Is there some expert alternative (preferably text based) available for the SUSE installer? The default one tries to do everything for you, and when push comes to shove, it thinks it's right and you're wrong. I'm pretty strong in Linux, so I know what to do to fix things afterwards, but an installer shouldn't do this type of stuff IMHO.

For example, I have many partitions and use LVM extensively. I have multiple distros installed. SUSE installer insisted, yes insisted, on marking all my partitions, except one, as type 8e (which is Linux LVM). Many of those were already 8e, but some were EXT3 partitions. There was no way I could convince the SUSE installer to leave those partitions alone. I really tried. And SUSE wasn't even supposed to use those partitions in the first place. I saw the installer was planning on mounting them and formatting them (what?!) but I was able to reconfigure it not to format. Also, it insisted on extending a 10Gb partition (that wasn't to be mounted and SUSE wasn't supposed to use) to fill up the remaining unallocated space on the disk. What's with that? It was partitioned, but unused, space, so I let SUSE extend the partition and then fixed it later. There was no way up front that I could tell SUSE not to extend that partition. It insisted on doing so.

At least it tells you what it's going to do ahead of time. I give SUSE credit for that. Prior to starting the install, it verifies your disk space (or so it says). It initially said I was a low in /opt, so I used LVM to increase that prior to starting the actual install. But then about halfway through the install it started complaining about low disk space. What was the point of telling me I was good to go at the start then? I let it continue even when faced with this low disk space and it eventually croaked. SUSE reported that it couldn't reach the repository. Which was wrong, because I retried several times and it always failed at the same point in the same file. Switching to the detailed view I noted write errors. I was out of space, nothing wrong with the repo. The sizes I currently have allocated in LVM (where SUSE said it would fit, but didn't) are / 200Mb, /usr 5Gb, /opt 250Mb, swap 500Mb, and /tmp, /var and /home 50Mb each.

Of all the distros I use, SUSE has the most difficult to attempt to install (granted, in a somewhat advanced setup). Believe it or not, Slackware is the easiest, followed by Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and SUSE. I would really like to try SUSE since I've never used it before, but it's installer is just giving me fits trying to outguess me.

Is there an alternate installation procedure that is more flexible and controllable? I don't need handholding or pretty graphics. I'm using the network install. That is very slow, taking hours, even though it was reporting very fast download speeds from the repo.

Thanks!

I found that the LiveCD installer is much better behaved (IMHO) than the network/internet installer. It did not want to change the partition types of my existing partitions. It did, however, attempt to go after my *second* harddisk and add a new partition in the unpartitioned space. It also tried to create new VG's and LV's on the first harddisk to install itself into, but at least I was able to convince it to use the LVM I had already setup for it. Bizarre choices made by the SUSE installer(s) ... that's for sure. But the LiveCD worked much better for me. Compared to other distros, SUSE uses more / and /opt space, and less /usr space for a basic install. Each distro is different in this regard. Debian latches onto /var space like there's no tomorrow.

I think that when it presents all its choices to you in a list - system, partitioning, software, boot loader etc, you click on partitioning then click on custom partitioning (for experts only!) then custom partitioning again. It will present you with the partitioning screen without making any suggestions/changes, then it's all up to you.

There used to be a text mode installation, you choose it before the cd boots, at the boot loader screen, but I can't coment on if it's still possible because I haven't used the latest version of it.

The network/internet installer is already in the trash here