I’m curious if anyone has done a full Leap install w/DE (Plasma for instance) and then install Rockstor. I used the SUSE/SLES install directions and setup a VM with Leap 15.6 and it seems to be working. I finally have all the parts I need so will start building the machine this weekend and am wanting to go this route but I’m not sure if that’s setting myself up for failure.
I did try to do the Rockstor Leap (and Tumbleweed) installs and then install the opensuse Plasma patterns but never could get it working. I don’t know why, but I do want Plasma and the ability to log-in as a last resort if possible.
Anyone have experience with this? Is it asking for trouble?
I have only done the “install Rockstor on a vanilla LEAP” variation, installing KDE Plasma desktop, and then installing the Rockstor rpm on top of it. That has worked fine (though not using it on my “prod” environment). But have not tried the other way around, figuring that would take more effort/risk than it’s worth.
I am thinking of doing what you did. I really like being able to get at my machine through a monitor and I understand that’s “frowned upon” and I’m not being a good Linux sysadmin. Really what I want from Rockstor is the ability to easily create and manage a btrfs RAID volume. All of the other things I want to do I’m comfortable doing on plain Tumbleweed (containers, VM’s, and Plasma). But my RAID experience is limited to my Synology NAS and I’ll confess to a bit of fear. I’m sure I can get it setup (after all - the drives are blank and I can redo it a dozen times if needed without data loss, ha!). Where I’m worried is when something goes wrong is my ability to diagnose and fix it from the command line. I know YAST can setup a raid volume, I may try that and see how it goes. I do prefer Tumbleweed and I understand that’s generally not considered stable but I’ve had a great experience with it and the openSUSE team is just awesome.
Anyway, we will see, I finally got everything in and got MB installed in the case. I went with the Threadripper Pro for all the PCIe lanes. Last PC I built was a Pentium 4, this took me the better part of the day as I had a lot to figure out. I haven’t fired it up yet tho I’m ready to now, just tired. I hope in the coming week to have a bit of time to do that. I may put Tumbleweed on and play with the YAST RAID setup just to see how it works (I can’t really play without the drives).
How long have you had this Leap system up and running? Is it pretty solid? Do regular Leap updates break Rockstor or vice-versa?
Probably for a year now. No LEAP update has broken that installation (from what I could tell). During that time there were also a few Rockstor updates from the testing channel, but they also did not cause any issues (with LEAP).
I’m not sure that with YAST you’d be able to fix certain issues on btrfs and will still need the command line. My experience in the last few years has been that btrfs itself is stable enough that I did not have to fix things really, but I also was lucky that my hardware has not given me any grief really (aside from two drive starting to fail now), so there is that. I don’t consider myself a Linux fiend, but with the help of this forum and Dr. Google I’ve been able to manage quite a few things via the command line. But for me this project is also the learning opportunity and not entirely the “set it and forget it”, so there is that.
That’s good to hear. I don’t suspect that I’ll have problems with btrfs as I do find it stable (my Synology uses it with snapshots and I’ve had that 5-years). I’m more or less I’m concerned that if I have a hardware failure during that critical time of replacing a drive my lack of understanding of the “nuts and bolts” will cause me to make mistakes and lose data. I understand the CLI is my friend, and since I switched my daily driver from Windows 11 to Tumbleweed (> 1 year now) I have made it a daily part of my routine. But, I’m not a guru, and with a GUI even if you don’t know the command “it’s just right there” for even a dolt like me to find. That’s really the main thing, I am not afraid of the CLI, but I don’t know what I don’t know. At least with the front end of Rockstor web interface I’ll have buttons to click and “Get me there”
You’ve settled it for me. I’m going to go Leap with Plasma and do the manual install and “hope for the best”. I suppose even if I break Rockstor I can then use your friend Dr. Google to figure out the CLI way to get myself out of a jam.