SUSE 9.0 Menus

[hop-frog]

When I install new software using the YaST2 installer, they are not listed in KDE's menus. Even after rebooting. The only programs that appear in the menus are those that were installed during the initial install. Is there a script or easy way to update the menus without having to use kmenuedit everytime I install something?

[nobelwon]

Since you are asking help questions in this forum, I am speculating that you did not purchase your suse dist., and are therefor unable to use their tech support. Or is it just not that useful? I am wondering if you got your suse for free from their ftp site, and if so I have questions for you. I am a newbie who got nowhere trying to install suse free version from ftp.

[hop-frog]

Yeah, I downloaded SUSE for free through ftp. What problems are you having with the install?

[nobelwon]

OK, when I say now where I mean I downloaded The ISO image for the boot cd and burnt it to cd. All new stuff for me, by the way. But when I went to boot from the cd my computer just went ahead and launched win 98. I am sure alot of people are rolling their eyes right now, because I must be showing a certain gross level of ignorance. But I am undertaking this venture to learn more about everything so its ok. Anyway, I tried to copy the floppy boot file to floppy and I got a message saying the file was too large for my floppy. I haven't had time to continue stumbling around with it to figure out whether it is because I don't know didly oor what. Thanks for listening.

[hop-frog]

Before installing...

1.) Backup important documents in Windows in case you whipe them out acciently (or intentionally).
2.) Look for a fast mirror that is listed as "complete" (or you architecture type, probably i386) here (http://www.suse.com/us/private/download/ftp/int_mirrors.html).
3.) Convert the hostname of the mirror to its IP address using this (http://baremetal.com/cgi-bin/dnsip) IP converter.
4.) Write down this IP number and the directory to the mirror called "9.0" on a piece of paper to be kept handy during the install. Example: ftp.rpmfind.net has the IP, "216.254.0.38" and the "9.0" directory is found at "linux/SuSE-Linux/i386/9.0/". Case is important.

OK, when I say now where I mean I downloaded The ISO image for the boot cd and burnt it to cd.The simplist way to check if you burnt it the correct way would be to open the CD in Windows Explorer. If you see a few directories and files on the CD, some named "boot" and a "content", then you probably did burnt the CD correctly. If you find only the single iso file, like the one you downloaded, then the burn was not performed correctly.

But when I went to boot from the cd my computer just went ahead and launched win 98.Simply placing the disk in the drive and restarting the computer will normally bring you to Windows. Most Linux distributions will start the install process automatically, but with version 9.0 of SUSE you have to select from a menu that appears during the boot. Without selecting from this menu, your computer will assume you just left the CD in the drive by accident and it will boot right back into Windows.

Where is this menu? Watch carefully as your system starts up. Are you ever presented with a menu listing stuff like "booting from hard drive", "install", "manual installation"...? If you saw this menu, then when it appears use the arrow keys to move to the second option down (I believe it is just "install") and hit enter. Some screens will load and you will be brought to the installer. I think it first asks what language you speak.

If you did not see this menu on startup, then something might be wrong: If you have more than one CD or CD recorder drive, you might try placing it in the other drive. You might otherwise check that your computer is set to boot CDs from your CD drive. Enter the BIOS and make sure that the drive is set to be booted from if there is a disk in it.

If none of the above worked for you, didn't make sense, or you get stuck at a later stage in the install, don't be afraid to ask.

[katibabi]

Hop-frog,

I am having the same issue with the menu. Although some of mine show... eventually...

When I went through the list of SuSE updates I found a fix for that exact issue. I installed the update, but it did not resolve the problem.

I did buy my copy of SuSE and have sent them a help request. When I get an answer I will post.

Kat

[chris_i386]

The menu thing seems to be a bug in the free version.
I installed SuSE 9.0 pro from a friend's DVD, and this version doesn't seem to have the problem.
Out of curiosity I installed KOffice, and it showed up in the menu instantly.

[katibabi]

I purchased the full retail version of Pro. It still gives me problems. Some things will show up, and others won't show. It got better after the update, but still a bit hit and miss. Found after logging off user and logging back in helped, but don't want to have to do that. That's almost as annoying as rebooting MS. LOL

[nobelwon]

hop-frog, It looks like I downloaded and burned the wrong thing for the boot cd. What I have on cd is a single file called boot.iso. When I go to the USC mirror, under the suse directory, I click on the i386 folder and then the 9.0 folder and then the boot folder. Do I copy and burn the whole boot folder or jst a specific file or files in it? What you have given me so far is clear and useful. Thanks a bunch

[hop-frog]

I think you downloaded the correct file, but you burnt it as a data CD. It should be burnt as an image. If your CD burning software came with any documentation, check to see if it explains how to create a bootable CD from an image (or iso) or see if there is such an option in the file menus.

[jmhiggins]

I notice that a lot of times the applications do indeed get on the menus but they are incorrectly placed or mislabeled. I have SuSE 9 Pro. But many times the kde applications dont show up. I think its up to the author who wrote the application to include the shortcuts and naming convention. Its not really up to SuSE is it?

[nobelwon]

Well, I went through the whole process of downloading boot.iso again. This time I think I did it right. I made sure the WS_FTP Pro was set for binary mode, I made sure the cd-rw software was set to burn the image as an ISO, and the cd image file says it is in fact a .ISO file.

It looks like I have a system that will not allow me to boot from cd-rom. I set the pheonix4.0 version 6.0 bios on my Dell Dimension XPS T800r computer to look first to the ADPTI cd-rom at boot, but it still boots right through to win 98. I don't get any oportunity to select the device durring the boot sequence. I looked for an upgrade to the bios, but I couldn't find one. The thing is, obviously this is not that old of a computer and win 98 is installed via cd-rom soooo. Hmmmm. If you can think of anything let me know. Thanks:(

[jmhiggins]

what burning software are you using. It doesnt sound like you are burning the ISO properly. Almost every dell I have ever worked on has bootable cd roms because they have their ****ty recovery discs :p

[hop-frog]

You could try to find the MD5 checksum of the disk to check more precisely for errors in the burn. I'm not sure how this is done in Windows.

[nobelwon]

I am using Nero. It has instructions for burning ISO files and in fact it seens pretty strait forward, but I can never underestimate my ability to noot follow directions. When I look at the properties of the file it says BOOT ISO. MS DOS name BOOT.ISO

[jmhiggins]

With Nero you simply go to the burn menu and select burn image and point it to the iso file dont you? Or isnt it the file menu? One of the 2 is this what you're doing.

[hop-frog]

During boot, do you get the message, "Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM: Failure" and at the same time does the light on your CD-ROM come one for a bit like it is trying to read from the disk?

From opening the disk in Windows Explorer, what are the first files and directories listed?

According to this page (ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/SuSE-Linux/i386/9.0/MD5SUMS), the md5sum of your downloaded boot.iso (before it is burnt to disk) should be fff9577e37c4af88877a185fcc4051f8. See if Nero or some other Windows app can derive the md5sum from your copy of boot.iso. If your copy matches letter for letter with this sum, then you have a good copy. As to whether the burn was successful or not, Nero can be set to run its own checks comparing the origional file with what is on disk after the burn. I'm not sure if it does this by default.

[nobelwon]

The Nero that I am using allows you to select what type of burn you want to do, including the option of creating an ISO image. It has a separate dialogue box for ISO disk creation.

I looked into the verification procedure and in Nero you can select verify compilation in the burn status dialogue window. I re-burned the file and ran the verification procedure. What it gives you is a statement that the verification was completed successfully. Somewhat ambiguous. It does not give you a MD5sum, nor have I figured out how to find that about the file any other way.... yet.

I don't get any mesages out of the ordanary at boot. It just sails right into win 98. The cd-rom, which is actually a dvd-rom seems to be working fine.
Go figure. I may try to get my hands on the paid for disks. Or I may try another dist. like Red Hat. I am not sure if I am knowlegeable enough to try Debian. I would learn a lot, but I may not have the time. Any suggetions? Oh, and thanks.

[jmhiggins]

Dont use that stupid wizard thing it sux. Trust me try the Burn menu and select burn image. You have seriously made it sound like you are just burning the actual file to a disc not actually allowing the program to extract the files from the image and burn them.

[nobelwon]

But the thing is, I did use the menu and not the wizard. But I think you are right that for some reason the files are not being extracted and I have to figure out why. Let me ask you this, the file I have downloaded and the file that I have burned are both 22,708,224 bytes. Does that sound right?

[hop-frog]

Let me ask you this, the file I have downloaded and the file that I have burned are both 22,708,224 bytes. Does that sound right?Not quite. The burn should have created many files on the disk. My disk contains 22,176,000 bytes. This might have been rounded though.

After the burn, your disk should contain the following files with the following sizes (listed in bytes):

.
|-- [ 2048] boot
| |-- [ 2048] loader
| | |-- [ 18069] 06400480.spl
| | |-- [ 24820] 08000600.spl
| | |-- [ 33462] 10240768.spl
| | |-- [ 46682] 12801024.spl
| | |-- [ 53604] 14001050.spl
| | |-- [ 63993] 16001200.spl
| | |-- [ 117523] bootlogo
| | |-- [ 5516806] initrd
| | |-- [ 14840] isolinux.bin
| | |-- [ 802] isolinux.cfg
| | |-- [ 1184103] linux
| | |-- [ 80324] memtest
| | `-- [ 490] message
| `-- [ 15393281] rescue
|-- [ 592] content
`-- [ 2048] media.1
|-- [ 31] media
`-- [ 26] products

Open the disk as you would a regular data CD in Windows Explorer. "boot" "loader" and "media.1" are directories, the rest are files.

[nobelwon]

Windows will not open this boot.iso file. Very strange.

[hop-frog]

Windows will not open this boot.iso file. Very strange.Open the disk, not the file. If you opened the disk and all you see is boot.iso inside, then the burn was unsuccessful.

Think of boot.iso as a *.zip archive. When you burn the disk, Nero will extract 3 directories and 17 files from within boot.iso and place them on the disk. The end product is a CD containing those directories and files. boot.iso will still be on your hard drive, but you won't find it on your CD.

Here (http://www.mind.net/hpage/nero.html) are some instructions for burning under Nero. In the example, they used Linux Mandrake. I'm not sure if these instructions are up-to-date.

[torvalds]

nobelwon, good luck with the suse install. it does sound like maybe your iso image is not recorded correctly or that your pc is set to boot the hd before the cdrom drive, anyway if you get past that be ready for a slow install, i did a network install of suse a few days ago and it took forever using a cable modem, it might be easier formatting your hd with a linux partition and then copying the whole directory from suse over and trying to install it that way

[nobelwon]

Bingo!!!

Here are some instructions for burning under Nero. In the example, they used Linux Mandrake. I'm not sure if these instructions are up-to-date.

Switching to the `.all files` extension was the difference. Now I have access to all the files in boot.iso. I thank you, I thank you, I thank you! It looks like my work hs just begun, though.