Grub Rescue

No the live DVD of openSUSE has an installer on it, and has everything you need on it.
From an office suite to web browser.
The only things missing are the codecs and an image editor.
But both are easy enough to install.
The installer dvd doesnt include codecs either so you know, no the only difference is that the installer dvd has all the major desktops (gnome, kde, xfce, lxde) and is not a live media.

What you have told me so far is about aspects that never caused me much problems before, except the lack of codecs, which has to be dealt with either way. In what fashion does the live image actually simply settings things up? In the past, unlike Kubuntu, which recognized all my devices and configured them to operate properly automatically, I usually ran in circles getting openSUSE to do the same.

The live image will evaluate if it can run on your hardware, at least in theory.
Most of the configuring can be done automatically by the installer, and the post installer.
openSUSE has two modes of its installer, the normal installer which will partition and do everything you need, and tghe second part of the installer appears during first boot up and never has to be dealt with again.
The only thing I had an issue with in terms of set up is the network configuration.
But all that can be done post install and is easy enough to do.
Sure sometimes the live mode doesnt work the way its supposed to and derps do happen (I had an issue with openSUSE's live mode in 13.1 especially on a USB, but it wasnt enough for me to be discouraged as I know some live images can be sluggish on my hardware)

Derps...You added to my vocabulary. Perhaps there is more that I didn't glean from your explanations, but the only thing that caught my attention is where you speak of the live image evaluating if it can run on my hardware. If by that you are talking about whether the hardware meets the minimum requirements for the OS, such as RAM, CPU, etc., I don't think that would be necessary, because I'm sure that it would. What I'm more concerned about that it would recognize my peripherals and internal devices properly. I think the only way to really answer that question is just to give it a try. One thing that I never understood about openSUSE is why it doesn't do everything automatically without a lot of hassle? Kubuntu is proof that Linux has the ability to do so, so why doesn't openSUSE take advantage of these abilities?

When you spoke of network, initially I thought you were speaking of something like LAN, but I noticed that the speaker in the video said that he also had a problem with it not setting up the network, and the instructions that he gave seemed to have more to do with setting up the internet connection, rather than the network as I think of that. If it truly is just the internet connection, that doesn't surprise me, because that is one thing that I always had to deal with on older versions of the distro.

Actually openSUSE does auto configure hardware and does a good job of it overall.
Like I said I am unsure of the last version you tried as it sounded dubious (12.4 like I said doesnt really exist, unless you meant 11.4 which did)

Yes, I apparently mixed up the number. I checked my archive, and the last one was 12.1.

I'm running into some odd problems with both burning SUSE to a DVD and with using Unetbootin. The only reason that I mention burning the DVDs is if it has any bearing on the problem with using Unetbootin. The first problem with it may just be my hardware...don't know, but this time I used my new Corsair Flash Voyager 32GB USB 3.0 drive, thinking it would speed the installation. However when plugged into a USB 3.0 slot, the system saw it and Unetbootin appeared to be successful burning the iso to it, but it wasn't shown as an available boot device until I connected it to a USB 2.0 slot. After that, when I booted to it Unetbootin's black and blue boot screen appeared with the only option listed being "default", but whether I selected it, or let the selection timer run out, all that happened was that the timer repeatedly started over from the beginning. I checked the advanced options, which produced a line saying something about setting persistence and nothing else. Do you have any idea of why these problems occurred?

I've now got 13.1 installed. Don't know what the problem with the first DVDs were, but I got it burned successfully on my third ODD. I'm not sure of why Unetbootin gave me a problem either, but after comparing the contents of it to the DVD, it was obvious that it only contained a fraction of the files that it should have. In any case, so far I've found 13.1 much, much better than the previous versions that I tried. Not only did it automatically configure the internet connection, but it did the same with my printer, which was always a hassle in the past. It even installed far faster than it ever did before. That may be because it installed less packages than previously, but I'm not sure, because I failed to note how many were listed at the start of the installation. I was surprised to find Opera listed in Yast, but it didn't install the most current version of 12, but I can remedy that easy enough.

I don't yet know if the sound is working properly, because it appears that I need additional codecs or plugins to get any audio or video players to work...even VLC, which kind of surprises me, because it usually works okay on a standalone basis. I haven't gotten into it yet, but it appears that the files that I need are on some other repositories that weren't automatically set. I will get to it eventually

Actually openSUSE does not work too well with unetbootin,, I should have warned you sorry .
As for codecs for opensuse:

http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_formats/13.1

Installing codecs in openSUSE is a little different

that link will give you a codecs metapackage, and will install most (if not all) codecs.
Another thing to install is umplayer which works great for 3gp files and the like.

I just used the one click method to install the codecs, but it produced a dialog that I'm not sure what to do with:



Please advise.

As far as umplayer is concerned, I have no 3gp files...at least at this time. Is there any other reason to use it rather than VLC?

EDIT:

I went ahead and took a shot in the dark, and choose the option to change the repository location in both sets of choices, and it downloaded and installed 59 packages, without squawking about any problems, but I still couldn't get any videos to play in either VLC or Kaffeine. VLC squawked about not having the right codecs as it did in the first place, and Kaffeine showed the title of a selected video, but remained with a black screen with no audio.

I had slightly better success with audio files using Amarok, but it still couldn't play any .wmv or midi files. It popped a dialog asking whether to search for the plugin necessary, but it failed to find them.

There is another question to ask, that I may as well get out of the way now...I uninstalled Opera 12.15 and downloaded 12.16, but when I try to install it, it pops this dialog:



Why so?

seekermeister said:

I just used the one click method to install the codecs, but it produced a dialog that I'm not sure what to do with:

View attachment 25935

Please advise.

As far as umplayer is concerned, I have no 3gp files...at least at this time. Is there any other reason to use it rather than VLC?

EDIT:

I went ahead and took a shot in the dark, and choose the option to change the repository location in both sets of choices, and it downloaded and installed 59 packages, without squawking about any problems, but I still couldn't get any videos to play in either VLC or Kaffeine. VLC squawked about not having the right codecs as it did in the first place, and Kaffeine showed the title of a selected video, but remained with a black screen with no audio.

I had slightly better success with audio files using Amarok, but it still couldn't play any .wmv or midi files. It popped a dialog asking whether to search for the plugin necessary, but it failed to find them.

Click to expand...

Yeah sorry I was away from my computer for a bit.
As for VLC try to install the package VLC codecs which may solve your issue.
For MIDI you need to install timidty.
And install Kmid as your GUI front end (just take care as MIDI is a tricky format for openSUSE)
There was a quirk on my system using kmid that you may wish to be aware of just in case, when opening kmid it may complain a few times, just hit "apply" or whatever in each box and once kmid starts stop the audio playback and in the menus go to "settings" and "configure kmid"
in the "soft synths" section click on "timidty++) and check the box to run it on startup.
VLC used to handle midi files on openbSUSE but it used to hang the computer so it was dropped.

seekermeister said:

There is another question to ask, that I may as well get out of the way now...I uninstalled Opera 12.15 and downloaded 12.16, but when I try to install it, it pops this dialog:

View attachment 25936

Why so?

Click to expand...

You are trying to install the .deb file, not the RPM file.
openSUSE works off another format then Ubuntu does, so you need to (on the opera page) do this:
when clicking the dowload opera link change the pulldown option under
Select distribution and vendor

and select openSUSE
The package format should change with the Vendor

Just a quirk with linux I am afraid, there are multiple installer formats made for different distros.
And some distros need special libraries for certain things.
Ubuntu and debian use the .deb package format
openSUSE, Fedora, Mageia and some others need .rpm
then some take tar.gz files

Depends on the developer, the different formats thing is something a windows userr isnt used to, you may say it could be something that is holding linux back but not really you just need to know what you are installing

There is one problem of my own making that I have to correct, I knew better and did it anyway. During installation, I left my other drives connected, which of course, greated a Grub boot menu on my W7 drive, which I want to eliminate. I could recover from a W7 from a backup image made prior to the Suse installation, but I'm wondering if there is a means in Suse to get rid of it? Not sure, but I think that there is a way in W7 to accomplish this, but I kind of suspect that I will have to use the backup image. I haven't checked, but I imagine that the same boot menu would appear if I booted to the Kubuntu drive, but I'm much less concerned about that.

EDIT: I have a Restore point in W7 that was made just prior to the Suse installation, but using it wouldn't correct the problem...would it? I'm thinking that Grub has gotten onto the W7 drive's MBR, which I don't think that the Restore function would touch.

Yeah I would not mess around with it.
After all you would have to reinstall openSUSE or use supergrubdisk

I understand what you are saying, but more than once, I have had Grub corrupt and it left all of my drives unbootable. Reinstalling Suse is a small price to pay to avoid any future re-occurrence of another situation like that. Supergrub...it sounds like something to repair Grub on a Linux drive...is it reliable?

Well the grub for openSUSE is say is pretty good, far more reliable then most other distros.
I say leave it be unless it does corrupt, but its rare that it happens (your experience with Kubuntu might have been a fluke)
As for supergrub, yeah its pretty reliable, its meant to recover grub without re installing the whole OS.

Okay, got Opera installed alright, but I'm now having a problem with LightScribe. I installed the LightScribe host software, then installed the Lacie LightScribe Template Labeler, and both declared that they installed okay. However I now can't find hide nor hair of either in the Kickoff Launcher, either manually or via search. Neither are they listed "Recently Installed". How can I use them?

did you try a log out?

Ralph Bromley said:

Well the grub for openSUSE is say is pretty good, far more reliable then most other distros.
I say leave it be unless it does corrupt, but its rare that it happens (your experience with Kubuntu might have been a fluke)
As for supergrub, yeah its pretty reliable, its meant to recover grub without re installing the whole OS.

Click to expand...

Though I don't want to, I may have to leave it alone...at least for now, because after checking, I don't think that the partition backups that I made with True Image would recover the MBR and Track 0. I could make a disk image that would, or use it's cloning function, but neither of those would do any good now that Grub is already there.

I know that there are some more complex methods of fixing these, but I don't feel up to the task at this time.

Yeah dont do anything unless it is needed.
As for if you cant get Lacie LightScribe Template Labeler to appear in the menu you may have to manually link to it in the menu:
Link Removed