[tlug] Fun with NEC laptop....

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

I've set up about six computers with SuSE 9.1 Professional now, and - up 
until yesterday - they always automatically found their way onto the 
Internet via ADSL (at three separate locations on my and friends' 
computers).  I previously mentioned how I put SuSE into the NEC laptop, 
which was done as a dual boot, but since since the Windows side refused 
to even boot up.  No problem on the Linux side,  but I decided to 
eradicate the non-functioning W stuff to free up disk space and I went 
through the following steps:

1) Attempted new install of SuSE 9.1 - but even after manually deleting 
the W partitions, it wasn't allowing me to enlarge the Linux partitions 
to make full use of the 20GB hard drive, so I....

2) Used RedHat-9 to obliterate all partitions on the hard drive, which 
it did, so I....

3) Installed SuSE 9.1 Professional, which then had full use of the 20GB 
hard drive, so I selected a bunch of things to install... in fact a bit 
too much stuff, as there were then some incompatibilities that came up.  
Also, during the install, an error message came up a few times stating 
that it couldn't find a piece here and there on the disk (store-bought 
9.1 Professional - never had this problem from the very same disks 
before).  After the install finished (which took about six hours, by the 
way)....

4) The computer booted up fine, but would not go on the Internet.  
Visions of those error messages replayed in front of my eyes and I....

5) Used RedHat-9 to obliterate all partitions on the hard drive, which 
it did, so I....

6) Reinstalled SuSE 9.1 Professional with mainly the standard install, 
only adding a handful of extras, like Mozilla and Firefox, etc.  This 
time, the install was a little bit quicker (still taking about three and 
a half hours though), and there were no error messages, but....

7) After booting up the computer again, I find the same story - it will 
not connect to the Internet, not via Foxfox, not via Konqueror(sp?) and 
the update doesn't function.  A possibly important point:

8) During both installs, a screen never came up asking me if I wanted to 
test the Internet connection - this screen has always come up before - 
with the same disks, doing the same install, and even on the very same 
computer!  A horrible question comes to mind:

9) Does SuSE have some sort of thing where each set of boxed disks is 
uniquely identifiable and "calls home" to SuSE, which deactivates 
automatic Internet connection functions if the same set of CDs is used 
too often?  I hate to even ask that paranoid-sounding question, but when 
the very same disks, on the very same computer, and installed in the 
same way (save for the dual boot function with W) suddenly changes 
behavior, I search for some reason.  I also remember a company I worked 
at that bought one boxed FileMaker, put it on several computers and then 
stupidly ran around like headless chickens asking who had it open when 
someone tried to use it and received an error saying it was on too many 
computers.  I told the idiot in charge of IT that it was detecting 
computers with it installed that were powered up on the company network 
- and not counting who had the program open at the time.  He never 
believed me, but I was able to help some of the poor users use it via 
Sygate - by setting it to "block all" before booting up FileMaker.

10) Just to make sure that there wasn't some kind of hardware failure, I 
popped in a Knoppix disk (ver. 3.2j) and it worked fine (awfully slow, 
but fine nevertheless - that computer only has 128MB...)

11) Sorry for the length - I tried some searches on Google for how to 
set up SuSE on the Internet and got back a bunch of unrelated junk.  
What do I have to do to manually set it up?  Or more accurately, where 
do I get this information, as it must be out there on the wires.....

.... help......

Lyle