First time with linux ;) -- Installed SuSE 10.1 On my HP laptop

Well,

So far it was decently easy.

The installation was to easy, just like windows, click click type something click click, wait 3 hours, click click.

The hard part for me came when I was trying to get my Wireless NIC to work..... /sigh.

First I had to google around, and figure out how to figure out what card I had.

Then I found out about Ndiswrapper, and was able to install a driver. But that driver did not work. 4 Hours later, fiddling around with drivers and router, I was able to connect to the internet via my laptop!

As of now, Im just fiddling around with all the different Desktop Environments that come with SuSE, I like Gnome and KDE the best so far.

I have two questions : Does anyone know how to disable the touchpad touch to click on a laptop in linux? I keep touched to click when I am not meaning to.

I search in YaST in the mouse section, in the Periphial section of KDE, and was not able to find a way to disable touch to click.

Also, anyone know anything cool I can do on linux now, that I could never do on windows? Just curious

I was laying in bed last night and just decided to install linux on my laptop, and bam, today I got it

Thanks!

 

You might want to check out ksynaptics for the touchpad disabling thing. I think it's what does the job for KDE.

There are are lot of things that you can do with Linux that are much harder to do on windows. First of all I suggest that you upgrade to OpenSuse 10.3, which I have review on my blog in the past and highlighted what I liked and disliked about it. It installs applications such as Compiz Fusion by default so you can enjoy some really fancyfull effects that beat both Windows Vista and Mac OS X. Just check out YouTube to see what I mean:

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=compiz+fusion&search=Search

You should be able to set it up on OpenSuse 10.1, but it might be a bit tricky.

I hope you enjoy Linux!

 

Hey man,

Thanks for the reply. I will check out the Kynaptics, but I was confused about one thing. You said you think it was what did the job for KDE, do you mean it will only work for KDE or would it make it disabled under Gnome as well?

Thanks man I will check out those youtube videos now, I think what you were talking about is the XGL features, the wobbly windows, the 2-d box to change between workspaces, I thought that was in 10.1 as well I was searching for it.

So far so good for linux, in the last 24 hours I have learned a lot. I grew up with 3.X windows, so I never had to use a non-GUI much. But I am doing allright I think!

Thanks again man.

Shrek

 

that's the biggest problem. It is easy to install (why not, just a few click) but it is hard to get everything to work.

I did red hat for my old laptop, never get the sound to work for me

 

As far as I know ksynaptics only works with KDE, because it uses it's subsystem to setup and do all the fun stuff. But I wouldn't be surprised if there is such a thing for GNOME also. Try looking for gsynaptics?

Compiz Fusion is not really XGL and the wobbly windows that you are talking about. It used to be, but it has improved much over the last couple of months. Basically Compiz Fusion is the new verision of the wobbly windows (called just Compiz) that no longer depends on XGL.

 

Lol. Yeah the wireless took me about 5 hours to get it to work yesterday.

 

Ok, cool. Thanks for the explanation. I am going to look into upgrading from 10.1 to 10.3 now.

Thanks again for your help.

Shrek

 

One last thing, since you seem very knowledagble on linux.

Will I need to upgrade / re-configure ndiswrapper and my wlan nic when I upgrade for 10.1 to 10.3, or will that continue to work after the upgrade?

Edit : actually found the answer to my question here - http://groups.google.com/group/alt....read/thread/fa721ea3618ee1e5/e657d1cf73549caa

Going to give it a go now. I am just going to do a fresh install, because I did not do much besides get my Wlan working

 

Ok....

I am installing 10.3 Now... WISH ME LUCK!!!

Hopefully, I am bacck here within 3-4 hours, with my wireless configured, and my up to date linux, and my 1337 self

LOL, j/k, just using my uber linux number jargon since I could never use it before Bye for now, I will be back telling everyone how it works out, hopefully I can get the wireless working a little faster than 7 hours this time after doing it last time.

Pz

 

Well I got it installed and wireless working fine again, but the Compiz Fusion does not work, it froze my computer slow to almost a halt.

So I had to re-install.

Oh well, maybe my computer is not good enough, only 512 mb ram and a crappy video card on that laptop.