------------------------------------------- README SUSE LINUX Professional eval version 2005/06/27 Download instructions Choose the version you want =========================== * SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 (32-bit version) is available on 5 CD ISO images or on a single DVD ISO image. * SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 (64-bit version) is available on 1 DVD ISO image only. Verify that you have enough space on your hard drive ==================================================== * When delivered on 5 CD ISOs, SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 requires 5 separate downloads of 650MB each, 3.3GB in total) * When delivered on a single DVD ISO, SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 required one download of 4.5 GB The following table will give you an idea of how long the download process will take at various connection speeds: 5 CD ISOs (3.3GB) 1 DVD ISO (4.5GB) 56KB 127 hours 178 hours 64KB (ISDN) 13 hours 157 hours 1024KB (Broadband) 7 hours 10 hours 2048KB (Broadband) 4 hours 5 hours Note: Many things impact actual bandwidth performance, so during any dowload session your effective throughput may not approach these theoretical values. Also, in some regions it may be difficult to maintain a stable download connection over these durations. !!!!!!!!! Attention !!!!!!!!! The DVD iso image is 4.5 GB in size. Some operating systems and/or browsers and ftp clients are not able to handle files of this size. Such browsers will show a file size of 184 MB for the 4.3 GB DVD iso image. Do not try downloading the DVD iso image if you do not see a size of 4.3 GB, during directory listing or during downloading when a progress bar is shown: It will almost certainly fail. Go with the CDROM iso images instead, try another FTP server/mirror (not all of them handle large files correctly, too) or use an operating system and browser of a newer generation. The technical background: The limitation is 2 or 4 GB, which is 2^31 or 2^32 bytes. If those sizes are exceeded, older programs start counting again from 0, and the 184 MB of size that you see are the actual size of 4488353792 bytes minus 2*2^31 == 2^32 == 4294967296 bytes: 193386496 bytes, equals to about 184 MB. If you prefer to avoid a lengthy download process, you may purchase SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 at a retail shop, a web store, or directly from Novell. To purchase SUSE LINUX Professional, go to http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/pricing.html. Choose a mirror site ==================== Choose a mirror site near your location, Be sure the mirror site is hosting the version of the product you want on the media that you prefer. A list of mirror sites for the SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 eval version is available at: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/downloads/ftp/eval.html Check your ISO images files =========================== After having downloaded the ISO image(s) you can make sure your download was successful by checking the md5sums for each file. If you are running Linux, run the command md5sum (replace by the name of the ISO file) A free md5sum checker for other operating systems can be found at e.g. http://md5deep.sourceforge.net/ . Compare the output of the md5sum checker with the respective value(s) provided on our download page. If the numbers are identical, the download was successful. Burning the ISO file(s) ======================= After successfully having downloaded the ISO image(s), use a burning application of your choice to burn the ISO file(s) to a blank DVD. Select the option that allows burning a DVD image and/or a iso9660 filesystem. Do not burn the ISO image(s) the same way as you would burn files! Download documentation files ============================ PDF documenation is available from the following links: * SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 User Guide http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse93/pdfdoc/user93-screen/user93-screen.pdf * SUSE LINUX 9.3 Administration Guide http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse93/pdfdoc/admin93-screen/admin93-screen.pdf Explore the support resources ============================= Please note that download versions of SUSE LINUX do not come with any bundled support offering. End user technical support is available for purchase, should you require it. Please see http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/support/advanced.html for details. Free online Support Resources * Support Database http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/index.html * Hardware compatibility list http://cdb.novell.com/ * Mailing lists http://www.suse.com/en/private/support/online_help/mailinglists/ * Discussion forums http://forums.novell.com/group/novell.support.suse.linux.professional/readerNoFrame.tpt/@thread@first@F@10@D-,D@none/@article@first * Linux links http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/links/index.html Other tips to help your download ================================ Downloading large files Downloading large files such as iso-images soemtimes causes problems. Here are some tips how to avoid them: * We strongly suggest using a downloadmanager or a ftp client that supports reget. In case of download problems the reget function allows to continue a download made earlier rather than having to start over again. * Some proxies are configured to not allow ftp acces - please download from a http mirror instead, if you are using such a proxy * When downloading the DVD ISO make sure your proxy and/or your download client support files larger than 2 GB What's the difference between the CD and DVD edition ==================================================== * the DVD edition contains the complete 64-bit version of SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3 as well as a streamlined 32bit version of the software. * the CD edition contains a complete 32-bit version of SUSE LINUX Professional 9.3. It including approximately 450 additional packages not available on the 32-bit version included on the downloadable DVD image. These additional packages are mostly language packages for applications and development versions of various software libraries. Installation ============ To start the installation, boot from the DVD or CD#1. Make sure your BIOS setup is configured to allow booting from CD or DVD. Follow the instructions given by the SUSE LINUX installation program. A brief overview of the installation is available online at: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/installation.html