OpenSUSE is in my opinion the most solid desktop linux distro out there, and also won 'best of show' award at Linux World last april. SuSE 10.1 was released last thursday so I decided to document the installation as an OSx86 user since I install linux quite a bit to make it easier for somebody who has never used linux before or wants to try out suse.

Pre-Installation

In my case I already had 4 partiotions on my one SATA HD the first being windows the second my linux root, 3rd linux swap, and 4th being os x 10.4.5. If you are starting from scratch I recommend that you partition the drive with the main os drives being the size that you want but also make a 2 gig partition that you will use as the swap and install linux last. (suse by default will want to automatically make 3 partitions but you only need 2 a root (/) and a swap) Suse uses grub 2 and it works beatifully.

Download suse, it is available on 5 cd's (fifth cd not necessary if you don't install the Non-Open Souce Packages) but a dvd will be available next week. CD's are cheap these days and after the installation you won't need the discs after we set up YaST.

Remember to uncheck the 'Automatic Login' box when you add a user/set up password if you install both KDE and GNOME if you want to be able to chose which to use on at the gdm (or kdm).


The Complete How-to

I will be installing Suse 10.1 on my Linux box and I plan to use this guide to do so. Hopefully it will work out as it looks like that person knows what they are talking about. We'll see.