Part I Manual Deployment

There are several different ways to deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Choose from various approaches ranging from a local installation using physical media or a network installation server to a mass deployment using a remote-controlled, highly-customized, and automated installation technique. Se…

Install your SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop system with YaST, the central tool for installation and configuration of your system. YaST guides you through the installation process of your system. If you are a first-time user of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, you might want to follow the default YaST proposals in most parts, but you can also adjust the settings as described here to fine-tune your system according to your preferences. Help for each installation step is provided by clicking Help.

During the installation process, YaST analyzes both your current system settings and your hardware components. Based on this analysis your system will be set up with a basic configuration including networking (provided the system could be configured using DHCP). To fine-tune the system after the installation has finished, start YaST from the installed system.

SUSE® Linux Enterprise (SLE) allows to update an existing system to the new version, for example, going from SLE 11 SP3 to SLE 12. No new installation is needed. Existing data, such as home and data directories and system configuration, is kept intact. You can update from a local CD or DVD drive or from a central network installation source.

If you are familiar with SUSE Linux Enterprise updates, upgrades and service packs in general, you can check the terminology section for news and then dive right into the update overview section. This shows the available update possibilities and guides you in planning the overall update, and the subsequent sections: step-by-step update instructions to the current release, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12.

The rest of the chapter gives background information on the SUSE product lifecycles and Service Pack releases, recommended upgrade policies, how SUSE Linux Enterprise software is current despite non-current version numbers ("backports"), and further material referenced by the step-by-step update instructions.

YaST allows you to configure hardware items such as audio hardware, your system keyboard layout or printers.

Use YaST's software management module to search for software components you want to add or remove. YaST resolves all dependencies for you. To install packages not shipped with the installation media, add additional software repositories to your setup and let YaST manage them. Keep your system up-to-date by managing software updates with the update applet.

Add-on products are system extensions. They can either be free extensions based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (such as SUSE Software Development Kit (SDK) 12), or additional products requiring a registration key that is liable to costs (such as the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension). Extensions and add-ons can be available on physical media or as repositories only that are available for you after registering your system at SUSE Customer Center or a local registration server.

Some add-on products are also provided by third parties, for example, binary-only drivers that are needed by certain hardware to function properly. If you have such hardware, refer to the release notes for more information about availability of binary drivers for your system. The release notes are available from http://www.suse.com/releasenotes/, from YaST or from /usr/share/doc/release-notes/ in your installed system.

A list of available add-on products and extensions for your product is available after having registered your system at SUSE Customer Center or a local registration server. If you skipped the registration step during the installation, you can register your system at any time using the SUSE Customer Center Configuration module in YaST. For details, refer to Section 7.2, “Registering Your System”.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop supports the parallel installation of multiple kernel versions. When installing a second kernel, a boot entry and an initrd are automatically created, so no further manual configuration is needed. When rebooting the machine, the newly added kernel is available as an additional boot option.

Using this functionality, you can safely test kernel updates while being able to always fall back to the proven former kernel. To do so, do not use the update tools (such as the YaST Online Update or the updater applet), but instead follow the process described in this chapter.

During installation, you were able to create a local user for your system. With the YaST module User and Group Management you can add more users or edit existing ones. It also let's you configure your system to authenticate users with a network server.

Working in different countries or having to work in a multilingual environment requires your computer to be set up to support this. SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop can handle different locales in parallel. A locale is a set of parameters that defines the language and country settings reflected in the…

SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop can be installed in different ways. As well as the usual media installation covered in Chapter 3, Installation with YaST, you can choose from various network-based approaches or even take a completely hands-off approach to the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desk…

Sophisticated system configurations require specific disk setups. All common partitioning tasks can be done with YaST. To get persistent device naming with block devices, use the block devices below /dev/disk/by-id or /dev/disk/by-uuid. Logical Volume Management (LVM) is a disk partitioning scheme t…

Any machine running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 can be configured to register against local Subscription Management Tool server to download software updates instead of communicating directly with the SUSE Customer Center. To use an SMT server for client regist…