[tlug] SuSE 9.1 - 9.3 Upgrade Saga

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

Some observations in case it might be of interest to someone, *&* one 
request for help (at the bottom).


Background on the machine I'm referring to:

First install on squeaky-new hard drive - SuSE 9.0.
Upgraded to 9.1.
HDD moved to new hardware.
Upgrade to 9.3.


Comments on changes after upgrading to 9.3:

Fixed:

     DVD playback & recording - I used to have a problem with DVD's - 
I'd put them into the machine and it would run wild, opening one window 
after another, prompting frantic Alt+F4 pushing.  Also, the disk was 
sometimes difficult to get out of the machine - the disk drawer would 
come out and immediately be sucked back in, so you had a half-second to 
grab the disk when at full extension.  The result was I couldn't use DVD 
disks at all - not for reading, not for recording.  Strangely, I was 
able to make one DVD disk before the system went wacky.
     Now, I can access and record DVD disks with no problem, other than 
the initial access problem I had - now solved, except for the strange 
message I'm getting in German that forces me to choose one of two 
incomprehensible... settings?

     Japanese input.  I was never able to input Japanese characters with 
the machine, now that's no problem, other than that the default 
character code only produces gibberish, so each time I write Japanese 
for the first time after a reboot, I have to select a different input 
method.  Just the first time though, so it's not a big time burner.

Problems:

     Sporadic dead mouse on boot-up.  This is fixed by either bypassing 
the KVM switch and plugging a USB mouse directly into the computer, or 
doing a reboot.  Extremely irritating, but not too big of an issue as 
more often than not (recently), the mouse is there upon boot-up and I 
don't have to reboot the machine - although I had to this morning....

     The floppy isn't accessible via My Computer unless I start a new 
session as root, and then, after accessing it as root, it is also 
accessible via user.  Actually, now that I realize I can always access 
it via Konqueror, it doesn't really matter.  I've just abandoned My 
Computer as a way of accessing it.

     Loss of the keyboard while in Mozilla.  This is perplexing and very 
(very-very-very) irritating!  I've begun to realize that it seems to be 
happening when I try to save a message via Ctrl+S, so I'm drifting over 
to the slower drop-down menu to save messages, but I don't like this 
method - it's much slower than Ctrl+S.  This particular problem is the 
one thing I would really like to get sorted out, so if anyone has any 
info or tips, please... (please-please) send them.


Other than that, it's working well.  The above issues do scare me enough 
though, that I'm afraid to upgrade the wife's computer - "If it isn't 
broken, don't fix it" is ringing in my ears....

Lyle