OpenSuse 11.2 Black Screen

[angelo-opensuse]

angelo-opensuse wrote:
> Ubuntu gives no problems...

use the distribution which make you happy..

i do!

--
palladium

Palladium, my intent was just to attract some attention to this problem.

It is evident that I succeeded.

Sometimes it is enough to give just an hint, then people can figure out their way to solve the problem.
I am well aware that most of the community is driven by volunteers and that must be grateful to them.

I somehow did not like the idea: "if you are not happy go somewhere else" after like 9 years using SUSE...

[iahern]

Back to the problem of the Black Screen in openSUSE 11.2

As I have told before in this -now amazingly large- post, openSUSE 11.2 goes to a black screen in my computer, as it has been experienced by other users, particularly those playing with low-end ATI graphics cards. The Black screen is largely discomfortable because once init 5 fails, the whole computer becomes irresponsive, therefore trying to access a virtual terminal in order to gracefully turn off the computer is useless. We are forced to turn off by press holding the power off button, something that in the old days in Linux was a NO NO myth, and I doubt my ext4 journaling system finds it anything but grease-full.

Solutions has been suggested including installing with an acpi=off parameter, or removing the VGA boot option in the grub line. The latter does anything in my case. The former is impracticable due to the fact that if I try to install on acpi=off, then my hard drive is not detected and I can not install.

Using sax2 -r -m 0='xxx driver', I am able to run my pc on vesa --ugly enough. If I try ati or radeon, it works intermitently, but reaching a black screen sooner or later. Therefore, I tried to install the proprietary fglrx driver, from the ati webpage.

Now, I am going to relate my experience trying to install fglrx.

My laptop -acer aspire 5100- holds an integrated ATI radeon Xpress 1100, that is suppose to work like an Xpress 200. On Ati webpage, by looking drivers for the xpress 200, the newest driver it suggests is the catalyst 9.3. After download this driver, it can be verified that it is capable of generate distro specific rpm files up to "SUSE111", or OpenSuse 11.1. I did it and tried to install a SUSE111 in my SUSE11.2, which fails by building kernel modules. I also tried the sugested /usr/bin/fglrx-kernel.sh, which similarly fails. If I ignore those obvious red tags, and try to use the driver with
sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx, the errors in /var/log/Sax.log are that no kernel modules are found, which is consistent with the fact that the rpm SUSE111 was incapable of install on my SUSE 11.2 machine.

Fair enough, catalyst drivers are up to 9.12, and then a new 10.x versions. Anything below 9.10 will only generate up to SUSE111 versions, so I tried with both drivers 9.10 and 9.11. After creating rpm packages for SUSE112, and install them with rpm -Uvh packagename, no problems in the installation, and kernel modules are normally built. Nonetheless, if I try to use them with
sax2 -r -m 0=fglrx, then again errors appear, and looking to the /var/log/Sax.log, it reports that no adapter are found. Similar result with
aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf. Which I interpret as the fact that any driver above 9.3 will be useful with my Xpress 200 card.

In conclusion only drivers above 9.10 will install in openSUSE 11.2, and only drivers below 9.3 will use my card. Or in other words my laptop is probably incapable of openSUSE 11.2.

To make a bitter history a bit more acrid, the ati repository for openSUSE is not installing x11-* drivers, due to some error in the md5 sum.

I think we may need to work for a BLACK SCREEN FREE openSUSE 11.3 distro --regardless of the ati card toy.

[oldcpu]

Back to the problem of the Black Screen in openSUSE 11.2.

Sorry to read of your tribulations and difficult time here.

At the risk of my sounding like a broken record to you, ... did you try my recommendation in post#11 here: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - openSUSE Forums - post#11 and then after that is complete try the radeon or radeonhd drivers?

[iahern]

Sorry to read of your tribulations and difficult time here.

At the risk of my sounding like a broken record to you, ... did you try my recommendation in post#11 here: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - openSUSE Forums - post#11 and then after that is complete try the radeon or radeonhd drivers?

OldCPU, In fact I had not tried that suggestion in spite of having read it before. By your suggestion here, I followed the following steps:
1. Temporarily add the repository X11, you cited there
2. Using Yast2, Install with vendor change, mesa, driver-input and driver-input-radeon
3. Reboot (runlevel 3)
4. sax2 -r -m 0=radeonhd. Errors in /var/log/SaX.log indicated that no adapters are found. so I tried
5. sax2 -r -m 0=radeon. It worked nice. Similar to the option 0=vesa, it gives a blue page where the new configuration was to be accepted.
6. su -c 'init 5'. It worked. NICE!. I then reboot in init 5 - by changing grup parameter options with a 5, and I got my openSUSE 11.2 being capable of starting on runlevel 5 for the first time!.

By now, using the X11 repository radeon driver, openSUSE is working all right using an ATI radeon Xpress 1100 card, which is a good accomplishment. Radeon Driver is a lot better than VESA, and it has glx use. glxgears are giving me an average of 450 FPS. I thank you, OldCPU for your suggestion and your insistence. In case a new black end reach me, I will let you and other users know

I wonder whether this radeon driver might be default in openSUSE 11.3?

-I

[oldcpu]

6. su -c 'init 5'. It worked. NICE!. I then reboot in init 5 - by changing grup parameter options with a 5, and I got my openSUSE 11.2 being capable of starting on runlevel 5 for the first time!.

By now, using the X11 repository radeon driver, openSUSE is working all right using an ATI radeon Xpress 1100 card, which is a good accomplishment. Radeon Driver is a lot better than VESA, and it has glx use. glxgears are giving me an average of 450 FPS .....

Congratulations !

Well done in your determination to see this through, and I'm sorry to read it was so difficult.

Unfortunately openSUSE-11.2 did not work very well (as packaged) for many ATI graphic hardware users.

I wonder whether this radeon driver might be default in openSUSE 11.3?

I hope so. I'm just a user like you, so I have no insight in this.

Having typed that, I do have 11.3 milestone2 (with the LXDE desktop) installed for testing. And I note it (milestone2) has

• Mesa-7.7-6.2 (instead of 7.7-15.1 on xorg repos ) - close to the same
• xorg-x11-driver-input-7.4.45-3 (instead of 7.4-108.7 on xorg repos) - close to the same
• xorg-x11-driver-video-7.4.96.3 (instead of 7.4.249.2 on the xorg repos) - close to the same. this is also the rpm with the 'radeon' driver that worked for you
• xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd-1..0_20091124.6387ab4 (xorg has mostly the same rpm version)

So I think the answer is yes, 11.3 likely will have this.

Note that x11 / xorg repos is very cutting edge. I recommend you disable it and keep it disabled. Maybe even download the rpms that worked and keep them in a separate 'backup' directory, in case you want to use them again. Because that x11 / xorg repos is so cutting edge, there is a risk they could break something in the driver and if your timing is bad you could need to access them again for an 11.2 re-install just at the worst possible moment.

Good luck and best wishes with your openSUSE Linux experience.

[artemeas]

I had the same issue on my notebook with a Mobile Intel PM965 mainboard, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7300 @ 2.00GHz and nVidia GeForce 8600M GS.

The only way I could install openSUSE 11.2 was to "Check the Media Source" cuz it starts from a console and not from X Server...
after dvd was checked (ca. 5-10 mins) installer started successfully.

Then I got problems starting installed OS:
after Grub2 screen went black.

Power off -> Power on -> Grub -> Enter -> if ($_BLACKSCREEN) { power-off; } else { }...

sometimes it was possible to load OS without blackscreen... but only on 15-30 power off )

then I used "3" on Grub logged in as a regular user then "su", and edited /etc/sysconfig/boot with vi
I set RUN_PARALLEL "no" instead off "yes"
:wq

reboot

and it starts ALWAYS without a blackscreen.

ps. I use the latest proprietary driver ( 195.36.15 (x86_64) ) and sax2 -r -m 0=nvidia
pps. thanks to someone who wrote about RUN_PARALLEL to "no" in this thread.
ppps. that was THE ONLY working solution for me.

[artemeas]

please delete my previous post

what i described there wasn't solving the issue... it was just luck that i had no black screen 5 times in a row :-D

the problem is caused by buggy fb (framebuffer), you can solve it by upgrading the kernel to the latest version OR by adding to kernel boot options ( /boot/grub/menu.lst ) video=vesafb:mtrr:3,ywrap vga=792
or something like that: video=uvesafb:ywrap,mtrr:3,1440x900-32@60

p.s. i guess in my case the buggy fb driver is nvidiafb because i have a geforce 8600 and not ati... but the problem is the same as all the others in this thread have.

[da_halbi]

i have the same result. after bootmenue (start with bootoption 3), i get a blackscreen. the system seems to init but after HAL daemon there is just a blackscreen were i can enter nothing. isn't there a solution?