Hello everybody -- I've now got a successful Linux SUSE 9.1 (Pro) running on a large Sony VAIO PCG-GRT816S with the huge lovely black onyx screen (16 in) at a sensible resolution of 1400 X 1050.

Wireless, sound, DVD playing, DVD burning, connection to windows network, firewire external hard drive (Maxtor 250GB) and camera 1GB CF card via pcmcia adapter all work perfectly although I had to do a few tricks on the way.

I'm dual booting this system with Windows XP home but will get rid of it once I'm happy with the SUSE 9.1 installation.

Note I'm NOT a Gamer -- I USE my computer for work / office a lot so I can't help anybody with eseoteric computer games / consoles / x-box etc type problems however I do have a fully functioning Multi-media equipped wirelessly connected laptop which seems to be just as functional as Windows.

The only programs I need 'DOZE for are Adobe photoshop (I'm a pro photographer) and a program most of you won't know but it converts camera RAW images into TIFF. I can run photoshop under WINE but still need 'Doze for the camera picture conversion -- However there might be a work around for this.

Anyway this is what I did to get a working system.

1) I BACKED the whole system up -- very important in case things get hozed up. I used DRIVEIMAGE 2002 to copy the partitions to my external hard drive. Norton Ghost, Acronis or other equivalent program can be used.

2) My hard disk on the Sony is 80GB -- I used 'DOZE partition Magic to partition the disk -- I'd read enough on the forums about some problems with partitioning on Linux. I created a 12 GB single root (/) partition and a 1GB swap partition -- I have 1GB RAM and the approx rule is make your swap size equal to the amount of RAM in the system.

3) Booted from the SUSE DVD --- be careful as it is double sided -- one side is for 64 bit machines. I prefer this otherwise you have to keep inserting CD's -- there are 5 of them.
4) Selected all the default options but added some packages in the selection.

5) In addition to the standard packages I added the web browsers Galeon and Mozilla-firefox and some extra true type fonts. I added also KBEAR which is a graphical and easy to use FTP program almost exactly like the 'DOZE program WS_FTP . I also selected SAMBA, Mysql and Lin Neighbourhood which operates just like the Windows program for browsing Windows networks.

6) I let the install go on -- took around 40 minutes. It boots towards the end so select the option BOOT FROM HARD DISK and the install continued.

7) Now the system sets up settings for you. For my Network card I selected STATIC IP and typed the DNS and ROUTING/ Gateway manually as I don't have a DHCP server. I just have a DSL modem and router connected to the internet and the Lan switch and plug my computer in via another port on the switch or use the Wireless access point (also pluged in to the Lan switch).

I have both a Network card and a wifi card -- but I deceided to set up the wifi AFTER installation since I need the online update and the wired network card worked straight out of the box.

When you are prompted to set the Network card up

SET THE NETWORK CARD TO START MANUALLY (startmode="manual") at boot up time otherwise you'll get conflicts when you plug the wireless card in. The configuration settings will give you this option under ADVANCED if you don't want to do it yourself in the etc/sysconfig files.

Go through the rest of the prompts -- but when setting password for root set the options to MD5 otherise you'll be restricted to 7 letters / digits.

DO --MOST DEFINITELY DO the initial ONLINE UPDATE (YOU -- YAST ONLINE UPDATE).

This will load the Nvidia driver and kernel and also other bug fixes. Works a treat and also checks whether your Internet is working. I also got the Microsoft fonts.

After all this is done set your X settings -- choose LCD 1400 X 1050 @ 75 HZ for the monitor, Enable 3D (yes it works) and choose for resolution 1050 X 1400 and all modes less than this.

Finally add users and boot. == TIP especially at the beginning CHANGE RUNLEVEL TO 3 as it's much easier to type various commands from a native console to fix things and then start X manually.

OK now we've booted -- login as root . start your wired network just to check Internet works. so enter IFUP ETH0. Should be fine.
Now start X and try Konqueror web browser or Mozilla etc.

OK now We'll get DVD and the other stuff to work -- see next post

OK now logout and Login as a user.

Start X and the first thing you'll see is that the size of the left hand menu looks too large -- the fonts are OK but the space between the entries is much to big. Weird as it's fine on Root. Took a bit of research this one but got the answer.

OK start the file browser and set the settings to VIEW HIDDEN FILES. In your home directory look for .kde (yes the . is part of the name) then share then config (~.kde/share/config) and finally a file called kikerrc. Edit this for example mine has this in it

[$Version]
update_info=kickerrc.upd:kde_3_1_sizeChanges

[Applet_1]
ConfigFile=minipager_panelapplet_bv3rtevcwuwmcfgyame5_rc
WidthForHeightHint=36

[Applet_2]
WidthForHeightHint=208

[Applet_3]
WidthForHeightHint=108

[Applet_4]
WidthForHeightHint=75

[General]
Alignment=0
AutoHideDelay=3
AutoHidePanel=false
AutoHideSwitch=false
BackgroundHide=false
CustomSize=0
ExpandSize=true
HideAnimation=true
HideAnimationSpeed=40
HideButtonSize=14
Position=3
ResizeableHandle=false
ShowLeftHideButton=false
ShowRightHideButton=true
Size=2
SizePercentage=100
UnhideLocation=6
XineramaScreen=0

[ServiceButton_1]
StorageId=kde-konsole.desktop

[ServiceButton_2]
StorageId=kde-Home.desktop

[ServiceButton_3]
StorageId=kde-konqbrowser.desktop

[ServiceButton_4]
StorageId=kde-KMail.desktop

[ServiceButton_6]
StorageId=kde-Help.desktop

[menus]
RecentAppsStat=5 1089420146 /usr/share/applications/YaST.desktop,5 1089422447 /usr/share/applications/xsane.desktop,4 1089452967 /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/KControl.desktop,4 1089418038 Multimedia/xine.desktop,3 1089421231 /opt/kde3/share/applications/gnome/galeon.desktop,2 1089418656 /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/konquerorsu.desktop,2 1089421100 /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/kooka.desktop,1 1089420222 /opt/kde3/share/applications/gnome/gimp.desktop,1 1089419755 /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/ksnapshot.desktop,1 1089419112 /opt/kde3/share/applications/kde/konqbrowser.desktop

If yours shows a Menusize option as the first line in [menus] just delete it or change it to 15. Mine was originally set to 48. That'll fix the problem.
Now DVD playing -- Use YAST to delete all the XINE supplied stuff and KAFFEINE. Careful however don't delete XINETD -- nothing to do with XINE.

Log on to http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/
Download and install IN THIS ORDER LIBDVDCSS, LIBXINE1,W32CODEC,XINE-UI.


Insert DVD player and start DVD. If you are not root You'll probably get an error. First you have to ensure you have access to /media/dvdrecorder and then You'll ALSO need access to /dev/hdc as there are links. Ensure the input in the XINE settings is set to /media/dvdrecorder ( It could be different on your machine but you'll still need the permissions to be set


OK should work. If the playback is jerky set the DMA on for the device. This is done in YAST. That fixes the playback problem.

Now Wireless. I Have a LINKSYS WPC54G 54g wireless cardr. This is one time where I spent 19 USD to get the LINUXANT drivers from http://www.linuxant.com -- It's only 19 USD and my time is much more valuable. I've seen so many horrors of trying to get Wireless to work that I went for this option. In anycase you get a 30 day free trial so try it to see if it works for you. Download the latest driver from the site

CLOSE DOWN YOUR ETH0 connection -- ifdown eth0.
Insert your wireless card and install the driver. Follow the VERY CLEAR instructions. -- You'll need the Windows drivers as well but you can get those from the CD you got with the card or from the linksys site.

Check it via IWCONFIG.

Now go back to YAST to configure the IP addresses etc. --Just do it as per the Wired card -- I've given it a different IP address but otherwise routings, gateway as before. I don't have a DHCP server. Set the card (startmode="hotplug") to start via HOTPLUG. I'd leave things like firewalls and encryption until after you've got the base system working -- it's easier to fix one thing at a time. Ping your gateway -- should be fine.

Finally let's get a camera CF card to work.

Create a folder called CFCARD in /MNT.

Allow read / write access
You'll have to allow read write access to /DEV/HDE1 (or whatever it is on your system -- use DMESG to find out what its called but if you've got a similar laptop to mine then it will be hde1.

From root mount -t vfat /dev/hde1 /mnt/cfcard

Now you'll have read / write access to it.

Problems still unresolved

1) Konqueror -- after installing DVD player can't get Realaudio to work -- keeps saying REALAUDIO PLUGIN not found
Not an issue really as Galeon and Firefox both work.

2) Scanner (XSANE / KOOKA) only work when I'm root -- not too much of a problem but it'll need a guru to fix as this is a problem with permissions via hotplug. -- I'm not a computer guru so I'll leave this to others.

3) Modem -- haven't tried and don't care as I never use it anyway -- but it' one of those horrible winmodems built in. If you MUST use a modem get a "Normal" external one.

Otherwise I'm happy and it's a very stable distro.

I've also updated to KDE 3.2.3 -- Real player problem still the same -- and I'm NOT uninstalling the DVD player.

Good luck everyone.

Added -- even the wheel on my mouse worked

- I'm using a PS2 to USB connector (double) so I can plug in an ordinary PS/2 mouse and keyboard without having to find new USB one's. Model GUC10KM from IOGEAR
http://www.iogear.com and do a product search on GUC10KM

-- BTW this adapter doesn't need any drivers on Linux -- type NO when prompted for NEW Hardware found otherwise you'll lose Wheel scrolling ability. Not a misprint TYPE NO.

There's also no serial port on this machine so if you DO use an external modem get a USB one.

Update on the previous post -- The USB scanner which I could only get to work as ROOT now works as USER -- I try and only use ROOT when I really have to --especially if other people use the machine.
The problem is with permissions being assigned via the HOTPLUG USB system. I've posted the fix for this in the HARDWARE section as it is valid on desktops as well as laptops and is a bit complicated to explain.

So only MODEM and Konqueror Realaudio plugin -- neither of which bother me.

Finally I'm DONE and backing up the system.

I've read horrors about this distro -- it's been fine for me and my remaining machines will be upgraded this weekend.