Installain on old computer, swap problems

[Barbastark]

Hi.

I am a complete newbie on this, so please have patience with me.

Im trying to install Open Suse 10.3 on a old computer with a unused harddrive that is 6GB.

The problem I have is that, the fist real option you get after choosing installation is Create Swapfile. This happens before yast starts up, before you can use the mouse In a blue window

I can make two choises on this and it is: Create Swap partition or create swap file. I choose create Swap partition because the harddrive i unused. It then creates a swap partition of the entire harddrive! I have no option to choose size.

Later in the installation when Yast have started up you must partition a root disc, but of course i cant because the swap partition has taken all the space, and i cant resize or delete the swap partition i am installing from...

So how do i do? Does anyone know what i mean?

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

You could try using the PartedMagic LiveCD to create all your partitions before booting the Suse installation CD. Then when you go to install Suse, just direct it to use the partitions you've already created.

Let us know how it goes.

[gogalthorp]

6 gigs is going to be really tight for Suse with a full GUI.

How much memory do you have. This may be why it is creating a swap before the install starts. You need a minimum of 256 meg.

[Jonathan183]

Hi.

I am a complete newbie on this, so please have patience with me.

Im trying to install Open Suse 10.3 on a old computer with a unused harddrive that is 6GB.

The problem I have is that, the fist real option you get after choosing installation is Create Swapfile. This happens before yast starts up, before you can use the mouse In a blue window

I can make two choises on this and it is: Create Swap partition or create swap file. I choose create Swap partition because the harddrive i unused. It then creates a swap partition of the entire harddrive! I have no option to choose size.

Later in the installation when Yast have started up you must partition a root disc, but of course i cant because the swap partition has taken all the space, and i cant resize or delete the swap partition i am installing from...

So how do i do? Does anyone know what i mean?

6 gigs is going to be really tight for Suse with a full GUI.

How much memory do you have. This may be why it is creating a swap before the install starts. You need a minimum of 256 meg.

You can use the PartedMagic CD to create the swap partition as ozar posted ... this lets you install with less RAM. I actually managed to install on a laptop with about 92MB RAM, but the install was slow and the system ran so slowly after the install it was unusable. I ended up with DSL on the PC instead.

You can get away with the disk space as long as you only install the bits you need to run a desktop system - no source code ... multiple GUI etc. The installer will warn you if you try to put too much on the disk. Being short of space it may also be worth considering not creating a separate home partition ... that way every bit of disk space will be available for use for either home or system areas.

Unless you have reasonable RAM I suggest you look at one of the distros for lower spec machines.

[oz]

Barbastark, if openSuse turns out not to work on that machine, you might consider looking at Zenwalk. It's based on Slackware and comes with a lightweight desktop environment that should work well on it.

Have fun experimenting.