This topic describes the steps for installation of openSUSE 11.0

• This install procedure will not share the system between Linpus and openSUSE. The Linpus Linux is deinstalled and all data are removed.
• Doublecheck that you have a Recovery CD from Acer as well as a backup of all your custom files
• I've done all installation with an external USB DVD drive. Otherwise you also can create a bootable USB Stick to install a system. This forum page doesn't cover that way. But you can look
  here
  for such an installation of Ubuntu.

• Set the USB CDROM as the top boot sequence entry in the BIOS (F2 during startup)
• Switch off the D2D Recovery
• DON'T plug your drive in the left side USB port. The system (at least my one) can boot only from the right side ones.

• The SUSE installation is a normal one. No need for huge explanations. I just installed KDE3. First of all so it's available when needed. Second of all the KDE4 package on the install medium are outdated.
• I prefer not to activate the automatic configuration. So I get a first idea even during the install process what components are available and for which I need a separate module…

• After the installation it was not possible to boot the system. I got everytime the message Error 2 before the Grub menu would displayed. I played a little around by checking the installation and all partitions and the Grub menu.lst file with an external Linux booted from the DVD. Even renaming of the partition names in the menu.lst didn`t help. Finally I tested the Super Grub Disk (see here); quite quickly it repaired my MBR and the system could boot the first time

• Boot the system in runlevel 3 (just type a 3 in the options field of the Grub menu)
• Edit /etc/sysconfig/displaymanager and change there the setting

  DISPLAYMANAGER_RANDR_MODE_auto="1024x600"

  Thanks,
  Linux-Magazin, GER
  for this tip.

• Save the file and reboot the system. It should run now with correct resolution (you'll see the KDE bar at the bottom screenborder.

• In a next step of an openSUSE installation I usually bring the system up to date. First of all I prepaired all package sources I need. This may differ for you. Find a list of official repositories at
  http://en.opensuse.org/Package_Repositories
  for English installations and
  http://de.opensuse.org/Zus%C3%A4tzliche_Paketquellen
  for German ones, respectively. One these pages you also can choose more languages.

• Some of the packages here can be integrated in the system also as Community rep. This indeed is much easier. So first check the Community repositories from YaST and thereafter setup further repositories manually.

• Activate in the menu Package → All Packages → Update, if available. Could be the entry is named slightly different. I use a German version and I'm not sure about the correct English terms.

• Switch back to search mode and pickup all packages you want to have on your device, like KDE4 or xine or whats-o-ever. It's up to you. I got a bunch of 1,7GB to download and install. Quite enough time to write this guide

Finally it was an easy and straight forward procedure. But in the beginning I run in a trap and have a little messed up my system. What happend:

The WLAN card is one with Atheros chipset which is supported by Madwifi. Because the madwifi driver contains some proprietary part it's not included in distros. Some posts (i.e. http://www.linux-community.de/Neues/story?storyid=26172 (German)) reports you have to use a special madwifi version. You can calm down - just the actual one does also its job. There are tons of manuals how to install a madwifi driver in the net (try http://madwifi.org/wiki/UserDocs/FirstTimeHowTo). So here comes a brief overview only:

1. Install Kernel Development with YaST (in the packages view)
2. Download the current release from http://snapshots.madwifi.org. I use the madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz one.
3. Extract the file and at the console go into this directory
4. Run

   make
   su
   make install

5. Remove the ath5k module¹⁾ with

   rmmod ath5k

6. Blacklist the ath5k module by appending blacklist ath5k to the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
7. Fire up the module with <code>

modprobe ath_pci

1. Thats it. In the Networkmanager you should be able to scan for networks on the device ath0. If there are some problems check the dmesg file.

The Aspire One comes with a LED for the Wifi feature. In the Linpus Linux it indicates whether the WLAN card is turned on or off by the hardware switch.

Thanks MrP (see more on http://www.skritus.de/2008/08/22/opensuse-110-kde-41-acer-aspire-one-a150l/#more-47)

Andreas Hartmann, 27.08.2008 20:53: