This is my experience on installing openSUSE, the green chameleon operating system, Leap Edition version 15.2 to my computer. It is a family of GNU/Linux hence a distant sibling to Ubuntu with a distinct feature called YaST, the green tapir control panel, on top of its RPM software package basis. I installed it on a virtual machine in normal method as I used on Ubuntu. However, this can be used for actual installation to the real hardware directly including in dualboot mode. Thus, I share this with you by wishing it to be useful. Let's go!

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1. Download openSUSE
2. Create an openSUSE
3. Boot openSUSE
4. Start openSUSE installer
5. Create Partitions
6. Create Username Password and Begin Installation
7. Setup Timezone
8. Wait for the Process
9. Finished
10. Result

Below is the plan of hard disk partitions I would make with my openSUSE Leap computer. You can follow this to install openSUSE yourself.

1. Download openSUSE

I downloaded the Full Installer by 4GB under x86_64 (alias 64 bit PC) architecture.

2. Create an openSUSE

One can use Disks tool that is available on Ubuntu to create a USB flash drive bootable of openSUSE. Once created, this openSUSE USB is the installation medium required one can use to install openSUSE in any computer. Click here to learn how to burn the image file to USB yourself. However, for virtual machine (QEMU) installation as this experiment went, I did not need to make it.

3. Boot openSUSE

One should fire up the computer by booting into the USB so openSUSE Leap shows up on the screen and then select Installation among the selections. In my experiment, I just need to fire up my virtual machine with CDROM choice enabled so I show openSUSE Leap right on the screen. 

4. Start openSUSE installer

Once fired up, openSUSE Installer will appear on screen by showing the first page is License Agreement, the second page is System Role, the and third page is Partitioning. It is a Free Software license with mainly GNU General Public License so it is okay to accept.

- In the License Agreement, I let the keyboard & language as is and just click Next to accept the license.
- After that and before the next page, there was System Probing, so I selected NO for the online options. This made the installation went offline.
- In the System Role, I selected KDE Plasma selection.
- In the Suggested Partitioning, I selected Expert Partitioner > Existing Disk Space.
- After this, I went to Create Partitions section below.

5. Create Partitions

I created three hard disk partitions just as planned in the beginning here. First thing I did was creating partition table "GPT" as the hard disk drive is still a brand new empty one. Second thing I did was making the EFI partition. Third thing was making the SWAP partition. Fourth thing was making the ROOT partition. Here's the explanation.

- Making GPT partition table
I selected the hard disk > clicked Modify button > Create New Partition Table > select GPT from the selections > Next > hard disk has been formatted with GPT and ready to create partitions within. At this point, my hard disk was addressed as /dev/sda by 20GiB capacity.

- Making the EFI partition
I selected the free space available on the hard disk > Partitions > Create New Partition > I specified Custom Size 200 MB > Next > I selected EFI Boot Partition among other options > I made sure that the Formatting Options were Filesystem=FAT, Partition ID=EFI System Partition; and Mount Point=/boot/efi > Next > an EFI partition created. At this point, there were this EFI partition /dev/sda1 and the hard disk free space /dev/sda.

- Making the SWAP partition
Similar to EFI partition, I made the SWAP partition by Custom Size=1 GiB and selected Swap instead of EFI System Partition option. The rest was just the same.

- Making the ROOT Partition
Similar to either SWAP or EFI partition, making the ROOT was just by selecting Operating System option instead of SWAP or EFI option, letting the size as the rest of hard disk capacity (in this example, 18 GiB), selecting the Filesystem=EXT4, and selecting the Mount Point=/.

As a summary up to this point, there were three partitions created by four makings above:
- /dev/sda1 as EFI system partition by 200MB
- /dev/sda2 as SWAP partition by 1 GiB
- /dev/sda3 as ROOT partition by 18 GiB or the rest of disk space

 

Ending the partitioning, I clicked Next to go to the next section.

6. Setup Timezone

I selected Asia/Jakarta as my timezone as always. I clicked Next.

7. Create Username Password and Begin Installation

This is the final setup. I created my username and my password and I gave check marks to both 'Use this password for system administrator' and 'Automatic login' options. The last option left unchecked 'Skip User Creation' is beneficial and specially created for computer manufacturers so they can install openSUSE as OEM which the buyers could create their own username/password after buying the computer.  

8. Wait for the Process

I waited the installation progress for no less than 30 minutes. It was far longer than average Ubuntu installation time which is around 10-15 minutes at best.

9. Finished

Once finished, openSUSE would restart itself and finally I saw my openSUSE Leap computer I want. 

10. Result

Here's my Leap 15.2 computer!

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This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.