openSUSE 10.3 is released. This is the first version adding full support for the EFIKA.

For release announcement please see:

* http://news.opensuse.org/?p=400
* http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-anno ... 00002.html

For EFIKA specific information, please see:

* http://en.opensuse.org/Efika102

In the past few days I recompiled a fine selection of Packman ( http://packman.links2linux.de/ ) packages on my Pegasos for PPC. This repository is available at:

* ftp://spike.fa.gau.hu/pub/pmppc103/

Have a lot of fun!

PS: and now I go and sleep a bit :-)

That is good work Peter. Thanks!

R&B :)

just saw the announcement on distrowatch
downloading now (for x86 though)

how does it perform on the Efika compared to debian or ubuntu ?

Installation needs swap, which is a down side, but feels to run faster (did not measure).

Now I really go to sleep :)

sleep well :)

Is there a bug in the final ppc-version ?

I use the DVD of 10.3 and enter:

boot cd suseboot/inst32 linemode=0

The system starts loading and prints " image is of unknown format".

Loading inst64 makes the system lock, thus format seems ok there .

Can anyone confirm my problem ?

(BTW: md5 of my image is correct.)

Yes, it was already mentioned here in the forum, but I could not reproduce due to hw problems. The CDRW/DVD combo in my ODW can't read DVDs written in my brand new USB2 DVD writer...

Is there an alternative way to get this image inst32 ?

Maybe to download the CD instead of DVD or some kind of netinstall ?

To reproduce, you could just mount the ISO, extract inst32 and give it a try from the Peg's filesystem.
(BTW I tried on PEG2)

same problem on Efika.
How can i install suse 10.3 on my efika ? is there a boot image available somewhere ?

there is no CD editon for PPC, only the DVD.

I always do network installation, even on my Pegasos, as I'm too lazy to burn a CD/DVD ;-) All you need is suseboot/inst32 from any of the installation media to get started.

The other possibility is to install from an USB key or USB HDD. Just copy the content of the DVD or the ftp tree to an USB key or USB HDD and you are ready to go. As EFIKA has only USB1, a network install is lot quicker. Of course, you can also copy the content of the DVD on the IDE HDD mounted inside the EFIKA, and that would be the fastest installation source.

If you already have a SUSE box somewhere, then creating an NFS share, http or ftp server is just a few clicks away in YaST. All you need is to loop mount the DVD iso ( mount -o loop,ro susedvd.iso /pathname ) somewhere, where it's accessible to ftp/httpd/nfs/etc.

Never tested, but installation should also work a windows share.

Still, the easiest is to download just 'inst32' ( http://download.opensuse.org/distributi ... oot/inst32 ), put it on an USB key, or tftp server, or anywhere the firmware can load it from, boot it, and install over the Internet. Of course this needs a fast and reliable Internet connection. If installing over the Internet, I recommend doing a minimal text install at first, and then once a base system is installed, do the rest of the installation from the installed system.

Well, in the interests of Efika science and exploration of... okay fine, so it was actually a case of having nothing better to do and not knowing where my 20 metre LAN cable is to do an online install... I just started the DVD booting up from my USB enclosure only to also be greeted with the "bootimage format is of unknown format" message after a while. Other Efika-related DVD/CD projects work fine, so it's not the drive in my case.
Guess I'll be hunting that cable down then. Looking forward to trying this out a lot, as SUSE was one of the few distro's I didn't mind using on the PC.

so the inst32 on the Suse 10.3 PPC DVD is broken ? can't this be fixed and a new ISO published ?

That's the thing that always bothered me about Suse, the installation takes so much time, even from a DVD. So a netinstall ? no thanks ! I just want to test and see if it feets my needs, or i go back to debian.

Well, one of the guys from the SUSE PPC team suggests, that it's a problem in the firmware's DVD code. inst32 became a lot larger recently.

Any way, inst32 boots without any problems from any other sources, and the Linux kernel has no problem reading from the DVD. I don't have an installer DVD around to test it, but you could copy inst32 to the HDD or an USB stick (or tftp it), and it will find the DVD, as that is the default installation source.

Thanks a lot ! It worked from hdd.

Did anyone tell bplan about the strange behaviour yet ?
( I wonder, why loading from hdd makes a difference to DVD... )

thanks a lot Peter, that's very good news !