Vacation, Day One: openSUSE 10.2 on the IBM T41 ThinkPad

At the end of the last post , I was at the place of saying that Linux Mint worked better on my personal X30 because.. well.. it was personal. I didn't use it for work things. I used it like I would my Mac. And Linux Mint 2.0 worked great on it for that.

This was not the same thing as saying openSUSE 10.2 was bad in some way, and out there in Google Space there are plenty of glowing 10.2 user experiences. If you read the comments at the end of my post, there was umbrage taken with my review. I blame the ThinkPad X30 because it is there and defenseless, and it doesn't read my weblog.

My IBM ThinkPad T41 on the other hand is my primary work computer. It goes to the trade shows, it runs VMware, and most importantly, it is where I read my email and calendar. With Evolution. Off an MS Exchange 2003 server. The last Distro I had running on the T41 that was working well for this is Fedora Core 6, fully and daily patched. The user interface I have to use is KDE because Evolution won't work right under Gnome. It won't let me enter my password for Evolution when I am running Gnome. Kinda of important, that whole password entering thing.

I used past tense there because the comments on the last post made me decide to put openSUSE 10.2 on the T41 on my first day of vacation. You know. Vacation. Where you go home and spend eight or ten hours testing Linux and writing about it.

I won't be able to test Evolution against Exchange up at the office for weeks, but on the other hand, I'll have a chance to get to know the distro really well before then.

This is not my first time around the block with openSUSE 10.2. I have put up Beta 1 and Beta 2 in VM's, and I put the GA version on the X30. This will be the forth time, and it will be on the IBM T41. Also, I have been installing SUSE since the R5 days. If I get confused on a SUSE install, it is not because I don't know SUSE, but that so many other distros flow across my systems over time.

Need.... Help.... Just ... Can't....Stop....Installing....Linuxii!

The T41 System

Unlike the X30, which is admittedly a Franken-computer, the T41 is a totally spec, enterprise class system, ordered from IBM about three years ago, using all IBM sourced bits off the order sheet. It has been repaired once, and that was also by IBM. The video card blew up about a year ago, and the motherboard was replaced. The BIOS was updated to current at that time, by IBM service. This T41 machine is in every way the anti-X30 (where nothing is stock. Especially not the superglue, holding the case together.)

The T41 is about three years old, and looks like this:

• 1.5 GB RAM
• 7200 RPM 60 GB disk
  • hda1: 9.7 GB Windows XP partition
  • hda2: 8.7 GB /
  • hda3: 1.9 GB swap
  • hda4: 35.3 GB /home
• 1400x1050 panel
• 1.7 Mhz Pentium-M
• Atheros Wifi, mini-PCI, a/b/g
• LED keyboard light (I mention that because turning it on and off should put a dialog on the screen if the ThinkPad keys are fully enabled: it didn't on the X30 w/openSUSE.)
• Intel Mobile Pro E1000 NIC
• ATI RV250 Lf graphics card

Getting Started

Unlike the last post, which was not intended as an install review, I am going to document a few more things about the way this is done, just so "we're all on the same page". I am writing this Weblog on the Mac Mini at docs.google.com as I install on the T41. At the end, I'll download it to the T41 and do the final edit in OponOffice there. (Digression : openSUSE runs OpenOffice 2.0.4. 2.1 of OpenOffice just released, and looks to be a very significant update.)

I booted the same DVD the X30 had booted and installed from. I next did something I did *not* do on the X30: I ran the firmware tests provided. Everything passed the linux firmware test except something called HPET. Pasing should not really a shock: this computer has been running Linux since I got it. Whatever HPET is, it has never stopped me from running Linux before.

Reboot again, this time running Memtest86. I want no mistakes here. Memory passes, no ECC problems, running about 711MB / second. Way faster than I can type.

Reboot again. Now to the openSUSE installer. The regular old installer, no disabling anything like ACPI or MCE, both of which I had to do in the VM to get the install disk to boot. This is the same path I took on the X30.

Something new

I picked 'New Install', and told it to use the extra media. I did not do it this way on the X30. This way looks better. It then reads the extras disk, catalogs it. I wonder if it will ask for it, or if this stuff is also on the install DVD.

As usual, I forced an override on the partitioning: I need it to use my layout, and preserve my /home. In expert mode of the partitioning tool, it looks like hda4 will in fact be set up as /home. There are no nasty messages about the partition table like there were with the X30.

Software: In detailed view, Add console tools, KDE, remote desktop, File server (for Samba access),  Network admin tools, linux Kernel Development (for VMware rebuilding). In the Misc. Proprietary Software section, I grab Opera, Pico, XV, and Acroread. Confirming everything, I swapped back in the DVD, and off it went. 3.29 GB to install.

Time to Install

Say what you will about Ubuntu or Xandros or Freespire or Mint: they all install *way* faster. This install takes a little less than an hour from this point according to the on screen timer, but obviously not in the 20 minute class Mint was on the X30. On the other hand, openSUSE took about 70 minutes the other day on the X30, so this is faster than that was. I am guessing the Pentium-M 1.7 over the Pentium Mobile 1.2 is the difference. I suppose it could be the extra memory (1.5 GB versus 768 MB) too though. Or both. I doubt the DVD reader is different enough to make a difference. Pretty sure it is the CPU difference though: the CPU fan has been running since the install started: the processor appears to be working hard.

Extra Extra, read the disk all about it

Sorry about that title. I'm on vacation.

My wondering about the extra disk came to end here, when it asked for it to be inserted into the DVD drive so to install Pico, Acroread, Opera and XV. That was it. You'd have thought that would have fit on the DVD. At least two of those packages are pretty common picks (Opera and Acroread)

Up, Up and Away

OpenSUSE booted, offered me a chance to boot MS Windows, Failsafe, or openSUSE. I took openSUSE for some reason.

fsck griped my superblock to the disk *it* had just formatted, hda2 saying hda2 had a Superblock in the future. That same thing happened on the X30. Must be a feature. fsck fixed it. Twice.

Never let it be said I don't learn from my mistakes. This time around I had the the Ethernet hooked up: I knew from the X30 install that openSUSE was not going to enable my Atheros card till I fixed that by downloading the support.

Installer said it sync'ed with Zenworks, but it said that when it had no network at all on the X30 too. How can you tell if something is telling the truth when it says the same thing all the time no matter what? I ask my daughter that sometimes. What is “contacting Zenworks” is not a network operation? Maybe it is talking to a local Zenworks process, and I am just confusing this with the old “Red Carpet” process where it went out and talked to servers on the network about what was installed.

In openSUSE's case, the answer comes about network health to some degree after you next configure the NIC, and it downloads the release notes or not. There you get a positive 'success' flag. This was where I knew the X30 running the Atheros Wifi card had not worked. Unlike the X30, where I had no network yet, I let the T41 contact Novell and configure online update. Let this be a lesson to us all: configure first installs with the regular Ethernet connection, even if it is a laptop with Wifi.

For good measure I enabled the non-OSS depot at this point. I installed the Extras disk, so I assume if things like Opera get updates, this is where they will come from. I say 'assume', because the on-screen doc is not specific. Or even there. Just asks if you want to do it or not.

This actually failed the first time for me, saying the checksum is whacky. I am not sure at this point if it was the checksum, or if it was my Himalayan cat, Kara, who took that moment to type on the T41 keyboard. I guess she was trying to check for Internet access to order up some catnip or something.

I 'tell' openSUSE's installer to try again, and tell Kara to go use the Mac for Internet access. After a great deal of screen blinking and thrashing about, we move on. Really: cats know nothing about Linux installs.... but you can't tell them that.

Now we set up userids, clean up, and configure the hardware, mainly the graphics card. This was where I could not enable the 3d on the X30, but the T41 has a much better graphics card. And a fresh one too! The test says all is good.

I enable the Bluetooth and we move on. 'We' being the Kara, Mona (the ragdoll cat that has joined us to see how it is all going) and I. It's good to have all the help.

The moment of truth

I logged in as 'steve'. My home directory is nowhere to be found. I clearly am not getting something here. I think it may be because I see the /home label in expert options od disk partitioning so that openSUSE to see and do the right thing with a partition labeled “/home”. This is probably not a valid assumption: /etc/fstab as set up by openSUSE's installer uses all /dev/hdaX, not device label kinds of entries. Oh well, it is an easy fix.

• Add /dev/hda4 to fstab

• reboot

• log in as root

• open a terminal with right click

• cd /home

• chown -R steve steve

A dance I have done a few times in the past. I decided *not* to clean up my FC6 Gnome settings in /home/steve. I just deleted and re-added all the panel apps to the Gnome panels for a few minutes till I had it set up the way I wanted. Largely SLAB free. I'll leave root as openSUSE ships it for comparison sake. Shoot, I'll even drop the SLAB menu widget on the bottom panel, just for fun. I might as well start learning to use the thing.

Poking around

Crossover Office appears in the Gnome classic menus, and launches without issue, so that is goodness. And lookie there: Crossover apps are in SLAB too.

The fonts are configured exactly the way I like them: 127 DPI, LCD, full hinting. Nice font set.

Firefox has smoothscroll enable. Sigh. I am getting really good at turning that off.

Interesting: In "Control Center / Desktop Effects" 3D is disabled, and there is a message that my card "will not work with Xgl. Sorry". This matches something I saw on the X30 version of the install, where the running system and the installer do not agree about the capabilities of the graphics card.

In general things feel good. System feels more or less the same speed as it was under FC6. Screen looks nice. Time to take it to the next level.

More power!

In a comment to my last post, 'Matt' said "You can always add the Guru and Packman package repositories to your armory if you need more software." Google says Guru is

http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser

and Packman is

http://packman.links2linux.org/

These are also documented at the open SUSE web site among many other repositories.  I know from the X30 install that I also need

http://madwifi.org/suse/

to get the Atheros AR5212 Wifi card drivers going. That particular install goes the same as it did on the X30, and after a quick reboot, I am no longer tethered by the Ethernet wire.

VMware

I run MS Windows XP as a guest of this machine from time to time, not to mention test versions of other Linuxii. The beta's of openSUSE 10.2 started out in VM's to be sure. Obviously for openSUSE to be a viable full time desktop for me, VMware needs to be installed and tested to be sure it works as it did under FC6. I use the free VMware player on the laptop, so all my installs and configures for the desktop with I do with VMware Server 1.01 over on the desktop system.

rpm -Uvh vmware-player-1.02 and vmware-config.pl are run in sequence, all the usual VMware questions answered in the usual ways (NAT yes, host-only no, bridge both eth0 and ath0). And nothing. I get message saying I need to configure Vmware because it is not configure yet. But I just did.

It would be fair to say I have been here before, so my first thing to try is the standard updater (in this case, 105), available at

ftp://ftp.cvut.cz/vmware

This is pretty standard: Unroll the tarball, CD in the directory, execute runme.pl, let everything get rebuilt.

Still nothing. Same error message. I try a reboot, just to make sure I am clean up. You had to know that was just too Windowsy to work.

The Santa Penguins appear because I left the DVD in the drive. Doh. Oh well, it lets me boot the hard drive from that menu too. One of the nicer SUSE touches in fact is having that option on the install media for when I do goofy things like that. But I digress.

Rebooting did not change anything about VMware's not running. Plan B is to see if a new player has been released, and in fact 1.03 is out as of 11/16/2006. That should probably have been plan A. But it matters not, because that does not work either.

At this point I go to plan C, which of course is Google it. But there is nothing out there. Invoking the inverse law of Google-space noise , that means I'm a nimnal. I ponder a bit, and decide the problem is that I bridged both ath0 and eth0 during setup, which I have never done before. I change it to just be eth0, and vmware player starts, but then gets all nasty with VFS errors. It can not read the disk.

VFS ebing a Gnome thing, I ran over to KDE (what *have* they done to the KDE interface!), where I started VMware player, and it works great.

At this point I am in no worse shape the FC6: I have to run KDE to get Evolution to work there. But this VFS thing is weird. And it is already known:

http://www.vmware.com/community/message.jspa?messageID=516127#516127

So I'm *not* a nimnal on that point. I'll fix that later. I'm done for today.

Rollup

I don't yet know for sure where I ultimately am at with openSUSE on the T41. I won't till I get back in the office. I have a lot of skin in the game now, since the T41 is my main machine. It appears to me, as the comments on my last post noted, the openSUSE is working fine. Just not on my X30.

And, for the record, not all the ThinkPad buttons create on screen actions under openSUSE. For example, volume up or volume down does nothing on the screen. Under Linux Mint, I get on-screen GUI verifications. Ditto the LED keyboard light. The tpctl .rpm is installed. It just does not seem to work the same under openSUSE as it does Ubuntu / Mint.

My favorite part of openSUSE is the fonts. The screens are about the cleanest and easiest to read I have ever seen.

And now, I really am going on vacation. I hope.