How to get a Free Copy of SUSE Linux Professional 9.3

Novell Cool Solutions: Tip
By Joe Harmon

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Updated: 1 Jul 2005

Important: There are two ways to obtain a free copy of SUSE Linux Professional 9.3. One is by downloading the DVD or CDs, and two is by downloading a boot disk and installing over the network. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. The advantages of the first option is that you always have the media with you. The advantage of the second option is that you simply download the software that you choose during the time of installation. This means that if you only need 1 Gig of software, you don't need to download the full DVD or CDs.

DVD/CD Installation (local install)

The 32 bit verion is available on 5 CD ISO images or on a single DVD ISO image. The 64 bit version is available on 1 DVD ISO image only.
Download the either the CDs or DVD file from the closest mirror. You will find the files under the ISO directory for the given platform. For example, the 32 bit files are located in the /i386/9.3/iso/ directory.
Note: This example is using the i386 arctitecture, therefore the first directory might be different for a different system.
Burn the ISO image to a DVD.
Boot from the DVD.

FTP Installation (network install)

Download the boot.iso or the 9.3-x86-64-Network-Installation.iso file from the closest mirror. You will find the boot.iso in the /i386/9.3/boot/ directory and 9.3-x86-64-Network-Installation.iso in the /i386/9.3/iso/ directory. They are the same file.
Note: This example is using the i386 arctitecture, therefore the first directory might be different for a different system.
One you have the file downloaded, you can burn it to a CD.
Note: If you are using vmware, you can simply point to the iso if desired.
Once you startup the CD, you will need to choose the F3 option at the installation screen. Here you can choose to do an FTP or HTTP install depending on the mirror you choose. It is suggested that you choose a mirror close to you for optimum bandwidth.
Whether you choose the ftp or http installation option, you will basically be prompted to put in the server and the directory. For this example we will be using the Colorado ftp mirror found at ftp://mirror.colorado.edu/pub/suse/. If you drill down to the /i386/9.3 directory your URL would then look like this: ftp://mirror.colorado.edu/pub/suse/i386/9.3/. Now we can take this information and split it up into server and directory. The server would be mirror.colorado.edu and the directory would be /pub/suse/i386/9.3. This would be the same concept for an http installation if the mirror support an http URL. Now place this information in your installation information as shown in the screen shot below. Since we can access this anonymously, we don't need to fill out the last two fields.
That's it! You are now ready to install.