Hi,
I use OpenSuse 11.1. My graphic card is an intel Q43/Q45 chip. I was instructed to update my xorg and mesa packages in order to make on application work (it was crashing my x server).
After I did so, x wouldn’t start:
intel(0): No kernel modesetting driver detected
Screen(s) found, but none having a usable configuration
Now I am stuck with vesa if I want to have x running at all. I tried reverting to the versions of mesa and xorg I had before, when everything worked, but to no avail.
What can I do?
(please note that I am by no means an expert and that I don’t know linux very well, and even less openSuse… just has to use it at work…)
Thanks a lot
I use OpenSuse 11.1. My graphic card is an intel Q43/Q45 chip. I was instructed to update my xorg and mesa packages in order to make on application work (it was crashing my x server).
After I did so, x wouldn’t start:
Can you tell us what you did to upgrade the xorg packages?
Can you boot in failsafe mode? (This should get you a desktop using basic vesa driver)
In particular, it might be useful to see what repos you have enabled. Use this command to generate that output
zypper lr -d
The following command will show what xorg packages are installed
rpm -qa|grep xorg-x11
Thanks for your reply.
To update those packages I selected the one-click update (on the opensuse software site), as far as I understand (but maybe I’m wrong…) this added a repository which allowed me to select a higher version number for the xorg packages in Yast.
I modified my xorg.conf and added the line
Driver “vesa” in order to start x in vesa mode. This works.
Here is the list of repositories
e?1034h# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority | Type | URI | Service
---+-------------------------+-------------------------+---------+---------+----------+--------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------
1 | KDE:KDE4:STABLE:Desktop | KDE:KDE4:STABLE:Desktop | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | [Index of /repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/STABLE:/Desktop/openSUSE_11.1](http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/STABLE:/Desktop/openSUSE_11.1/) |
2 | X11:XOrg | X11:XOrg | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | [Index of /repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2](http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2/) |
3 | X11:XOrg:sle11sp1 | X11:XOrg:sle11sp1 | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | [Index of /repositories/X11:/XOrg:/sle11sp1/openSUSE_11.1](http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg:/sle11sp1/openSUSE_11.1/) |
4 | devel:tools:building | devel:tools:building | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | [Index of /repositories/devel:/tools:/building/openSUSE_11.1](http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/tools:/building/openSUSE_11.1/) |
5 | google-chrome | google-chrome | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/i386 |
6 | openSUSE 11.1-0 | openSUSE 11.1-0 | No | No | 99 | yast2 | cd:///?devices=/dev/sr0 |
7 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.1-Debug | No | Yes | 100 | NONE | [Index of /debug/distribution/11.1/repo/oss](http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/) |
8 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | 100 | yast2 | [Index of /distribution/11.1/repo/non-oss](http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/non-oss/) |
9 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.1-Oss | Yes | Yes | 100 | yast2 | [Index of /distribution/11.1/repo/oss](http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/) |
10 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.1-Source | Yes | Yes | 100 | yast2 | [Index of /source/distribution/11.1/repo/oss](http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/) |
11 | repo-update | openSUSE-11.1-Update | Yes | Yes | 20 | rpm-md | [Index of /update/11.1](http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.1/) |
and here the list of the installed x11 packages:
xorg-x11-libXpm-devel-7.4-1.27
xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd-1.2.4_121202_4e89726-2.1.1
xorg-x11-fonts-core-7.4-1.32
xorg-x11-libXpm-7.4-1.27
xorg-x11-libXdmcp-devel-7.4-1.23
xorg-x11-libICE-devel-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-libXext-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libXext-devel-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libXdmcp-7.4-1.23
xorg-x11-libSM-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-driver-video-unichrome-20080807-12.44
xorg-x11-libxkbfile-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libSM-devel-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-libXfixes-devel-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-libXprintUtil-devel-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-xauth-7.4-8.13
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.4-19.8.2
xorg-x11-libXrender-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-util-devel-7.4-1.22
xorg-x11-devel-7.4-8.1
xorg-x11-proto-devel-7.4-1.27
xorg-x11-server-extra-7.4-17.3
xorg-x11-libXt-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-fonts-7.4-1.32
xorg-x11-libXt-devel-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-libXp-devel-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-driver-input-7.4-11.6.1
xorg-x11-Xvnc-7.4-17.3
xorg-x11-7.4-8.20.1
xorg-x11-libXau-7.4-1.23
xorg-x11-libXp-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libXv-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libX11-devel-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libXrender-devel-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-libXmu-devel-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-libxcb-devel-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-libfontenc-7.4-1.23
xorg-x11-libXmu-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-libXau-devel-7.4-1.23
xorg-x11-libXv-devel-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libxcb-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-server-7.4-17.3
xorg-x11-libX11-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-libXprintUtil-7.4-1.26
xorg-x11-fonts-devel-7.4-1.23
xorg-x11-libxkbfile-devel-7.4-1.25
xorg-x11-xtrans-devel-7.4-4.12
xorg-x11-libX11-ccache-7.4-1.36
xorg-x11-libICE-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-libXfixes-7.4-1.24
xorg-x11-libfontenc-devel-7.4-1.23
xorg-x11-libs-7.4-8.1
Thanks again for your help!!
cheers
Ok, first up repo 2 is for openSUSE 11.2!
2 | X11:XOrg | X11:XOrg | Yes | Yes | 99 | rpm-md | Index of /repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2 |
Remove that with
zypper rr 2
Not sure about how to proceed after that, but maybe try
zypper ve
to check for dependencies and version conflicts, and see what it suggests. Others may have better knowledge here…and there may be more to sort out in order to get a stable X-server again.
Done, thanks!
Should I now attempt to reinstall xorg?
Read my last post again, just in case you missed an edit 
See how that goes to start with.
Oops, sorry, missed your edit!
OK, zypper ve is happy:
Dependencies of all installed packages are satisfied
I tried the instructions there:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting
to disable KMS, but when KMS is disabled and I comment out
Driver “vesa”
in xorg.conf, at some point in the boot process the screen goes into power saving mode and no way to get a picture…
So I’m back into vesa…
Maybe I can update the intel drivers? But I don’t know where to find them and how to do that…
thanks again
Trouble. Experiments like this can seriously bork your system, with corrupted links etc. I know ;).
First: AFAIK kernel mode setting is only supported from kernel 2.6.33
Second: AFAIK the Intel drivers are in the Xorg/Mesa packages.
Third: pulling in the 11.2 packages may have made things much worse.
Up to you to decide: take a (long) tour to get things back to work again, wait a bit for 11.3 where the chances to get this working will be much higher (newer kernel, newer Xorg), or reinstall, investigate if things can work, then do what has to be done. IMHO the last option will take less time.
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately, I don’t have many options, reinstalling and upgrading to 11.3 are not possible as this is a work machine (even though it works only with vesa now, I still need to use it every day, it has plenty of specialised on it I would have to track down and reinstall etc.), so it’s not an option (and we don’t really have tech support here 
)…
I would like to get things back to normal again, but the problem is that I don’t know how - I don’t even know what went wrong in the first place, maybe the 11.2 packages, but now I reverted to the older, 11.1 versions (at least I think…), so it means somewhere something is still broken, but have no idea where to search
This is a hard one. Did you try sax2 again after rolling back the Xorg packages?
Found something from my past ‘experiences’. Please post output of:
32bit
ls -l /usr/lib/libXi*
64bit
ls -l /usr/lib64/libXi*
I did re-try sax2 but it wouldn’t work (it wouldn’t start the x-server).
I’m experimenting here since I don’t know this OS well, but I tried replacing
Driver “vesa”
with
Driver “intel”
in my xorg.conf. This resulted in a crash when the driver was loaded! No “Driver” line results in the modesetting problems, and specifying vesa gets me into the vesa mode alright.
Here is what is in /usr/lib/libXi*:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1655176 2008-12-09 21:09 /usr/lib/libXi.a
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 884 2008-12-09 21:09 /usr/lib/libXi.la
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 55214 2008-12-09 21:09 /usr/lib/libXinerama.a
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 907 2008-12-09 21:09 /usr/lib/libXinerama.la
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2010-02-11 13:21 /usr/lib/libXinerama.so -> libXinerama.so.1.0.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 2010-05-03 17:13 /usr/lib/libXinerama.so.1 -> libXinerama.so.1.0.0
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9816 2008-12-09 21:09 /usr/lib/libXinerama.so.1.0.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 2010-02-11 13:21 /usr/lib/libXi.so -> libXi.so.6.0.0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 2010-05-03 17:13 /usr/lib/libXi.so.6 -> libXi.so.6.0.0
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 34420 2008-12-09 21:09 /usr/lib/libXi.so.6.0.0
Thanks once again
The output does not have the wrong symlink I had. Looks OK.
How did you start sax2 ? Best would be to start the system in runlevel 3 (done by putting ‘init 3’ at the options line at boot), login, do ‘su -’ and start ‘sax2 -r’. If the “-r” is missing, sax2 will try to use the xorg.conf which is not working.
Yes, I had just started sax without the -r, so as you say it didn’t work.
I tried exactly what you suggested, but got a crash - here below is the sax log. It very much looks like what I get when I replace “vesa” with “intel” on the driver line…
Once again, all my thanks for your help!
Link to SaX log (too big to be enbedded in this message):
http://cjoint.com/?feqKzFhjCB
zypper se -si |grep System
Here is the output:
i | akregator | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | google-chrome-beta | package | 5.0.307.11-39572 | i386 | (System Packages)
i | kaddressbook | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kde4-kgreeter-plugins | package | 4.3.5-21.1 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kdebase4 | package | 4.3.5-3.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kdebase4-nsplugin | package | 4.3.5-3.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kdebase4-workspace | package | 4.3.5-21.1 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kdebase4-workspace-ksysguardd | package | 4.3.5-21.1 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kdepim4 | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kdm | package | 4.3.5-21.1 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kdm-branding-upstream | package | 4.3.5-21.1 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kget | package | 4.3.5-3.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kmail | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | knotes | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kontact | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | kopete | package | 4.3.5-3.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | korganizer | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | libkdepim4 | package | 4.3.5-4.33 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | libkexiv2-7 | package | 4.3.5-4.28 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | marble | package | 4.3.5-4.11 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | openSUSE-release-dvd | package | 11.1-1.19 | i586 | (System Packages)
i | xkeyboard-config | package | 1.5-6.2 | noarch | (System Packages)
I’m thinking I might try again to update the mesa package now that I’ve cleared up the 11.2 repository… maybe it’ll avoid the crash if I get newer intel drivers? What do you think?
I think I understand the problem…
I believe that those new intel drivers I installed require KMS, and AFAIK I need to enable it inside the kernel (so need to re-compile it).
Notwithstanding the fact I don’t know how to compile a kernel and fiddle with such options, I can’t really do that with a work machine (it’s at least still usable in VESA mode…).
I believe it means, however, that for some reason, when I rolled back to the older packages, the drivers were NOT rolled back to the older version which didn’t require KMS…
Can it be? And does my guess make sense?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again.
EDIT - from the gentoo wiki:
Kernel Modesetting
Warning: Make sure you disable framebuffer drivers in Device Drivers ---> Graphics support ---> Support for frame buffer devices, like intelfb, vesafb or uvesafb. KMS won't work with them and you'll end up with a black console screen or possibly other graphical artifacts.
You will need >=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.29, >=x11-base/xorg-server-1.6 and >=x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.6.1 for Kernel Mode Settings to work. Recommended software versions: >=kernel-2.6.31, >=x11-base/xorg-server-1.6 and >=x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel-2.8.0. Better yet to use versions listed in the latest Intel graphics package (2009Q3).
Note: Due to a bug in the kernel you'll need to disable PAE(CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G). This is fixed in >=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.31-r1.
In addition to Intel 440LX/BX/GX, I8xx and E7x05 chipset support and i915 driver, you should enable Enable modesetting on intel by default.
....
....
Note: Although it is possible to compile these drivers as modules, it is strongly advised to hard-compile them into the kernel. It will enable booting in high resolution and -- possibly -- improve stability.
My kernel is 2.6.27.25-0.1-pae, less than the recommended 2.6.31… still any way to make it work?