Installing SUSE Linux and Novell Linux Desktop on VMWare

Novell Cool Solutions: Question & Answer

Posted: 27 Aug 2004

Q:
I've installed SUSE 9, 9.1, SLES 8 and Novell's Linux Desktop on VMWare, and all of them give you a four-pane window that is terribly hard to work with during installation. Any way to prevent this?



A:
Yes, we've heard of this. Here are a couple of workarounds:

• VMware advises you to install SUSE 9.1, Novell Linux Desktop and SLES 9 using text mode install (press F2 on the first install screen). We heard from one expert who tried it on SUSE 9.1 and SLES 9 and reports that they worked fine.
• Start the installation with the option VNC=1. During the following installation process you are asked for a password and an IP address. With this data you can then connect via browser to the VNC session with the graphical installation screen. Works like a charm.

If anyone has any other suggestions, please let us know.

Novell Cool Solutions (corporate web communities) are produced by WebWise Solutions. www.webwiseone.com

Reader Comments

• The textmode worked !
• VNC=1 worked perfectly! Dasa
• I had to use VNC mode as F2 key did not respond.
• The 64-bit NLD installer detects VMWare Workstation 5 (Officially supports NLD9 as a "Guest" and AMD64 as a platform.) running on an AMD64 as a 32-bit CPU and will not install. The 32-bit NLD installer detects VMWW 4.52 (No official AMD64 or NLD support.) as 64-bit and will not install. The 64-bit NLD installer running on VMWW 4.52 crashes due to a stack fault the moment I attempt to move beyond GRUB, regardless of the options used.
• the F2 key is unresponsive