I have just finished installing and configuring SuSE Linux 10.1 on my IBM T43 laptop and I must say that I am quite happy with the results. I had to fight with a few things to put on it everything I wanted, but the result is just great.
What works :
What does not work :
Software I installed :
Here are the steps I went through to do this :
Here I have chosen to download the DVD image that can be found on many mirrors. Personally I picked the french mirror at cict.
Once burned on a DVD, installation was pretty straight forward, but in order to have my ipw2945 wireless lan card be functional I made sure to add to the default selection of packages the "Non-Open Source Packages" which contains, among other the daemons, drivers and firmware for Intel cards.
Full install took about an hour, with only one reboot.
In order to have any of the following steps work, you'd better modify your installation sources. This is necessary because
Doing so with the graphical interface is quite easy (right click on the software update icon in the icon tray and select configure), but here is how to do so using the command line:
#rug sa http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/10.1/RPMS/ guru
#rug sub guru
#rug sa http://packman.mirrors.skynet.be/pub/packman/suse/10.1/ packman
#rug sub packman
#rug sa http://opensuse.cict.fr/distribution/SL-10.1/inst-source/suse/ install
#rug sub install
Other advantage of this: you do not need to have the DVD with you if you need to add additional software...
This step was maybe the most complicated one. Gladly I found a how-to at linux.wordpress.com. Not all went as described, here is precisely what I have done.
For this I used zlm installation tool which is found in the Gnome menu Applications > System > Configuration > Install software. It works almost as nicely as the equivalent apt graphical tool synaptic found on ubuntu, if not a bit slower... Just make sure you have modified your installation sources as described above. Note that some people have had problem if they had not rebooted once prior to using it.
#cd /usr/src/linux
#make mrproper
#make cloneconfig
#make modules_prepare
#make clean
#rpm -e $(rpm -qa | grep fglrx)
#init 3
#sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.25.18-x86.run --buildpkg SuSE/SUSE101-IA32
#rpm -ivh fglrx_6_9_0_SUSE101-8.25.18-1.i386.rpm
#ldconfig
#aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf
#sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx
#init 5
#fglrxinfo
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON X300 Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (2.0.5814 (8.25.18))
#glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: No
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_OML_swap_method,
GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_hyperpipe,
GLX_SGIX_swap_barrier, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
client glx vendor string: ATI
client glx version string: 1.3
client glx extensions:
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context,
GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_ATI_pixel_format_float,
GLX_ATI_render_texture
GLX extensions:
GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context,
GLX_ARB_multisample
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON X300 Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.2 (2.0.5814 (8.25.18))
[...]
#init 5Once the above is done, we need to