Boot options other than CD or DVD exist and can be used if problems arise booting from CD or DVD. These options are described in Table 3.1, “Boot Options”.

To install from the media, insert the first CD or DVD into the appropriate drive of the system to install. Reboot the system to boot from the media and open the boot screen.

If your network setup supports OpenSLP and your network installation source has been configured to announce itself via OpenSLP , boot the system from the media or with another boot option. In the boot screen, select the desired installation option. Press F3 and F4 then select SLP.

The installation program retrieves the location of the network installation source using OpenSLP and configures the network connection with DHCP. If the DHCP network configuration fails, you are prompted to enter the appropriate parameters manually. The installation then proceeds as described below.

If your network setup does not support OpenSLP for the retrieval of network installation sources, boot the system from the media or with another boot option. In the boot screen, select the desired installation option. Press F3 and F4 then select the desired network protocol (NFS, HTTP, FTP, or SMB). Provide the server's address and the path to the installation media.

The installation program retrieves the location of the network installation source using OpenSLP and configures the network connection with DHCP. If the DHCP network configuration fails, you are prompted to enter the appropriate parameters manually. The installation then proceeds as described below.

If your network provides a SMT server to provide a local update source, you need to equip the client with the server's URL. Client and server communicate solely via HTTPS protocol, therefore you also need to enter a path to the server's certificate if the certificate was not issued by a certificate authority. This information has to be entered at the boot prompt.

	Beware of typing errors
Make sure the values you enter are correct. If smturl has not been specified correctly, the registration of the update source will fail. If a wrong value for smtcert has been entered, you will be prompted for a local path to the certificate. In case smtcert is not specified, it will default to http://FQN/smt.crt with FQN being the name of the SMT server.

The options that sometimes need manual intervention in common installation situations are presented in the Overview tab. Modify Partitioning, Software selection and Locale settings here.

3.9.1.1. Partitioning¶

In most cases, YaST proposes a reasonable partitioning scheme that can be accepted without change. YaST can also be used to customize the partitioning, but only experienced users should change partitioning.

When you select the Partitioning for the first time, the YaST partitioning dialog displays the proposed partition settings. To accept these settings, click Accept Proposal.

To make small changes in the proposal, select Base Partition Setup on This Proposal and adjust partitioning in the next dialog. For a completely different partitioning, select Create Custom Partition Setup. In the next dialog, choose a specific disk to partition or Custom Partitioning if you want to have access to all disks. For more information about custom partitioning, refer to Section 8.5.5, “Using the YaST Partitioner”the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server documentation.

The partitioning scheme proposed should have sufficient disk space. If implementing your own partitioning scheme, consider an absolute minimum of 5 GB for the system partition. At least 10 GB are recommended. Personal data, such as documents, music files, and images, require additional space.

3.9.1.1.1. Resizing a Windows Partition¶

If a hard disk containing a Windows FAT or NTFS partition is selected as the installation target, YaST offers to delete or shrink this partition. This functionality is especially useful if the selected hard disk contains only one Windows partition that covers the entire hard disk (see Figure 3.1, “Possible Options for Windows Partitions”).

Figure 3.1. Possible Options for Windows Partitions¶

If you select Delete Windows Completely, the Windows partition is marked for deletion and the space is used for the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise.

	Deleting Windows
If you delete Windows, all data will be lost beyond recovery as soon as the formatting starts.

To Shrink the Windows partition, you need to interrupt the installation and boot Windows to prepare before shrinking it. For all Windows file systems, proceed as follows:

1. Deactivate a Virtual Memory file, if there is one.

2. Run scandisk.

3. Run defrag.

After these preparations, restart the SUSE Linux Enterprise installation. When you turn to the Linux partitioning setup, select Shrink Windows Partition. After a quick check of the partition, YaST opens a dialog with a suggestion for resizing the Windows partition.

Figure 3.2. Resizing the Windows Partition¶

The first bar graph shows how much disk space is currently occupied by Windows and how much space is still available. The second bar graph shows how the space would be distributed after the resizing, according to YaST's current proposal. See Figure 3.2, “Resizing the Windows Partition”. To change the proposed settings use the slider or the input fields to change the partition sizing.

If you leave this dialog by selecting Next, the settings are stored and you are returned to the previous dialog. The actual resizing takes place later, before the hard disk is formatted.

	Writing to NTFS Partitions
By default, the Windows versions NT, 2000, and XP use the NTFS file system. SUSE Linux Enterprise includes basic write access support to the NTFS file system, but this feature has limited functionality. This means you can read your Windows files from Linux or overwrite them, but you cannot extend or remove them.

3.9.1.2. Software¶

SUSE Linux Enterprise contains a number of software packages for various application purposes. Click Software in the suggestion window to start the software selection and modify the installation scope according to your needs. Select your pattern from the list in the middle and see the description in the right part of the window. Each pattern contains a number of software packages needed for specific functions (e.g. Multimedia or Office software). For a more detailed selection based on software packages to install, select Details to switch to the YaST Software Manager. See Figure 3.3, “Installing and Removing Software with the YaST Software Manager”.

Figure 3.3. Installing and Removing Software with the YaST Software Manager¶

You can also install additional software packages or remove software packages from your system at any time later. For more information, refer to Section 8.3.1, “Installing and Removing Software”.

If you are an advanced user and want to configure booting or change the time zone or default runlevel, select the Expert tab. It shows the following additional entries not contained on the Overview tab:

root is the name of the superuser, the administrator of the system. Unlike regular users, who may or may not have permission to do certain things on the system, root has unlimited power to do anything: change the system configuration, install programs, and set up new hardware. If users forget their passwords or have other problems with the system, root can help. The root account should only be used for system administration, maintenance, and repair. Logging in as root for daily work is rather risky: a single mistake could lead to irretrievable loss of system files.

For verification purposes, the password for root must be entered twice. Do not forget the root password. Once entered, this password cannot be retrieved.

When typing passwords, the characters are replaced by dots, so you do not see the string you are typing. If you are unsure whether you typed the correct string, use the Test Keyboard Layout field for testing purposes.

SUSE Linux Enterprise can use the DES, MD5, or Blowfish encryption algorithms for passwords. The default encryption type is Blowfish. To change the encryption type, click Expert Options+Encryption Type and select the new type.

The root can be changed any time later in the installed system. To do so run YaST and start Security and Users+User Management.

The hostname is the computer's name in the network. The domain name is the name of the network. A hostname and domain are proposed by default. If your system is part of a network, the hostname has to be unique in this network whereas the domain name has to be common to all hosts on the network.

In many networks, the system receives its name over DHCP. In this case it is not necessary to modify the hostname and domain name. Select Change Hostname via DHCP instead. To be able to access your system using this hostname, even when it is not connected to the network, select Write Hostname to /etc/hosts. If you often change networks without restarting the desktop environment (e.g. when switching between different WLANs), do not enable this option, because the desktop system may get confused when the hostname in /etc/hosts changes.

To change hostname settings at any time after installation, use YaST Network Devices+Network Card. For more information, see Section 30.4.1, “Configuring the Network Card with YaST”.

By default, User-Controlled Interface with NetworkManager Applet is enabled. NetworkManager is a tool that enables automatic connection with minimal user intervention. It is ideal for mobile computing. If you want to use the traditional method without NetworkManager, click Disable NetworkManager. Find detailed information about NetworkManager in Section 30.6, “Managing Network Connections with NetworkManager”.

This configuration step also lets you configure the network devices of your system and make security settings, for example, for a firewall or proxy. To configure your network connection later, select Skip Configuration and click Next. Network hardware can also be configured after the system installation has been completed. If you skip the network device configuration, your system is left offline and is unable to retrieve any available updates.

Apart from the device configuration, the following network settings can be configured in this step:

	Resetting the Network Configuration to the Defaults
Reset the network settings to the original proposed values by clicking Change+Reset to Defaults. This discards any changes made.

To get technical support and product updates, first register and activate your product. Novell Customer Center Configuration provides assistance for doing so.

If you are offline or want to skip this step, select Configure Later. This also skips SUSE Linux Enterprise online update.

In Include for Convenience, select whether to send unsolicited additional information when registering. This simplifies the registration process. Click on Details to obtain in-depth information about data privacy and the data collected.

Apart from activating and registering your product, this module also adds the official update catalog to your configuration. This catalog provides fixes for known bugs or security issues which can be installed via an online update.

In addition to the update catalog, two more catalogs with official drivers for ATI and NVidia graphics cards are added. SUSE Linux Enterprise ships with open source drivers for these cards, but the official drivers, provided directly by the graphics cards manufacturers, offer additional functionality. In order to add these catalogs, you need to import their public GnuPG keys—these keys are used to ensure the catalog is provided by the owner of the catalog. Click Trust Key and then Import to add the catalog. Click Skip package and then Abort to prevent this specific catalog from being added to your configuration.

To keep your catalogs valid, select Regularly Synchronize with Customer Center. This option checks your catalogs and adds newly available catalogs or removes obsolete ones. It does not touch manually added catalogs.

	Technical Support
Find more information about the technical support at http://www.novell.com/support/products/desktop/.

If the Novell Customer Center Configuration was successful, select whether to perform a YaST online update. If there are any patched packages available on the servers, download and install them now to fix known bugs or security issues. Directives on how to perform an online update in the installed system are available at Section 8.3.5, “YaST Online Update”

	Downloading Software Updates
The download of updates might take quite some time, depending on the bandwidth of the Internet connection and the size of the update files. In case the patch system itself is updated, the online update will restart and download more patches after the restart. If the kernel was updated, the system will reboot before completing the configuration.

If network access was configured successfully during the previous steps of the installation, you can now choose from several user management options. If a network connection has not been configured, create local user accounts. For detailed information about user management, see Section 8.9.1, “User Management”the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server documentation.

	Content of the Authentication Menu
If you use the custom package selection and one or more authentication methods are missing from the menu, the required packages probably are not installed.

Along with the selected user administration method, you can use Kerberos authentication. This is essential for integrating your SUSE Linux Enterprise to an Active Directory domain, which is described in Chapter 12, Active Directory Support. To use Kerberos authentication, select Set Up Kerberos Authentication.

After completing the user authentication setup, YaST displays the release notes. Reading them is recommended, because they contain important up-to-date information which was not available when the manuals were printed. If you tested the Internet connection, read the most recent version of the release notes, as fetched from SUSE Linux Enterprise's servers. Use Miscellaneous+Release Notes to view the release notes after installation.

At the end of the installation, YaST opens a dialog for the configuration of the graphics card and other hardware components connected to the system. Click the individual components to start the hardware configuration. For the most part, YaST detects and configures the devices automatically.

You can skip any peripheral devices and configure them later, as described in Section 8.4, “Hardware” . To skip the configuration, select Skip Configuration and click Next.

However, you should configure the graphics card right away. Although the display settings as configured by YaST should be generally acceptable, most users have very strong preferences as far as resolution, color depth, and other graphics features are concerned. To change these settings, select the respective item and set the values as desired. To test your new configuration, click Test the Configuration.

	Resetting Hardware Configuration to Defaults
You can cancel changes by clicking Change+Reset to Defaults. YaST then shows the original proposal again.

After a successful installation, YaST shows the Installation Completed dialog. In this dialog, select whether to clone your newly installed system forAutoYaST. To do so, select Clone This System for AutoYaST. The profile of the current system is stored in /root/autoyast.xml.

AutoYaST is a system for installing one or more SUSE Linux Enterprise systems automatically without user intervention. AutoYaST installations are performed using a control file with installation and configuration data. Finish the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise with Finish in the final dialog.