 
SuSE 9.2 Special note: I am reorganizing/re-writing these pages. If you have found useful
information here, or think that something could be expanded, please drop me an e-mail and
tell me about it. It seems the most popular items are the latest SuSE's and VMware. I can't afford
to purchase the new versions of VMware so I will always have the info on how to run version 3.2
on SuSE ... if it will. I will probably quit updating my versions of SuSE when my 3.2 VMware
no longer works. SuSE 9.2 in 33 Steps - Including VMware Some, but probably not all, of the step numbers are links to further explanations
of what went on or was happening. I got so frustrated that I decided to make a step by step table of the
events. There is lots of verbiage following this table and another table at the end. A lot of time was wasted
because of 'Security'. The SuSE Linux team, bless their hearts, has implemented even more items and cleaned
up others concerning access and permissions. Unfortunately, it can make things difficult for an unsuspecting
legal owner. All my personal problems revolved around the FireWall, this time. I need to get this all
straightened out, and that will come. However, whilst searching the Net for answers I saw that others were
having some of the same problems. So, here are some answers to questions and ways, good or bad of doing all this.
November 11, 2004 - Received New SuSE 9.2 I ordered the latest SuSE on the 4th and I got it only a week later. That was pretty fast. It was ordered through Amazon.com Marketplace. I purchased the previous version through them also. Might give them a try for your next version. Once again for this install I am going to choose upgrade. I did my usual search of the Net for any quirks and there seemed to be none for this one. Leastwise, none that will be a "big" problem. As stated elsewhere, I dual boot with WinXP and I use VMware to operate Win2K inside Linux. Those two items must work properly. (I just can't let go of some of my Win Apps.) It appears the major change is from Kernel 2.6.5-7.95 to Kernel 2.6.8. This in itself will play heck on VMware. November 14, 2004 Ok. Soon as I save all this, I will start the UpDate/Upgrade from version 9.1 to version 9.2 ... hmmmm... Nope. Got the Darlington race and calls from my kids and my brother about their PCs. November 15, 2004 - Updating Alllrighty. First CD in and a Re-Start. Well, they changed the graphics again. Hopefully the rest will be as good. The initial selections are the same. I chose Installation and hit Enter. This takes you to a nice light blue screen that says it is Initializing Hardware. It just sits there. There is a message at the bottom of the the screen to press escape to see whats happening. I did and it displays the usual startup/init messages. I feel better with this screen cause it shows that something is happening. Really should be the default. Next we get the Language selection and then analyzing the hardware. It detects that I have another version installed and asks me what I want to do. I, naturally, chose Update. Hit Enter and it reads the package information. Well, now we have a problem. In the Packages section it claims we need manual intervention.
Clicking on Packages shows it checking dependancies. Then I am presented with a list. Evolution 2.0.1.6 was
missing a lot of libs. I don't even know what evolution is! So, off to the Net. Return with the following: Next we have some Mplayer library conflicts. I don't particularly like the choices to resolve the conflicts. I may just have to dump it and reinstall it after the update. Hmmmm, looking further shows one of the resolutions is to install Mozilla!! Which will supply the missing libs. Now this is real interesting. I already have Mozilla installed! Must not be looking in the correct place. Course I have it installed in /opt/mozilla instead of /usr/mozilla. ... I just got out of the install and looked. Yep. I have the libs in both Netscape and Mozilla under the /opt dir. All of these libs are '.so' libs which means they are shared. Now do I have to place them in the shared path in order to do this install?? Hmmmm... ok I set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the /opt/mozilla directory. I am assuming that it will use this environment variable during the install when it is supposed to be an update. Oh darn... another interruption. A gentleman just called me about a job. Wants my resume and then wants to talk. Guess I had better get myself ready. (short break) Hmmmmm... that environment var didn't fix the problem. I once again got out and linked all the libs in question to the /usr/lib area. I started the install/upgrade again and this time it went to the loading screen and when I pressed ESC to see the workings it crashed. The top half showed the working screen and the bottom half was light blue. Couldn't do a thing. I had to power off. I left the CD in and powered back up. I am at the selection screen again. Install, Enter ... hit ESC again and this time it works. Well, that part did. Still can't find the libs. I just hate it when this happens. There is something that haunts me about installing shared libs. There is more to it than just putting them on your system. Need to investigate further. ldconfig.. that was it. But the environment var is supposed to also handle that. So, I'll just say ignore the discrepancies and continue. Cause the libs are really there. AARRRGGGGG!! Got half way thru the 3rd CD and died! Required a Power Off reset. Will be powering up with the third CD in the drive... just to see what happens. Well, naturally, a check disk was forced because of an improper shut-down. Rut Ro, it is a bad screwup. Have to fix it manually. Not good. Ran the fix manually and tried to continue the update. It is failing on a bunch of installs. I am going to abort and do a New Install. Can't trust what I have now. Darn. This is the first "Official" Novell SuSE Linux release. Not good. Course this is not the first time an Update failed. You can look thru my previous note and see that I have had this problem before. Only two of them were good. The 8.0 update would have been great except for the memory problem. I had to much memory for it to handle. That was a big ooopps. Version 9.1 update went in without any problems. Unfortunately, that was the last SuSE only system. Now the newest one is with Novell and it screwed up my system. It will take them time to learn. Well, I did an abort and it stopped the install and then just kept booting. So, I may not have to do the full install. I'll experiment and see if I can fix what's broke. Nope. To many uncertainies. I am going to do a Full, Brand New Install of the 9.2. The upgrade, like in some of my previous versions, has trashed my Linux system. To many descrepancies during the install. I kinda wanted to do a complete new setup anyway. I selected to write the list to a file and when I aborted the install and chedcked for the file, it was not there. Didn't show up in any of the other attempts either. Course in the last couple I forgot to check for the file. It is a mute point now anyway. November 16, 2004 - Full Install OK. I have done the full install. It went through without a hitch. Which is what I would expect. To bad they have screwed up the update portion. During the install I went through the selections and made my personal adds and subtracts. Still didn't get everything I wanted. I have an almost vanila install. So, once again I will see how good my notes are. Guess I should make some comments about the results. The screen came up with a default background of a landscape that reminded me a lot of the WinXP screen. Didn't like it. So I changed to one of the SuSE backdrops. There are 6 icons on the desktop... Office, Trash, SuSE help, Printer, My Computer and Network Browsing. Network browsing, naturally didn't work cause I don't have my Samba config installed. In the install, my Partitions were found and almost correctly setup. I am still using the ext2 file system ... just because. So, I naturally had to set that up. I did a full format of both of the Linux partitions, root and opt. The area that it died in during the update was installing Office. Got 50% thru the install of Office and hung. (this is on the third disk) This time it went thru just fine. I didn't have the proper info right at hand to get my Internet connections setup so I didn't get to do the Y.O.U. at the end of the install. So, I guess the first order of business is to get my Internet connection working. After checking that there was nothing strange new in the home files I copied my Personal files over to my new Home. (alias, function, bashrc, xinitrc) And copied my directories, bin, gif, sound, music, notes, scripts and vmware. Restarted, just for grins, to make sure I didn't break anything .. yet. Which reminds me, I added the Lock/Logout Applet to my task bar. Oh, and another thing, I didn't have to mount my floppies or my CD/DVD's. They have once again made that the default in the setup ... and this time it looks like it is working as would be expected. At least so far. You can insert or remove either at any time. Just like in ... glup .. Windows. One other thing, I moved the icons on the desktop to where I want them. We'll see if it leaves them alone. I have had some problems in the past. First problem: The KDE logon screen came up shifted to the right. Now I had used SAX2 and my monitor controls to get the screen straight. I signed on without changing anything just to see if it would be correct in my home area. Nope. But ... my two terminal windows were up and the icons on the desktop and the taskbar looked smaller ... just like they did in my previous version. (they also were NOT where I placed them) Could it be my xinitrc?? I took it out and restarted. Ok, put my xinitrc back in and re-setup my display with just SaX2. Re-started. Wow. .. Wow. It re-started and the screen was shifted to the right again. Only this time when it
came up in my home dir everything was bigger AND the icons were where I placed them previously!! Ok, drastic measures now.
Power off shutdown. Hmmmm... the initial selection screen and the startup are centered. But when it gets to the
logon screen it is shifted to the right. And it is not the proper resolution. The xterm windows that I have come up are
to big. They go beyound the screen boundaries. Now in my previous versions I had a 1280 x 960 screen. Went into SaX2 and found that
it was 1280 x 1024 ... not what I want. Changed it and then the resizing worked better. Restarted and the screens
came up correctly. Icons also stay where I put them now. Internet: Evidently, I have access to the Net. I went into the settings via YAST and the only thing that I
added was 192.168.0.1 for the Gateway. It had all the rest. Part of which I had set during the install and the rest it
figured out for itself. (getting smarter) Anyway I was able to successfully ping suse.com and get replies. So I am connected
to the Net. Local Area Network: At this time, due to my son moving out and taking his PC, and another young man staying with us
and my Hobby room became his room, I only have my wife's PC to connect to. Until I get VMware up and running again. I think
I am gona try the local net first. So, what do we need? Let's think about this for a moment. All of the machines that I
connect to are Windows PCs. Therefore, I need to get Samba configured and running. Also need my Apache so that I can be
the main honcho in my Network. Files: smb.conf, hosts, httpd.conf, fstab (for remote mounting) and that is all I can think
of at the moment. Well, I had to enable httpd and set it so that Samba would start when the system starts. I should now have my LAN working. Doing a re-start and we'll check what I fixed ... or broke. Oh darn, I couldn't ping dars-pc. I am out of time for now. Gota go to work. Will finish tonight ... maybe. Good progress though. Nedit: Ok. Minor interruption in LAN so that I can get Nedit setup and running. I just can't remember whether
I install it as root or as myself. This damn permission thing, and what gets setup where, and by who, can get so frustating.
Allrighty, we set it up as root in the /usr/local/bin area and then we can all use it. Had same problem in root as the last time.
Still fighting it. Thought the two display settings changes would work, but not. (later) Ok copying the .Xauthority from my home
dir to /root did the trick. (no it didn't) Now all I have to do is set the path... or change the alias to have the full path. (which I did)
Also checked the display settings and they must be set to yes. It's later and I am back to this permission thing. I want to get the xhost thing straight now.
It used to work with 'xhost + localhost' and now it is not. I am still getting: I only left the incorrect info above for reference. I found the 'incorrect' info on the Net. So if others are searching then maybe you'll find this and learn to not do it that way. The following way is better. After searching all over the net I found a discussion on
LinuxQuestions.org
that came up with a fix. At least for now. Use 'xhost + local:root' and it works. When finised,
use 'xhost - local:root' so we are secure again. Boot / Halt: Copied my boot.local and halt.local into the rc.d dir. The boot local is to setup for my zip drive. The halt local is to eject the zip and close down items that are open. Changes were made to the halt local to get the proper paths. Placed icons for my Win Drives D and E on the desktop. In the current configuration,
they are both mounted when the system starts up. In my previous system setups, I had not allowed this. I would
always have to manually mount the Win drives. I think I am gona leave it this way. I was always mounting them
first thing anyway. November 18, 2004 - disappointments I still do not have VMware and Win2k loaded. To my chagrin, I foung number of tools missing in this version of SuSE. I do believe that I may just do kernel updates in the future. One of the things that I liked about the SuSE distribution was all the goodies. Now, on this first release from Novell it seems all that is missing. I had to go out to the Internet to get Bluefish, the Linux HTML editor, which is what I use until I can get my Homesite editor going in VMware/Win2k. Also missing Nedit and qps. (Ok. Uncle on BlueFish. It was/is included and I just missed it.) As for the LAN, I can ping Dar's PC but I am not sure about accessing any of the files yet. In previous versions I had mount points for her drive D and the Zip drive. I may try that again. Well, looking at the fstab in /etc and then reading up about ACL, I see why I had so much trouble setting up Samba and my SuSE 9.1. They have made some changes/improvements to the permissions handling. In my 9.1 install I was having some wierd problems that turned out to be because of my Zip drive. Could be related to this... maybe. The Zip Drive: I setup my boot.local to use modprobe to load the imm driver for my Parallel Port Zip Drive. Modprobe is used to add and remove modules from the Linux Kernel. (lsmod to see the modules) The imm module is used for the newer 250MB drives. This is the interface from the parallel port to the SCSI system. For the older models, you'll first need to add a couple lines to
Then load the module by running November 19, 2004 Got side tracked again. In the last hours I have gotten the following working: November 21, 2004 - LAN & Y.O.U. I mentioned this in my building notes but want to make note of it here. The online update that was not performed at the end of the install, I just decided to do it. I am able to execute my index.html file locally but not the index.php file. I don't understand. After the YOU: The files that I believe would be most involved in my problem were:
Nope. Didn't fix it. Final Race: Ok. Time out for the race. Last one which is at Homlestead in Florida. Got 5 guys who are close enough in points that anyone of them can win the 1st Nextel Cup. I'm rooting for Dale Earnheart, Jr. The LAN again: The files involved are: httpd.conf, smb.conf and hosts. Then there are the permissions
on the files that you are accessing. They have some directives in a php4.conf file that is under a conf.d directory
under apache2 under etc. ie: /etc/apache2/conf.d/php4.conf I included this in the httpd.conf file. Now then, I am
fairly certain from previous experiences that I will have to stop and start apache. Hmmmmm... well I made the
change to the httpd.conf file and tried to access my pages without restarting. Things got worse. I couldn't even
access the index.html page anymore. But, I only changed that one line. Took it out and still could not access
any of my pages. After re-thinking all this it was rather silly anyway. PHP is already working so I didn't need
to place that include in the httpd.conf file. The only time it doesn't work properly is when it is a link. But,
I know it can as a link cause I've done it before. Hmmmmm... this can get so frustrating. I removed the link and renamed curr_public_html to public_html and I could access both of my index types, html and php. Put name back to curr_public_html and re-linked it to public_html. Once again only the html index would work. Note: For those of you who jumped here in the middle, I am trying to setup multiple WebSite sources on my PC. This
is done by creating them with different names, such as new_public_html, curr_public_html, old_public_html ... etc.
Then you just symbolicly link the one you want to work with to public_html. But system settings have to be correctly
set up to allow this. Finally an Answer: The linked directory problem is fixed with the FollowSymLinks Options directive. This is in the httpd.conf file and the Options were set None.
# forbid access to the entire filesystem by default
<Directory />
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</Directory>
Now there is another Directory directive in the mod_userdir.conf file. This is the
file that controls your public_html in your home area.
<Directory /home/*/public_html>
AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit Indexes
Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec
<Limit GET POST OPTIONS PROPFIND>
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Limit>
<LimitExcept GET POST OPTIONS PROPFIND>
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</LimitExcept>
</Directory>
Even though this one had the SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Options directive it still didn't follow the links.
Now with the httpd.conf file Directory directive set as above, I can link to various other directories
as I am designing, working or playing with my WebSites locally. Example:ln -s curr_public_html public_html results in public_html -> curr_public_html On to VMware First thing that is needed is the VMware tar or rpm package. I like the tar versions. Because a lot of the install requires root privaliges, I usually untar it in /root. This will create a dir named vmware-distrib. Inside it you'll find an install document and, of course, the neccessary files to install VMware. To install it you execute ./vmware-install.pl. All of this should follow the same path as the install on SuSE 9.1. Well, it was until it had to compile vmmon. All kinds of trouble. This requires a separate WebPage, VMware On 9.2. Note: Security is great But... it can also be a pain the bazooo. I wasted a lot of time trying to get access to
files on my own system from the Win2K inside VMware. This also pointed out how separate Linux and Win2K are on my
one machine. Linux thought that my Win2K was a separate machine on the Net and didn't let me access the files.
This is good, in a way. I like to test out the LAN stuff on my one PC by using VMware. So far it has been a great
help. Now I just need to examine the Linux FireWall and find out why I can't get to my files. Good training.
Summary: Moved my table to here and decided to make a list of what was done to get this system operational... for me... and anyone else who wants to read it.
Whilst investigating problems and searching the net, I found A Lady with Fixes. She appears to be energetic in her efforts to learn and use Linux. I'm a little jealous of her knowledge and use of HTML/CSS WebPage designing. But I'll get there ... eventually.
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Get Linux 
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A check is made on the kernel. If 2.6, it is new, otherwise it is old. Now then, it is looking
for a cfgfile. I didn't follow thru properly on my previous investigation. The modules.conf file
isn't used in Linux 2.6.
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