Installing SUSE 9.1 Pro on Fujitsu N5010
OK, on the way is Fujitsu Lifebook N5010. 3.2 GHz CPU, 80 GB HDD, 16.1" SXGA+ TFT screen, DVD-RW, Atheros 802.11 a+b/g, 10/100 Ethernet, 4x USB 2.0 ports, 1x IEEE 1394. It'll have 2 GB of RAM (added after I get it since Fujitsu wants 3x as much to put 2 GB in there). It'll ship with XP Home, I think, which will last long enuf for me to use Device Manager to make note of all the installed devices and drivers - after that, its a run of DOS FDISK to wipe the drive.
So...I want to install SUSE 9.1 Professional on it, with the intent of using SUSE as a Host OS for VMWare Workstation v4.5. I'll then create Virtual Machines to run 3 different Guest OSes: Solaris 9 x86, NetWare v6.5 and probably W2K Pro (might try XP Pro - dunno). I plan to give each OS 20 GB of disk natively. I suppose I could make 3 20 GB slices and mount them under SUSE and then put the Virtual Disk for each Guest OS on its own slice, but I'm hoping to improve performance by giving them native disk storage and with 2GB, I can afford to give each OS 512 MB of RAM all to itself.
I'd love to have option of having all of them running simultaneously and able to talk on the virtualized 10/100 NIC all at the same time. Not a requirement, but the geek in me would love that.
Anyway, I've been to Linux-on-Laptops.com, specifically following the Fujitsu links to http://www.xcgtech.com/laptux/, where the author does say he put SUSE 9.1 Pro on an N5010. However, to be charitable, he's very short on details, and those things he does mention are vague. As a result, I know it can be done, its a question of how and what are the pitfalls.
So...
1) Has anyone done this specific install?
2) What drivers and programs do I need, and where do I get them?
3) Any precautions I should take before I blow Windoze away?
4) Any known problems virtualizing the NICs to be shared among the Host OS and the Guest OSes?
5) Am I insane?
The latter question makes this a 500-pointer.
So...I want to install SUSE 9.1 Professional on it, with the intent of using SUSE as a Host OS for VMWare Workstation v4.5. I'll then create Virtual Machines to run 3 different Guest OSes: Solaris 9 x86, NetWare v6.5 and probably W2K Pro (might try XP Pro - dunno). I plan to give each OS 20 GB of disk natively. I suppose I could make 3 20 GB slices and mount them under SUSE and then put the Virtual Disk for each Guest OS on its own slice, but I'm hoping to improve performance by giving them native disk storage and with 2GB, I can afford to give each OS 512 MB of RAM all to itself.
I'd love to have option of having all of them running simultaneously and able to talk on the virtualized 10/100 NIC all at the same time. Not a requirement, but the geek in me would love that.
Anyway, I've been to Linux-on-Laptops.com, specifically following the Fujitsu links to http://www.xcgtech.com/laptux/, where the author does say he put SUSE 9.1 Pro on an N5010. However, to be charitable, he's very short on details, and those things he does mention are vague. As a result, I know it can be done, its a question of how and what are the pitfalls.
So...
1) Has anyone done this specific install?
2) What drivers and programs do I need, and where do I get them?
3) Any precautions I should take before I blow Windoze away?
4) Any known problems virtualizing the NICs to be shared among the Host OS and the Guest OSes?
5) Am I insane?
The latter question makes this a 500-pointer.
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Thanks for the help, Nukfror. I appreciate this and I will be using it. The VMWare tips are very helpful. I'm going to leave this open a bit for others.
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> Also, I want to run VMWare under SUSE, *not* Windoze. I want something stable as the Host OS. Windoze sucks for stability (pretty graphics, tho).
Oh I totally understand that. But I run VMware under Linux as well. Linux is my PRIMARY OS. I boot into Windows directly only when I have to and that's EXTREMELY rare. Otherwise, I run Windoz as a Guest OS under Linux. Usually, because customer wants me to update a Visio diagram or a MS-Project document or I have to run some Nortel VPN software to get into a customer's environment.
But you should also consider the fact that I'm pretty sure MicroBlows announced that future security updates to IE will *not* be ported back to Windows 2000. So new updated and security updates won't be showing up in Win2K and below. Nasty way of forcing folks to upgrade to XP. I don't know when this is going to occur but some time soon.
Oh I totally understand that. But I run VMware under Linux as well. Linux is my PRIMARY OS. I boot into Windows directly only when I have to and that's EXTREMELY rare. Otherwise, I run Windoz as a Guest OS under Linux. Usually, because customer wants me to update a Visio diagram or a MS-Project document or I have to run some Nortel VPN software to get into a customer's environment.
But you should also consider the fact that I'm pretty sure MicroBlows announced that future security updates to IE will *not* be ported back to Windows 2000. So new updated and security updates won't be showing up in Win2K and below. Nasty way of forcing folks to upgrade to XP. I don't know when this is going to occur but some time soon.
ASKER
"MicroBlows announced that future security updates to IE will *not* be ported back to Windows 2000."
Yep, they did, effective immediately. But I'm not stupid enuf to use Internet Exploder. Its garbage. We can start with stupidities like ActiveX and finish up with the lack of basic features like tabbed browsing, but it doesn't matter, because I avoid it.
One difference between what I'm aiming for, Nukfror, and what you're doing, is that I'm not a consultant. At least not in the same sense that you are. I don't generally deal with VPNs beyond hardware ones (i.e. no special software required on the computer) or something like SSH (available on multiple platforms). But we agree that we both only use Windoze when we absolutely have to.
EinarTh, thanks for chiming in. I really don't see any reason to retain the Windoze partition. Like I said, it has XP HOME. I do not want that crap littering the HDD. I'll go into DevMgr and make note of the devices and drivers and IRQs and so forth, but once I've done that, I have no use for XP Home (I hate crippleware).
Yep, they did, effective immediately. But I'm not stupid enuf to use Internet Exploder. Its garbage. We can start with stupidities like ActiveX and finish up with the lack of basic features like tabbed browsing, but it doesn't matter, because I avoid it.
One difference between what I'm aiming for, Nukfror, and what you're doing, is that I'm not a consultant. At least not in the same sense that you are. I don't generally deal with VPNs beyond hardware ones (i.e. no special software required on the computer) or something like SSH (available on multiple platforms). But we agree that we both only use Windoze when we absolutely have to.
EinarTh, thanks for chiming in. I really don't see any reason to retain the Windoze partition. Like I said, it has XP HOME. I do not want that crap littering the HDD. I'll go into DevMgr and make note of the devices and drivers and IRQs and so forth, but once I've done that, I have no use for XP Home (I hate crippleware).
PsiCop, then your install should be pretty easy. If you really don't want to deal with Windows in a dual boot capacity, it simply a matter of installing Linux and giving it the entire hard drive. Then setting up VMware for the various guest OSs you want. This does clean up issues of Windows possibly nuking your Grub (or Lilo) configuration, trashing your hard drive, etc.
Oh, one more topic on VMware 4.5. It comes with its own "let Windows see your home directory" feature but I'm pretty sure its not Samba - might be a stripped down version or something but I never really looked into how they did it. Performance is TERRIBLE using that feature. I suggest you don't use it. Just setup your own Samba server. I went to this and haven't regreted it yet. Works great.
Oh, one more topic on VMware 4.5. It comes with its own "let Windows see your home directory" feature but I'm pretty sure its not Samba - might be a stripped down version or something but I never really looked into how they did it. Performance is TERRIBLE using that feature. I suggest you don't use it. Just setup your own Samba server. I went to this and haven't regreted it yet. Works great.
ASKER
Hmmm...can I get a clarification, Nukfror?
I did plan on chopping the 80 GB disk into 20 GB chunks and giving one chunk to each OS. SUSE would get the first 20 GB, the other OSes would get the other 20 GB chunks. Optimally, I would be able to boot to the OS on any chunk. Only SUSE would have VMWare, so if I booted to a different chunk, I'd just have that OS and no VM capability (and no problem with that limitation).
Are you saying there's an issue with this idea?
I did plan on chopping the 80 GB disk into 20 GB chunks and giving one chunk to each OS. SUSE would get the first 20 GB, the other OSes would get the other 20 GB chunks. Optimally, I would be able to boot to the OS on any chunk. Only SUSE would have VMWare, so if I booted to a different chunk, I'd just have that OS and no VM capability (and no problem with that limitation).
Are you saying there's an issue with this idea?
You can, if you wish, chop the disk up into multiple partitions or you can let the OS live in flat files. The performance is a bit slower but Solaris 10 x86 works fine for me in that mode. Problem with chopping disk up into multiple partitions is you only have 4 chunks of 20 GB. Say you want to install another version of Winblows, or maybe another version of Linux, or blah blah blah. The 4 chunks of 20GB might limit you somewhat.
But if you want to true muti-boot *and* VMware within Linux for each OS, then you have to use multiple partitions on the disk.
But if you want to true muti-boot *and* VMware within Linux for each OS, then you have to use multiple partitions on the disk.
ASKER
"Say you want to install another version of Winblows, or maybe another version of Linux, or blah blah blah. The 4 chunks of 20GB might limit you somewhat."
True. I could do, say, 4x 15 GB partitions and leave 20 GB "scratch" space for doing whatever I wanted.
Or, I could go with the 4x 20 GB partitions and if I want another version of Winblows or Linux or whatever, I run it in flat files under SUSE's filesystem. I'm not that much of a noodler (honest!), so once I get this machine configured the way I want it, I'm not gonna be futzing with it that much.
True. I could do, say, 4x 15 GB partitions and leave 20 GB "scratch" space for doing whatever I wanted.
Or, I could go with the 4x 20 GB partitions and if I want another version of Winblows or Linux or whatever, I run it in flat files under SUSE's filesystem. I'm not that much of a noodler (honest!), so once I get this machine configured the way I want it, I'm not gonna be futzing with it that much.
ASKER
*musing*
Or, I could give SUSE 35 GB and the other 3 OSes 15 GB and then have plenty of room for virtual disks under SUSE.... my oh my, what *am* I going to do with 80 GB of disk space? I feel like I felt when I got my first 5 MB Corvus external hard drive that was as large as a mini-tower today.
Or, I could give SUSE 35 GB and the other 3 OSes 15 GB and then have plenty of room for virtual disks under SUSE.... my oh my, what *am* I going to do with 80 GB of disk space? I feel like I felt when I got my first 5 MB Corvus external hard drive that was as large as a mini-tower today.
LOL --- true, my 40GBytes is really not enough for what I do. I really wish I had a larger hard drive.
ASKER
Follow-on Question: Let's say I wanted to give SUSE 35 GB of space and then 15 GB of space to each of the 3 other OSes. OK, so I install SUSE onto a Primary partition, right? Do I make the other Partitions (for the other 3 OSes) Primary partitions too?
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OK, I've gotten the laptop and I'm going to close this Question. I have been to the SUSE support pages - they are not exactly coherent on this topic. Bits and pieces scattered. But I have confirmed that the ATI Radeon 9600 display adapter and RealTek 8139 NIC are supported under SUSE 9.1.
I've also been thru Device Manager from start to finish and recorded every device, its IRQs, memory addresses, I/O addresses, source and version of the Windoze device driver, and pertinent settings.
I've also been thru Device Manager from start to finish and recorded every device, its IRQs, memory addresses, I/O addresses, source and version of the Windoze device driver, and pertinent settings.
ASKER
I did check the docs and they do support SUSE 9.1 Pro (http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop/ws_specs.html#hostos) as a Host OS for Workstation v4.5. I understand what you're saying about them not supporting patched kernels.
CLARIFICATION: I am NOT retaining the Windoze OS that will come with the machine. I am going to WIPE THE DRIVE COMPLETELY. SUSE v9.1 will be the FIRST OS on there. While I would like to be able to multi-boot to the other partitions (another reason for giving them all their own disk space), SUSE will not have to compete with Windoze, and I have no plans to retain ANYTHING from the NTFS partition. No need to resize it.
Also, the unit ships with XP HOME. I do NOT want that piece of crap! >> If << I put any Windoze on this machine, it will be either W2K or XP Pro. Probably W2K because I already have that. I'd have to go get XP Pro.
Also, I want to run VMWare under SUSE, *not* Windoze. I want something stable as the Host OS. Windoze sucks for stability (pretty graphics, tho).