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Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 15:00:50 +0200 (MEST)
From: Lenz Grimmer <grimmer@suse.de>
To: suse-linux-e@suse.com
Subject: The S.u.S.E. Linux FAQ
Hi there,
I finally managed to finish the first official release of the S.u.S.E.
FAQ. Below you will find the plain ASCII-version; you can also read it
online or download the DVI from my homepage at
http://www.suse.de/~grimmer/FAQ/
Please note, that this is just a temporary place for it. As soon as
possible, we will move it to a more "official" location.
Enjoy!
Best regards,
=09LenZ
<----8<----8<----8<---- SNIP ----8<-----8<-----8<----->
The S.u.S.E. Linux FAQ (english edition)
by Lenz Grimmer
v0.2, 2 September 1998
This document is a collection of frequently asked questions and
answers from the mailing list suse-linux-e@suse.com, which is a public
forum for users of the S.u.S.E. Linux distribution.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Questions about the Company
3. General questions about the mailing lists
4. General questions about the Distribution
5. Credits
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
This FAQ attempts to supply anwers to questions that are frequently
asked about the Company S.u.S.E. and it's distribution S.u.S.E. Linux.
It is currently maintained by Lenz Grimmer <grimmer@suse.de>. If you
would like to add an entry to this list, feel free to do so! Please
send your message to faq-e@suse.com. Feedback and corrections are
very welcome.
In addition to this FAQ, you will find plenty of information about
S.u.S.E. Linux (and linux in general) in the support database (SDB),
which S.u.S.E. provides as a free service to the Internet community:
=B7 <http://www.suse.de/Support/sdb_e/> (in english)
=B7 <http://www.suse.de/Support/sdb/> (in german)
The support database articles can also be found on the S.u.S.E. Linux
CD, in the version available at production time. They are located in
series "doc", package "sdb". These articles can be read with any WWW-
browser, like the Netscape Navigator or Lynx.
2. Questions about the Company
What does S.u.S.E. stand for?
"Gesellschaft f=FCr Software- und Systementwicklung mbH", which
can be roughly translated as "Company for Software- and System-
Development"
How do you pronounce S.u.S.E.?
It should be pronounced like "Soose". The "U" sounds like the
"oo" in "moose", the last "e" is spoken like the "a" in "at".
But in general it is not very important to pronounce it
correctly, as long as it is clear what you are talking about.
What is that animal in the logo?
Despite the fact, that some people call it a turtle or a toad,
it actually is a chameleon. :-)
Does it have a name?
Well, not an official one. Some of us call it "Suse", which also
happens to be a german female name. Others just call it "the
toad".
Where is S.u.S.E. located?
Our sales and marketing division is located in F=FCrth, which is a
town next to Nuremberg, Germany. The develoment and support
department is currently located in Nuremberg. It is planned
however, to join these departments in a new location in the
center of Nuremberg. We also have an american division
(S.u.S.E., Inc.), located in Oakland, CA, which is responsible
for the non-European market.
How and when did S.u.S.E. start doing linux business?
1992
Burchard Steinbild, Hubert Mantel, Roland Dyroff and Thomas
Fehr found S.u.S.E. as a Unix software consulting company. At
the same time, they start with Linux. but the company was
initially not founded to do it's business in the Linux
market.
1993
S.u.S.E. distributes SLS on floppy disks and offers support
for it.
1994
S.u.S.E. ships it's first Linux CD (S.u.S.E. Linux 1.0)
1995
S.u.S.E.'s first Linux CD (April '95) with the installation
tool (YaST)
1995
Florian LaRoche joins the team. Based on his Jurix
distribution, S.u.S.E. starts the development of an own Linux
distribution.
1996
the first native S.u.S.E. Linux Distribution (S.u.S.E. Linux
4.2) hits the street.
1997
S.u.S.E. LLC is founded in the USA to serve the american and
non-european market.
1998
S.u.S.E. GmbH converts to S.u.S.E. Holding AG stock
corporation
Does S.u.S.E. have a Web Site?
The Main WWW-Site is located at <http://www.suse.de> (also with
english content at <http://www.suse.de/e/>). French and Spanish
content is also available. The international Site can be found
at <http://www.suse.com>.
3. General questions about the mailing lists
Is there a mailing list?
S.u.S.E. hosts several mailing lists to give our customers a
forum for discussions, questions and contact to the developers.
There are English, German and multilingual lists available.
Please refer to <http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/index.html>
for further info. Please notice, that some of the lists have a
high volume of traffic. Be prepared to get about 200 mails per
day if you subscribe to all of these lists.
Is there an archive of these mailing lists?
You can find an archive of these lists at
<http://www.suse.com/Mailinglists/archive.html>
How do I unsubscribe from a mailing list
Please send an E-Mail to majordomo@suse.com with the following
text in it's body:
unsubscribe <Listname> <email address>
Be sure to use the same E-Mail address you used when subscribing,
otherwise unsubscribing will NOT work.
4. General questions about the Distribution
What do I get, when I buy S.u.S.E. Linux?
The boxed package of the current distribution (5.3) contains the
following:
=B7 a set of 5 CDs
=B7 a 500+ page installation manual
=B7 60 days of installation support via E-Mail, Fax or by phone
The fifth CD contains a live filesystem, which enables you to
run a full-fledged Linux-System (including XFree with KDE,
compilers and tools) without installing a single byte on your
hard disk. You can also use this live CD, if hard disk space is
tight, and you can only install a minimal set of packages.
What's the difference between S.u.S.E. Linux and the Linux Snapshot
CD?
S.u.S.E. Linux is the full-featured package, including support
and manual. Linux Snapshot is a collection of linux-related ftp
server-archives, which also includes a S.u.S.E. Linux base
system without support. Since this base system is only one CD,
you only get a selection of the packages, that you will find in
the full version.
Are there other ways of obtaining S.u.S.E. Linux?
If you have a fast internet connection, you can also download
the ftp-Version of S.u.S.E. Linux from our ftp-Server or it's
mirrors. This version contains almost all packages from the full
version, including the commercial demo versions. Note however,
that you do not get installation support for this distribution
and there's no printed manual.
Is it possible to install S.u.S.E. Linux directly via the Internet?
Yes, this is possible. Basically, all you need is the first boot
floppy and a network connection to a ftp- or NFS-Server which
carries the necessary packages.
For a detailed description on how to do this, please refer to
<http://www.suse.de/Support/sdb_e/ke_suselinux-ftp.html>
Is S.u.S.E. Linux based on any other distribution?
The first release of S.u.S.E. Linux was based on Peter
McDonald's SLS Distribution. After Florian LaRoche joined
S.u.S.E. in 1995, we began to create a new version of S.u.S.E.
Linux, based on his Jurix Distribution, which in turn has it's
roots in Slackware (Florian started Jurix in 1993). The Package
format were gzip-compressed tar-files. Starting with S.u.S.E.
Linux 5.0, RPM was used as the default package format.
How can I tell, if my hardware is supported by Linux?
S.u.S.E. maintains an online database of hardware components
that are known to work with linux. It also includes information
about hardware, which does not run with linux. Please have a
look at <http://www.suse.de/cdb/english/>
We try hard to keep the database up to date, but we assume no
responsibility for the correctness of the information contained
herein. If you do not find your hardware listed, this must not
mean, that it is not supported. Maybe it has simply not been
incorporated into the database yet. We always welcome feedback
about the linux-capability of certain hardware. If you know of
something that runs with linux, please tell us about it!
Is S.u.S.E. Linux libc5 or glibc2 based?
S.u.S.E. Linux <=3D 5.3 is a libc5 based distribution. S.u.S.E.
Linux 5.3 added support for glibc2 binaries, and beginning with
S.u.S.E. Linux 6.0, expected at the end of 1998, S.u.S.E. is
making the move to glibc2.
Is there an Alpha-specific version of the S.u.S.E. Linux distribu=AD
tion?
Porting to the Alpha platform is done in parallel with the
development of the 6.0 release. It is expected, that the Alpha
port will be available quite shortly after the release of i386
6.0.
What about other platforms, e.g. Sparc or Macintosh?
As soon as the port to glibc2 has been finished, porting to
other platforms will be much easier. There are no plans yet, if
there will be ports to others than the Alpha.
Which package manager does S.u.S.E. Linux use?
Before S.u.S.E. Linux 5.0, we used gzip-compressed tar-Files.
Since then we use the Red Hat Package Manager rpm. See
<http://www.rpm.org> for further info about it.
What ist YaST?
YaST stands for "Yet another Setup Tool". It is the central
administration and installation tool and is used for the most
administrative tasks, e.g. configuring and integrating
hardware, networking- and user-administration and the software
package management. It reads most of it's configuration data
from the central configuration file /etc/rc.config and uses a
separate programm called SuSEConfig which generates the
necessary configuration files for the different daemons and
services. It is intended to be a an easy-to-use tool for
beginners and advanced users alike. You may still fiddle with
the original configuration files, if you wish. YaST can be
configured to leave the different configuration files untouched.
Why does S.u.S.E. ship with such an old gcc?
gcc-2.7.2.1 is known to properly compile 2.0.x kernels. In fact,
even Linus Torvalds is still using this version. When S.u.S.E.
switches to glibc2 with S.u.S.E. Linux 6.0, it is expected that
egcs will be the default C compiler included with S.u.S.E.
Linux.
Where can I find updates and bugfixes?
An up-to-date list of patches and bugfixes can be found at
<http://www.suse.de/e/patches/>.
S.u.S.E. maintains a ftp-Server at
<ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse_update>. Due to bandwith
limitations, the german ftp-Server <ftp://ftp.suse.de> does not
contain the full updates and the ftp-Version of the
distribution. A very fast mirror of this site can found at
<ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/linux/suse/>. For an extensive list of
mirrors see <http://www.suse.com/ftp.html>.
I can find the rpms but there are no version numbers for the rpms.
What's up with that?
This is due to the fact, that we still support users that do not
have a linux-compatible CD-ROM drive. By using DOS-conformant
file names, these people can copy the necessary files to a
regular FAT-partition and start the installation from there.
However, the long file names are available on the ftp-Server,
too.
Will S.u.S.E. get a contributory repository like Red Hat has?
The issue is being debated, but as of yet there is no
contributory archives for people to upload rpms to. There were
some issues and problems with the maintainance of such a site
(people uploading inappropriate subject matter etc).
How do I suggest to S.u.S.E. such packages that I'd like to see
included in their distribution package?
Please send a mail to feedback@suse.de, they should take care of
your request. Sometimes you can find information about the
upcoming distribution at the S.u.S.E. website, and you might
want to check there to make sure it isn't already planned for
the next release.
Why is the difference between the German distribution of S.u.S.E.
and it's North American counterpart?
Packages like ssh, pgp, apache-ssl, are not included for legal
reasons involving cryptography export restrictions. Non-European
orders are handled by our American division, which would
otherwise be unable to reexport that package, even if they
imported it from Germany. You can still download these packages
from a non-US ftp-server. ftp.gwdg.de holds a ftp version of
S.u.S.E. Linux which includes theses packages.
Could I get around this by, say ordering the German version?
Currently we have only one international version that is sold
around the world. So if you order an International version from
Germany, you'll get the very same version as is shipped in the
USA. Of course, you could explicitly order the German version,
and you will get it. But unfortunately you will get the German
manual, which is probably not what you want.
Are there other versions than German and English?
At present, we do also have a French and an Italian version,
which consists of the english Manual plus supplements in the
language of the country.
What is special about the S.u.S.E kernel?
To be able to support more hardware and circumvent known errors
in certain device drivers, S.u.S.E. adds some drivers and
bugfixes to the original kernel sources. Of course you can still
install the unmodified linux kernel source tree, if you wish.
How do I upgrade my kernel using patch files?
The S.u.S.E.-kernel already contains several patches. If you
attempt to apply the official upgrade patch on these sources,
you may run into trouble. There is no need to download the
complete kernel source. Just delete the package lx_suse (SuSE
kernel) and install linclude and linux (they contain the
official kernel sources). Then apply the patch again. S.u.S.E.
also offers patches, which only include the differences between
an official and the S.u.S.E. kernel. These patches contain the
text suse in their filename. You can finde these patches on our
ftp-Server at <ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse_update/kernel/>. The
INDEX-file describes the content of this directory.
Can I use S.u.S.E. Linux as a DHCP or bootp client?
Not yet, this feature is scheduled for the upcoming 6.0 release.
It is possible to manually modify the init-scripts, however this
is not a trivial task.
5. Credits
Many thanks go out to the following people, who have kindly donated
entries or made comments or suggestions about this document (in
alphabetical order):
=B7 Howard Arons <hlarons@comcat.com>
=B7 Ralf Corsepius <corsepiu@faw.uni-ulm.de>
=B7 Ed Craig <epcraig@efn.org>
=B7 Michael Johnson <hekate@intergate.bc.ca>
=B7 Arun K. Khan <arunkhan@xnet.com>
=B7 Michael Lankton <satan3@home.com>
=B7 Stefan Troeger <stefan.troeger@wirtschaft.tu-chemnitz.de>
<----8<----8<----8<---- SNIP ----8<-----8<-----8<----->
------------------------------------------------------------------
Lenz Grimmer S.u.S.E. GmbH
mailto:grimmer@suse.de Gebhardtstrasse 2
http://www.suse.de 90762 Fuerth, Germany