OpenSUSE on the EeePC

From openSUSE

Revision as of 14:56, 24 February 2008

Preface

In the following article you will find all the information about how to get openSUSE 10.3 running on an EeePC.
We are aware that there are several methods to do this but it would be quite a big howto if we describe all possible methods so we picked the fast way which Sonja developed during the hackweek and the ugly and hard way that daemon used.
If you want to try something different then have a look at the Installation Guides but keep in mind that the network installation does not work (drivers are not included).
Also keep in mind that this is not supported and if anything goes wrong it will be your fault!

Preparation

Hardware

• EeePC 701 4G
• USB flash drives depending on the method
• a second machine to prepare the needed devices

Media

You will have to download the following:

For the installation from a single USB drive with YaST Live Installer

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/matz/eeeSUSE/eeeSUSE-liveusb.gz

For the installation from two USB drives

the openSUSE-10.3-GM-i386-mini.iso

either the openSUSE KDE or the openSUSE GNOME CD.

the "default" packages from (or at least the atl2 ones)

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/appleonkel:/EEE/openSUSE_10.3/i586/

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/appleonkel:/EEE/10.3%20Update/i586/

Installation

Installation from bootable USB drive with YaST Live Installer

All your data on the EeePC will be gone after this procedure, do a backup.

1. Hit F2 on boot for the BIOS screen, arrow to the "Boot" tab. Under "Hard Disk Drives", select your USB stick as first drive, ESC. Go to "Boot Device Priority" and make sure your stick is the first. F10 to save + exit. If you boot next with no USB stick present, this setting will revert itself and the EeePC will boot from its internal disk.

2. If you see a "undefined mode number" warning during boot: this does not hurt, just hit SPACE. My hardware survived, scan doesn't help. I'll try and fix that in the next version.

3. I couldn't boot from usb stick while a SD card was in the slot. If during boot, a KIWI error message complains about "Couldn't determine file system type..." or similar, remove the card and try again.

4. The stick has user linux without password and with autologin configured, and user root also without a password (you might not want to leave your EeePC alone with it...).

5. The window manager you are logged in now is fvwm2. My idea was that this is the smallest graphical system I could create within a reasonable time, and that everyone can build their desired system from that and install all the packages they want.

6. In the fvwm2 button list, click the openSUSE icon and choose "Control Center". This will start yast2. (If you've never seen fvwm2 before: when a grid appears under the mouse pointer, you have to click somewhere for the new window to appear.)

7. In yast2, under "Miscellaneous", find the module "Live Installer". This will start a standard yast installation with the notable difference that you don't get to select any packages for installation. Instead, the installed system on the stick is copied over to your hard disk. We also use this for our LiveDVDs and it works (at least for me) like a charm, cheers to the YaST team!

8. I assume you are familiar with partitioning a hard disk. If not, please find someone who is to assist you, because you probably want to use Expert Mode ("Create Custom Partition Setup") in the yast partitioner. The partitions I have created are:

/boot 100MB
/     2.5GB
/home 1.2GB

In the partitioner you also see your USB stick, don't confuse it with your internal disk. (I am sorry, but I have to mention that.)

9. No, no swap. The default Xandros install also came without swap, and I am a bit paranoid about the limited (if large) number of write cycles to the SSD. Do as you wish.

10. Grub. You have to make sure, and probably change the default setting, that grub is installed on your hard disk and not on the USB stick.

During install, my USB stick was /dev/sdb, and the internal hard disk was /dev/sdc. After rebooting without the USB stick, the internal numbering of disks will change: in my case, the internal disk is /dev/sda when I boot from it.

In Boot Loader Settings -> Boot Loader Installation, I chose "Boot from Boot partition", and yast2 used /boot as created above.

In the drop-down menu "Other" in the lower right corner, you can edit the configuration files directly if you really know what you're doing.

As grub uses /dev/disk/by-id/... links in the menu.lst, the reordering of disks should not matter. In my installation, however, it messed up the root (hd0,0) entry because it uses absolute numbering there. If this happens to you (you will notice on first boot that the EeePC doesn't. Boot, that is):

10a. Boot from the stick again, but do not start the installation. Find and mount the partition of your internal disk where you installed grub, find the file /boot/grub/menu.lst, and change the line

root (hd1,n)

to

root (hd0,n)

(where "n" is, of course, whatever number is there already, not a literal "n"). Change the first number, which denotes the disk from which to boot, and leave the second number as it is, it denotes the partition from which to boot. Here we count from zero -- sda1 would be 0,0, sda2 0,1 and so on. If your EeePC behaves the same as mine, your internal disk is sda when you boot from it.

11. On first boot (assuming that you have repaired grub, if necessary), remove the USB stick and finish the installation just as in a standard openSUSE installation. Congratulations, that's it!

12. Log in, start yast2, and install all the packages you want. If you want to use KDE or GNOME and know a little bit about them, you don't need to install them through the patterns. Select only the packages you want and let dependencies handle the rest. This takes more time and a bit of trial and error, but you have a fighting chance to keep your system a bit smaller that way.

The image for the usb stick can be found here. Unzip and dd to a 2GB stick.

Installation from two USB drives

1. First you create the boot stick by following the steps from http://en.opensuse.org/SuSE_install_from_USB_drive
2. Then you create the "fake" USB-CDROM by formatting the second drive similar to what is described in the article above, except that we don't try to make it bootable and only copy the contents of the CD to the stick.
3. Create a new directory and name it e.g.: EeePC
4. Within this directory create two directories e.g: GM and Update
5. Copy the default packages from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/appleonkel:/EEE/openSUSE_10.3/i586/ to the GM directory
6. Copy the default packages from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/appleonkel:/EEE/10.3%20Update/i586/ to the Update directory
7. Insert both sticks into the EeePC
8. During the BIOS screen press ESC to get to the boot device menue and pick the boot stick.
9. Now you see the normal installation menue and the only thing that you have to change is the source. Set it to "Hard Disk" by pressing F4 and using the cursor keys. It will scan all disks when you leave it empty - so leave it empty.
10. Deselect "Add Online Repositories Before Installation" (remember - we do not have network now)
11. As it is no good idea to have a swap partition we have to change the partitioning - if you are not familiar with this topic try to get some help before you proceed.
12. Pick "Create Custom Partition Setup" and then "Custom Partitioning (for experts)".
13. Leave the first three partitions untouched and create one large partition (about 3.7 GB) for /.
14. The rest of the installation is similar to a normal installation except that you will have to boot from the boot stick again and start the installation again but instead of choosing "New Installation" you pick "Other Options" and then "Boot Installed System". Now you can proceed with the second stage of the installation.
15. After you are done with the installation become root and change to the GM directory on the second USB stick. Simply install all the packages with "rpm -Uvh *"
16. Now you have to fix the grub issue by doing the same as described in step 10a from "Installation from bootable USB drive with YaST Live Installer".
17. You can add all the "needed" online repositories now and do a update. If the network is not working anymore after the update then install the packages from the Update directory that you have created earlier.

Configuration

Suspend

To get suspend to disk to work you just need to add

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/seife/openSUSE_10.3

to your repositories and install the "suspend" package.
A big thanks to seife!

WLAN

WLAN needs the madwifi package from this repository:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/appleonkel:/EEE/openSUSE_10.3/

and to keep updates:

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/appleonkel:/EEE/10.3%20Update/

Camera

To activate the camera you first have to turn it on in the BIOS. Then add

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/schmolle1980/openSUSE_10.3/

to you repositories and install the "uvcvideo-kmp-default" package. After a reboot the camera should work out of the box (tested with kopete).