The problem right now is: the current SuSE release doesn't boot on the eeepc. It installs fine (with a few tricks), but then fails at initial boot, after going halfway through it. But if you want, I can write a tutorial on how to obtain a non-working install :-)

pindar

Why is ASUS asking not to delete the default?

Anyway : http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_on_the_EeePC

That link has got quite a lot of info.

OK, here is a tutorial on how to get a SuSE 11.0 system which does not boot.
Maybe it's useful in finding out what the problem is and finding a workaround.
This is my attempt at installing the official SuSE 11.0 release from a USB stick.
I used the same method to install 11.0 RC1, and it worked wonderfully, but
the final release has a problem. If there's any openSuSE developer reading
this, your help would be appreciated.

My goal was to install SuSE 11.0 to an SDHC card without touching the internal SSD.
Here is a short tutorial on how to install SuSE 11.0 on your eeepc. It
worked for me (sort of), but I can't guarantee that it'll work for you, and
there are still quite a few rough edges. So here comes:

1. Installation Media
Decide which media you want/need to use. If you have a USB CD-drive, skip
ahead to section 4. I used two USB-sticks. This makes installation a bit
more complicated, so follow the next steps if you want to go this route.

2. Prepare stick #1 for booting.
(This section is covered in depth at
http://en.opensuse.org/Installation_wit … from_Linux )

Download the boot.iso file from a SuSE mirror close to you. Format the
stick as FAT16. Don't forget to set the "bootable" flag. Make sure that the
partition you just created isn't mounted.

Create the directory /mnt/iso. Mount the boot.iso file you just downloaded
to this directory:

# mount -o loop /dev/sdX /mnt/iso
(with X being the letter corresponding to your stick)

Run the command

/mnt/iso/i386/mkbootdisk --32 --partition /dev/sdX1 /mnt/iso

This will install a minimal boot system to stick #1

3. Prepare stick #2

Stick #2 must have enough space to hold the dvd iso file; this means at
least 5GB (the iso is 4.7GB). Format the first partition of the stick as
ext2. Mount this partition. Copy the dvd iso file to the root of this
partition. Give it a short name that you will remember (you'll have to type
this name in during the installation process); let's say you call it
"dvd.iso".

4. Booting the installation system

Now power you eeepc off and boot it with both sticks in a USB slot. When
booting up, hold the "Esc" key. On the menu, choose to boot from stick #1
(if the name doesn't tell you which one it is, look at the size of the
different devices). If all goes well, a grub boot menu will appear. Choose
the "Installation" option. My eeepc would only boot with the "safe" kernel
settings (hit f5 and choose "Safe Settings).

The installation system will boot up but warn you that it couldn't find any
installation repository. It will dump you into a ncurses menu where you
have to choose your language and keyboard layout. Then, on the subsequent
screens, choose "Start Installation or System," "Start Installation or
Update," and "Hard Disk." The installer will let you choose a device
(partition) where the sources are. Choose stick #2 (again, look at the size
of the devices and the filesystem to get a clue which one it is). It will
then prompt you to type in the name of the source directory. Type in
"/dvd.iso" (the leading slash is important!). After this, you should be in
a normal SuSE installation system. Answer questions, choose software etc.


5. Partitioning

If you want to leave your SSD untouched, be sure to use your SSHD to
partition. During my install, this was /dev/sdc; I had /dev/sdc1 as swap
and /dev/sdc2 as /.


6. Boot loader

Again, I wanted to leave my SSD with its Xandros system completely
untouched, so I chose to install the boot loader to my root partition /dev/sdc2.


7. Finishing the installation

After finishing the installation, the installer will reboot your
eeepc. Since the bootloader has not been written to the MBR of your SSD, it
will boot into your Xandros system. We will have to modify a few things to
make our SuSE system bootable.

8. Chrooting

Xandros usually mounts your SDHC to /media/MMC-SD/partition2. Open up a
terminal with control-T. First, we mount the proc subsystem:

# mount -t proc /proc /media/MMC-SD/partition2/proc

Then, we mount the /dev system:

# mount --bind /dev /media/MMC-SD/partition2/dev

Now, we chroot into the new system:

chroot /media/MMC-SD/partition2 /bin/bash


9. Correcting grub entries

You're now in a system which considers your new SuSE install as its
root. First, we cd into /boot/grub. There, we have to edit two files:

device.map will contain references to all your sticks etc. It should have
just two lines:

(hd0)    /dev/sda
(hd1)    /dev/sdb

Edit the file and save.

Now edit menu.list. In it, carefully edit all references to (hd3,X) to
(hd0,X), X being some partition number (usually 0 or 1). Please be careful,
all references to (hd3) have to be changed or your system won't be able to
boot. Moreover, I always remove the "quiet" and the "splash" parameters
from the boot parameters so I can see if anything goes wrong. Again, save
and exit.

Now comes the most important thing: we have to install grub onto the MBR of
our SDHC. In order to do so, run the command
# grub

You will find yourself in a grub subshell. In order to be sure, run this
command in this shell:

find /boot/grub/stage1

This will give you two locations. In my case:

(hd0,0)
(hd1,1)

The Xandros system has its grub on the first partition of the first disk
(grub always counts from zero, so that's hd0,0). Our new SuSE system has a
swap partition as first partition of hd1, the second partition of hd1 is
our root partition. So we now run this command within the grub shell:

setup (hd1) (hd1,1)

The output of this command should tell you that grub has been successfully
installed into the MBR of hd1.


10. Reboot

Now quit grub by typing "quit." Exit the chroot environment by typing
"exit." Umount the proc and dev partitions. Poweroff your eeep and remove
all USB sticks. Boot and hold the Esc key. Choose to boot from your
card. You should be greeted by the SuSE grub menu. Choose to boot
SuSE. Your eeepc will get halfway into the SuSE boot and then stall several
times. Mine first stalled after "Setting up loopback interfaces"; after I
hit Ctrl-C, it continued booting. It stalled again after "Starting HAL
daemon" and continued after Ctrl-C; it then stalled definitely after
"Reading /etc/sysconfig and updating the system." I could switch to tty10
and see the error message:

sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE,SUGGEST_OK
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Sense Key : Hardware Error [current]
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 3138864
type=1505 audit(1214543124.419:11): operation="profile_load"
name="/usr/sbin/traceroute" name2="default" pid=1280
powernow: This module only works with AMD K7 CPUs

Small addition to the description above: it does, in fact, work correctly; SuSE 11 just appears to have trouble with certain cards; see here: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=32019 So if you're dedicated to SuSE, go ahead and install it...