When the previous version of SUSE Linux was published in October 2005 it caused huge interest.

The current 10.1 was published May 11, 2006 and it did it again, SUSE Linux 10.1 is definitely the best distro ever.

Unfortunately, the first published version had a broken version of the package management system. Because of this there were a few extra steps to take at the installation.

These instructions were originally written at that time. The installation goes smoothly if you just follow the steps here.

In October, 2006 a new Remastered distribution was published. You will recognise the new installation images by the word "Remastered" in their names. This new version has all the updates till Oct 9, 2006 included. So the installation from those disks will skip the first updating round. It also uses a newer kernel version, 2.6.16.21-0.25-default #1.

The changes in installing from these two versions are mentioned where applicable.

A lot has changed since 10.0, most of it is "under the hood", so it gave me a good reason to make some notes and remarks again.

Experience after 3 months of use

What gives me the most kicks is the software managing system.

Till 10.0 we had SUSE Watcher that indicated that there were update patches available, you could then look what they were and do the updates. Worked nice and easy.

But any version updates of installed software were on the user's own responsibility.

Now with the new tools you just add the installation catalogs and ZMD,  ZENworks Management Daemon, will let you know of any newer versions of installed software available on those sources.

This comes particularly handy if you have decided, like I did already in SUSE 10.0,  to use use newer versions of KDE or Gnome.

At this stage I have not done this update because for once I decided to stick with defaults as far as possible. This way I'm able to compare experiences to all possible tweaks I'm doing on my test boxes.

Installing 10.1

First of all, the installation described here goes with KDE. Maybe at some stage I might look into Gnome or other desktop versions but for now I'll install KDE.

10.1 was published with somewhat immature package management system that was corrected afterwards. Because of this certain procedures need to be followed in the installation.

The simplest thing is to do everything as suggested by default. Just let the installer do its job, answer Yes or OK a few times and wait. The necessary updates will be downloaded and installed automatically, the machine will be rebooted and the next thing is that when everything is finished evrything works.

There's one thing that needs attention, though. Be careful at the stage where you create the users. If you don't want the default (I don't) where the first added user is configured to auto-login you need to change that. You may also want to receive system mail that is normally sent to root. Check these.

Exept, of course multimedia playing which requires the normal Packman-Guru-routine.
When installed this default way just log in and you'll see that the Globe symbol in the lower right corner of the desktop will turn orange. That indicates that there are still updates available. Click on it and choose Update. You'll be prompted to add yourself to the privileged users. Do so by giving the root password and do then the updates.

Configuring the installation and updates later

You may still wish to finish the installation first and the do the updates afterwards. Here's the procedure:
When the installation comes to Configure Updating just use the automatic configuration of the update server and test the Internet connection but skip the updates. Finish the installation otherways normally.

You can, of couse also still configure the server later if you like. (YaST > Software > Online Update Configuration.)

Then you will be able not only to do automatic security updates but also version upgrades by adding the installation repositories in question. Zen will the see that you will be notified of version upgrades of all installed software.

We'll install some crucial software somewhat later to be able to play multimedia and so on.

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Music and video

After the installation is finished and updated add Packman and Guru as installation sources or catalogs as they now are called.

Mplayer, Kaffeine and Amarok

Packman and Guru are needed from these places, we will now add them as installation sources:

ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/10.1/

Rug

I'm using the new command line tool rug here to add installation sources. I'll come back to this tool later, let's just add the sources now to get things going. Copy-paste the commands from here to a console and you'll be fine.

First become root, su.

Make sure ZENworks Management Daemon zmd is running, command rug ping.

If needed you can start it with rczmd start.

rug ping
Waking up ZMD...      

When zmd is called from sleep it takes quite some time to wake up. A quarter of an hour is not unusual, this is something the factory is working on. Till then we'll just have to wait.

Later within the time it's awake everything goes real guickly. This is because not everything in the installation sources is stored in a database but fetched from the sources and parsing this metadata takes time. Like it does in SUSE 10.0 YaST when refreshing sources is turned on.

You should then see something like this:
rug ping
Waking up ZMD...Done
ZMD 7.1.1, Copyright (C) 2006 Novell, Inc.
Started at 5/28/2006 7:15:53 AM (uptime: 0 days, 2 hours, 20 minutes)
RSS size: 20944
Network Connected: Yes
Running on Mono 1.1.13.7

OS Target: SUSE Linux 10.1 (i586)

Module Name        | Description
-------------------+------------------------------------------
NetworkManager     | NetworkManager support
Package Management | Package Management module for Linux
ZENworks Server    | SOAP methods used by a ZENworks server
XML-RPC interface  | Export ZMD public interfaces over XML-RPC

Then the rest. All commands on one line of the terminal as root:

rpm --import http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/guru-rpm.asc

This will import the security key of Guru's site for the updater to accept the source.

At the time of writing this there was still something wrong with keys not being accepted.You can decrease the security level without any worries by commanding:

rug set-prefs security-level checksum

Then add the service:

rug sa --type=zypp ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/10.1 guru

The last word guru after the space is the name you give to the service. It can be something else just as long as you easily can recognize it, it's advisable to use short unique real names.

Then we subscribe to Guru:

rug sub guru

rug sa --type=zypp http://packman.iu-bremen.de/suse/10.1/ packman

And then subscribe to it:

rug sub packman

This command (services list) will show them and that they are active. Then:

rug ca

This (rug catalogs) will show that we also have subscribed to them.

Click on the orange Globe. You'll be offered K3b and Kaffeine. Accept and click in popup "+Add Privileged User". Accept the offered dependencies.

You'll come back to the window and accept (Apply).

Mplayer has not been installed yet so there's no update for that.
K-menu (the green lizard head in lower left corner) => System => Configuration => Install Software. In searh field mplayer => search.

Mplayer and mplayerplugin. Tick => Install.

Amarok 1.4 Fast Forward is on the Guru also but if it was not showed here as an update soon enough, install it like mplayer and you'll be fine.

If you've used Amarok this upgrade is really worth it. If you haven't it's even more worth it.

DVD playing needs a library called libdvdcss. It's become illegal in many countries, so it can not be distributed. Last time I checked, it was still possible to get your hands on it here:

http://packman.links2linux.org/?action=122

I suggest that if it's still available you download it and save it for future purposes.

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Mozilla software, Firefox and Thunderbird

For these pages I'm using the successor of  Mozilla Composer, the SeaMonkey from here:

ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/projects/mozilla/

As an example of how you can install it with Zen:

Navigate to the directory above and click on the rpm. Installing with Zen will be offered. Accept, give root password and that's it.

What is even better and utilizes the new capabilities of keeping up with version updates is to add this service.

Adding this service will also keep all other Mozilla software up-to-date, like Firefox and Thunderbirdd.

Adding Mozilla to catalogs

If you like to keep Firefox and Thunderbird in their latest versions as well as other Mozilla packages you can add the Mozilla project to the catalogs.

But before that make sure you understand what the difference between security updates and version upgrades is.

The software packages in the Projects are newer versions of the software than the officially supported ones, not necessarily the ones that get the official security updates. Confusing, isn't it?

When a security issue is found in an official software package  it usually gets patched pretty quickly with an official security update. These updates  are called patches and they make changes to the package to correct them. So your official package is officially patched.

When a new version of a software package is published it sometimes has new issues as well. Then these again need to be patched. The Mozilla project carries newer versions of Mozilla software than the SUSE Linux officially published ones. They have newer properties.

But since they have not been widely used yet perhaps the issues with them have not been found yet. And they are not yet officially being patched. While they are being used as project software they are being tested and being developed to mature to official versions.

Still with me? OK, you can add the Mozilla project catalog with the following commands:

rug sa --type=zypp ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/projects/mozilla/10.1 mozilla

After having added that:
rug sub mozilla
rug refresh

Last, we will use Zen for installing, let's take Thunderbirdd.

Go K-menu > System > Configuration > Install Software.
Search Thunderbird and make a choice. Let it run and that's it.

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Possible changes in these procedures

The procedures described above have changed a bit already during the first weeks of the lifetime of SUSE Linux 10.1. I've been trying to follow them up and update this page but in case you'll see contradictories please let me know of them  here. 

Other technical questions: alt.os.linux.suse