin... CD... new guy on the block? How long do CDs have to be around before they aren't new anymore? It has been what? 20 years? And DVD booting is more recent yet, but has still been around for some time.

Wow, thanks for all of the responses! I tried the boot order a while ago as one of my remedies, but it was a no go. As for the MD5 Checksum, I couldn't ever figure out how to do that. I am pretty set on getting 10.1 now, so I don't believe that the MD5 thing will be an issue anymore. As for 10.1, how long will I have to wait until that verson is released? Again, thanks for all of your help!
:D